RFK Jr. Invokes PREP Act for Hantavirus, Grants Legal Immunity to Foreign Drug Maker for Experimental Pill Linked to Birth Defects and Liver Damage
But favipiravir is only conditionally approved in Japan for influenza, not hantavirus.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has invoked the controversial PREP Act to shield FUJIFILM Toyama Chemical from legal liability for favipiravir (Avigan), an antiviral drug that is not approved for hantavirus treatment in any country and has never received FDA approval in the United States.
The declaration, signed May 22, 2026, provides broad liability protection to the Japanese manufacturer, distributors, and healthcare providers using the drug on people said to have been exposed during the MV Hondius cruise ship outbreak and their close contacts.
This PREP Act declaration, in effect through July 18, 2026, limits lawsuits for injuries or deaths caused by the drug.
The move raises major health freedom concerns involving informed consent, bodily autonomy, pharmaceutical liability shielding, experimental countermeasure deployment during a publicized outbreak event, and the use of emergency powers to protect manufacturers and administrators from accountability if Americans are injured or killed by the drug.
You can contact HHS here to voice opposition to the use of emergency powers to shield experimental hantavirus countermeasures and pharmaceutical manufacturers from legal liability.
Secretary Kennedy wrote in an X post on Friday:
“Today, I signed a targeted PREP Act declaration to support the development and deployment of medical countermeasures related to Andes virus, which can cause the deadly respiratory illness Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome.”
“This action helps remove barriers to research and response efforts while we continue monitoring the recent outbreak linked to the South Atlantic cruise ship. HHS is taking this situation seriously and will continue working to protect public health and support the safe development of potential treatments and countermeasures.”
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The Drug Isn’t Approved in Japan for Hantavirus
Favipiravir is only conditionally approved in Japan for influenza, not hantavirus.
Its use against Andes hantavirus is entirely experimental, relying on very limited animal data rather than human clinical trials proving safety or efficacy for this virus.
In other words, Kennedy has now invoked federal liability protections for a drug that is not approved anywhere in the world for hantavirus treatment and was only conditionally authorized in Japan for pandemic influenza—yet is now being positioned for use on Americans.
Favipiravir Health Concerns
According to the official Japanese regulatory documents from the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA), preclinical animal studies have shown that favipiravir has the risk of teratogenicity and reproductive toxicity in experimental animals, including findings indicative of birth defects in mice, rats, rabbits, and monkeys, along with decreases in live fetal body weight and in the number of live fetuses.
The official Japanese product label for favipiravir warns that the drug can cause serious hepatic dysfunction and jaundice, including clinically significant elevations in liver enzymes (AST/GOT, ALT/GPT, γ-GTP), which may progress to life-threatening liver injury.
U.S. Government-Funded Hantavirus Aerosolization, Military Biolab Genome Construction, & Pandemic Countermeasure Programs Were Already Operational Before the 2026 Andes Outbreak Emerged
The U.S. government has been funding gain-of-function hantavirus experiments since at least 2017.
A July 2025 Pathogens publication confirms the U.S. military funded experiments aerosolizing hantavirus pathogens (making them airborne) with a 30% fatality rate.
Less than a year after the publication, the Andes hantavirus cruise ship outbreak would be declared.
Moreover, NIAID’s $70 million PROVIDENT program actively funded and operated a large-scale hantavirus preparedness initiative that engineered vaccine platforms, mapped Andes hantavirus structures in unprecedented detail, developed rapid-response countermeasure systems, and prioritized hantaviruses as future pandemic targets in the run-up to the 2026 international Andes hantavirus outbreak.
The Andes hantavirus genome was built from human blood at the infamous U.S. military biolab Fort Detrick.
Recent genetic analysis finds that hantavirus PCR test sequences—used to count cases—also match human DNA, raising concerns that the test is mistaking human genetic material for hantavirus.
The government’s hantavirus research, surveillance, genome-construction, and countermeasure infrastructure was already fully operational before the 2026 outbreak narrative emerged.
Bottom Line
After years of U.S. government-funded hantavirus gain-of-function research, aerosolization experiments, military-linked genome reconstruction programs, rapid-response countermeasure buildouts, and PCR systems that critics argue may be detecting human genetic material itself, the federal government is once again invoking emergency powers to shield pharmaceutical manufacturers from liability while deploying experimental countermeasures during a heavily publicized outbreak event.
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JUST SAY NO!! Enough already!
What the hell - are you kidding. This is part of the corrupted deep/shadow gov't pulling the strings again. The PREP Act needs to be repealed - ALL vaccines are toxic, God help us all.