U.S. government-funded labs are actively breeding colonies of exotic Hyalomma ticks imported from Africa to study Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), a brutal tick-borne virus with a 30% mortality rate that’s never been detected in America.
This high-stakes research, aimed at developing mRNA vaccines and analyzing transmission in livestock, is raising red flags among experts who warn of catastrophic lab leaks that could unleash the disease on U.S. soil, devastating agriculture and public health.
The program involves multiple facilities, including the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service in Manhattan, Kansas (tied to the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, formerly on Plum Island), UC Davis in California, and Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas, according to research from the White Coat Waste project, first reported by The Highwire.
These sites are establishing tick colonies to experiment on CCHF transmission in cattle, sheep, and goats, assessing risks for the virus establishing itself here based on climate and ecology.
“The White Coat Waste Project uncovered 10 existing USDA contracts to work on mRNA vaccines, including one that is studying Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), a highly pathogenic tick-borne disease with a 10-40% case fatality rate,” The Highwire reports. “The research grant is given to the Agricultural Research Service in Manhattan, Kansas, in combination with researchers at the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF), which was formerly on Plum Island, where researchers were studying Lyme disease near Lyme, Connecticut, where the first outbreak occurred.”
CCHF, first identified in Crimea in 1944, causes severe symptoms and can spread from ticks to animals or humans, and even person-to-person.
There’s no widely licensed vaccine, only a dubious Soviet-era one from 1970.
Funding flows from USDA contracts for mRNA vaccine development, including 10 ongoing deals specifically targeting CCHF.
EcoHealth Alliance, infamous for its role in COVID origins research, snagged a $3.7 million Department of Defense grant from 2020-2024 to study CCHF as part of “combating weapons of mass destruction.”
The Highwire notes, “WCWP was the organization that first uncovered that EcoHealth Alliance was involved in gain-of-function research with coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, approved by NIAID head Dr. Anthony Fauci, which the FBI and CIA both state is the most likely source of the COVID-19 virus that sparked a worldwide pandemic. WCWP celebrated the announcement that the CDC will be closing all monkey studies by the end of the year.”
Another USDA contract, running through March 2026, supports the core research.
Critics are blasting this as reckless madness.
Kris Newby, a Stanford science writer and producer of the Lyme disease documentary “Under Our Skin,” slammed the importation of infected ticks to livestock hubs, telling The Highwire, “It seems as if many infected ticks are being shipped to Texas Tech, Kansas, and UC Davis, needlessly putting these centers for livestock at risk for a horrible disease that is not a threat at this time.”
She highlighted past lab accidents, like tick bites causing severe illness and unintended disease transmissions, noting ticks are “super hard to control—especially if you have an influx of new people who aren’t experienced with them.”
Justin Goodman, Senior Vice President for Advocacy and Public Policy at the White Coat Waste Project (WCWP), called it a “recipe for disaster,” telling the outlet, “Recklessly importing deadly exotic diseases like African swine flu and other hemorrhagic fevers to the U.S.—where they have never been found—for dangerous animal experiments that can leak and cause outbreaks in animals and people is a recipe for disaster.”
This tick program ties into broader concerns over mRNA tech in food.
Nicole Shanahan: “We are now on the precipice of being forced to inject our cattle with the mRNA vaccine. So just like we talk about medical freedom for humans and the desire to not have mandates telling us what we have to put in our bodies, food freedom is an extension of that.… pic.twitter.com/VG1qBLTAEC
— Camus (@newstart_2024) November 13, 2025
Nicole Shanahan, RFK Jr.’s former running mate and host of the “Back to the People” podcast, warned on Real America’s Voice’s War Room, “We are now on the precipice of being forced to inject our cattle with the mRNA vaccine. So just like we talk about medical freedom for humans and the desire to not have mandates telling us what we have to put in our bodies, food freedom is an extension of that. We’d also like to be fully informed. I mean, let’s talk about the Nuremberg trials, right? The idea that humans have a right to be fully informed about what they’re putting into their bodies. Food freedom is a really big part of that.”
With historical lab leaks fresh in mind, this research screams government overreach.
In a statement to the Gateway Pundit, Goodman added:
“Recklessly importing deadly exotic diseases like African swine flu and other hemmorhagic fevers to the U.S.—where they have never been found—for dangerous animal experiments that can leak and cause outbreaks in animals and people is a recipe for disaster straight out of Dr. Fauci’s cookbook.
Earlier this year, a White Coat Waste investigation prompted Trump’s Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins to cancel a $1 million Biden-era bird flu gain-of-function collaboration between the USDA and Wuhan-linked Chinese experimenters.
Now, Secretary Rollins should ensure taxpayers aren’t forced to fund risky and cruel animal experiments for livestock mRNA vaccines. If the multi-billion-dollar ag and pharma industries want to develop these products— that they will ultimately patent and profit from—they can pay for it themselves.”
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