WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s effort to impose new requirements on Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine — the nation’s only traditional protein-based option for the coronavirus — is sowing uncertainty about updates to other vaccines, too.

Novavax said Monday that the Food and Drug Administration was asking the company to run a new clinical trial of its vaccine after the agency grants full approval. The company said it had responded and that it believed its shot remains “approvable.”

But a weekend post on social media by FDA Commissioner Marty Makary suggested the prospect of needing a new trial before the shots’ yearly strain update — something unlikely to be possible before fall. That’s raised questions about whether other vaccines will be caught in the turmoil.

“I don’t think because there’s a strain change that this is a new product,” said Dr. Jesse Goodman of Georgetown University, a former FDA vaccine chief. If that’s the new policy, “you’d always be doing clinical trials and you’d never have a vaccine that was up to date.”

The unusual move at FDA come shortly after the agency’s longtime vaccine chief was forced out over disagreements with Makary’s boss, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Kennedy won Senate confirmation to his job, in part, by promising not to change the nation’s vaccine schedule. Since taking office, he’s promised to “investigate” children’s shots, canceled meetings of expert vaccine advisers and directed officials to look again for connections between vaccines and autism, a link long-ago debunked.

The Novavax vaccine, which originally showed effectiveness in a nearly 30,000-person clinical trial, is still being sold under emergency use authorization in the U.S. The nation’s other two options, mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna, have earned full FDA approval for certain age groups.

Because the coronavirus continually mutates, manufacturers follow instructions from FDA to make one change each year to their recipe — which strain to target — just like flu vaccines.

The FDA was on track to grant Novavax full approval by its April 1 target date, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential agency matters. But Trump appointees directed FDA scientists to pause their decision, according to one of the people. Since that highly unusual move, Novavax and the agency have been discussing additional requirements for approval.

In his weekend tweet, FDA’s Makary referred to the Novavax vaccine as “a new product,” presumably because it had been updated to match last year’s common coronavirus strain.

“New products require new clinical studies,” Makary added.

An administration spokesman didn’t respond to specific questions about Pfizer and Moderna but suggested all COVID-19 vaccines could face stricter requirements.

“It’s now been years since COVID has presented the threat it once did, and the urgency to rush approval of boosters without normal oversight no longer exists,” said Andrew Nixon, a Health and Human Services spokesman, in a statement.

The FDA had been treating the annual COVID-19 strain updates exactly as it’s done for decades with flu vaccines — not as new products, but existing ones that are merely adjusted to protect against the latest strains, said Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Offit said the companies still must perform tests in small numbers of people that show these updated vaccines produce levels of virus-fighting antibodies known to be protective, and they’re closely monitored for safety.

Nixon, the HHS spokesman, suggested the policy might not apply to the flu shot, “which has been tried and tested for more than 80 years.”

Under federal law, the FDA is required to follow established procedures when issuing requirements to drugmakers for approval. If the agency skips certain steps or imposes additional requirements for political reasons, experts say, it could be sued by drugmakers — or even patients, such as those who prefer the Novavax vaccine over its competitors because of an allergy or some other reason.

In addition to large clinical trials conducted before all three COVID-19 vaccines were cleared for use, there’s data on real-world use, said former Health Secretary Xavier Becerra, who oversaw COVID-19 vaccine policy during the Biden administration.

“At the point where I had left, we had put some 700 million COVID vaccines into the arms of Americans,” he said. “That’s a pretty good size clinical trial.”

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AP writer Amanda Seitz contributed to this story

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WASHINGTON — The Army has reenlisted more than 23 soldiers who were discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine, officials said Monday, rushing to implement President Donald Trump’s order that troops be rehired and given back pay.

Three people rejoined active duty Army service, and more than 20 came back either to the National Guard or the Reserve, the Army said. The soldiers have signed their contracts and were sworn in, and the active duty troops were reporting to their units, the Army said.

None of the other services has completed reenlistments yet, but all are reaching out to former troops. The Marine Corps, Air Force, Army and Navy set up new websites on Monday to provide information for service members looking to reenlist. And they are sending letters and emails and making calls to those who were discharged.

Trump has argued that the vaccine mandate wrongly pushed troops out and suggested that many would return. In an executive order signed a week after he took office, Trump said the vaccine mandate cost the military “some of our best people” and he vowed to “rehire every patriot who was fired from the military with … backpay.”

Those who may have been attracted by the offer of back pay will likely get far less money than they initially thought when Trump announced his plan. Under the details of the Pentagon offer, any wages earned during their time as civilians would be deducted from the back pay total, along with other payments they may have received.

The Pentagon made the COVID-19 vaccine mandatory in August 2021 for all service members, including those in the National Guard and Reserve. Then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said getting the vaccine was critical to maintaining a healthy, ready force. The Pentagon dropped the mandate in January 2023.

The initial reenlistments come as the Pentagon last week formally increased the new minimum service commitment from two to four years for those discharged for refusing a lawful order to take the vaccine.

A Feb. 7 memo sent to the secretaries of the military services said troops would be required to sign up for two years. But a memo signed April 1 by Jules Hurst III, who is doing the job of defense undersecretary for personnel, said “reinstatement will not be afforded to those who are unwilling or unable to return to active service or active status, as applicable, for four years.”

The Army said the bulk of the soldiers who reenlisted were those ordered out for refusing the shot, and they signed on for four years. They will be entitled to get some back pay. Several, however, left the Army voluntarily to avoid the shot, so they are allowed to reenlist for two years and will not get back pay.

According to the new memo, there is an exception for anyone who would have been eligible for retirement within two years of the date they were originally discharged. Those service members also can reenlist for at least two years.

Roughly 8,200 troops were discharged for refusing to obey the vaccine order. They have been allowed to rejoin since 2023, but that did not include any back pay. Just 113 reenlisted.

The Army and Marine Corps have been sending out emails, texts and phone calls to service members for several weeks. The Navy and the Air Force had been waiting for the additional guidance.

According to Army spokesman Christopher Surridge, about 400 soldiers have inquired so far about the reenlistment program. Of those, about 100 are in the application process. The Army did not have estimates on how much it has given the soldiers in total back pay.

As of Friday, 472 Marines have indicated interest in learning more about returning. The Navy said about a half dozen sailors had so far expressed interest or sought more information, and the Air Force said it had not yet gotten any feedback from service members.

The limited interest reflects what service leaders said early on, which was that many troops used the vaccine as a reason to leave and have moved on with their lives.

Those eligible for back pay could get an amount that includes their basic salary, bonus payments, cost-of-living allowances and some health benefit costs. But that total will be reduced by any wages, veterans benefits, separation payments, debts and other amounts that were earned during that time.

Service members will have to provide verified tax records and other paperwork as part of the process.

According to the memo, the services must provide each person with an estimate of the amount of back pay they will receive. Service members will then have 60 days to decide whether to reenlist.

Everyone who wants to reenlist must meet all military standards, including health, fitness and moral requirements. Service members have until Feb. 28, 2026, to seek reinstatement.

HONOLULU — As with many voters on Maui, Joshua Kamalo thought the race for president wasn’t the only big contest on the November ballot. He also was focused on a hotly contested seat for the local governing board.

He made sure to return his ballot in the virtually all vote-by-mail state early, doing so two weeks before Election Day. A week later, he received a letter telling him the county couldn’t verify his signature on the return envelope, jeopardizing his vote.

And he wasn’t the only one. Two other people at the biodiesel company where he works also had their ballots rejected, as did his daughter. In each case, the county said their signatures didn’t match the ones on file.

“I don’t know how they fix that, but I don’t think it’s right,” said Kamalo, a truck driver who persevered through traffic congestion and limited parking options to get to the county office so he could sign an affidavit affirming that the signature was indeed his.

He said he probably wouldn’t have bothered to fix it if the South Maui county council race wasn’t so close. The co-founder of his employer, Pacific Biodiesel, was the candidate who ended up on the losing side.

Kamalo’s experience is part of a broader problem as mail voting rises in popularity and more states opt to send ballots to all voters. Matching signatures on returned mail ballot envelopes to the official ones recorded at local voting offices can be a tedious process, sometimes done by humans and sometimes through automation, and can lead to dozens, hundreds or even thousands of ballots being rejected.

If the voter can’t correct it in time, the ballot won’t count.

“There’s been a big push toward mail voting over the last few years, and I think the tradeoffs aren’t always clear to voters,” said Larry Norden, an elections and government expert at the Brennan Center for Justice.

He said it’s important for states and local governments to have procedures that ensure large numbers of eligible mail ballot voters aren’t being disenfranchised.

The use of mail ballots exploded in 2020 as states looked for ways to accommodate voters during the COVID-19 pandemic. Eight states and the District of Columbia now have universal mail voting, in which all active registered voters are mailed a ballot unless they opt out.

At least 30 states require election officials to notify voters if there is a problem with their mail ballot and give them a chance to fix — or “cure” — it. Some have complained that the timeframe allowed to do that is too short.

Nevada, a key presidential battleground, is among the states that mails a ballot to all registered voters. In November, county election offices rejected about 9,000 mail ballots primarily because of signature problems.

That didn’t affect the outcome of the state’s presidential race, which Donald Trump won by 46,000 votes, but it could have changed the outcome in some down ballot races. Some state legislative seats in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas and had more than half of the rejected mail ballots, were decided by just several hundred votes. The North Las Vegas City Council race, also in Clark County, was decided by just nine votes.

“We’ve had signature curing problems since we adopted universal mail-in voting during the pandemic in 2020, and it seems to be getting worse,” said Sondra Cosgrove, history professor at the College of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas and executive director of Vote Nevada, a civic organization. “This is something that’s a crisis level that needs to get fixed.”

The potential for signature match problems to affect closes races has led some voting rights groups in the the state to call for an overhaul of the verification process.

“We have to find the best option going forward for people that is more accessible, that gets their votes and ballots counted on time, because it’s crazy when you think about the difference-maker being eight or nine votes,” said Christian Solomon, the state director of Rise Nevada, a youth-led civic engagement group.

Nevada voters already took one step toward a potential fix in November when they approved — by 73% — a constitutional amendment that will require voters to present identification to vote. When voting with a mailed ballot, a driver’s license or Social Security number will be required in addition to the signature. Voters will need to approve the amendment a second time in two years for it to take effect.

Dave Gibbs, president of the Repair the Vote PAC, which wrote the amendment, said he was inspired by a a law passed in 2021 in another presidential swing state, Georgia.

That state ended its signature check process and instead now requires voters to submit their driver’s license number or state identification card number when returning a mailed ballot, said Mike Hassinger, spokesman for the Georgia Secretary of State’s office. Most voting there is done early but in-person.

Critics say such ID requirements would be too burdensome for states, like Hawaii, where mailed ballots account for the vast majority of voting.

On Maui, the number of rejected mail ballots prompted a lawsuit challenging the results of the local county council election, where the winning margin was just 97 votes.

The lawsuit alleges that hundreds of ballots weren’t counted because the county clerk wrongly claimed they arrived in envelopes with signatures that didn’t match the one on file. Attorney Lance Collins said his clients wanted a new election in the race between Tom Cook and his client, Kelly King.

Six voters submitted declarations saying they were told their ballot envelope signature was deficient when, in their view, there was nothing wrong with it.

Collins said under the state’s administrative rules, a returned ballot envelope is presumed to be that of the voter and should be counted unless there is evidence to suggest it’s not the voter’s. He also said the county’s rejection rate was significantly higher than the national average.

Maui County’s attorneys responded in a court filing that its signature verification process followed the law. On Dec. 24, the state Supreme Court unanimously agreed and declared Cook the winner. The justices said the clerk provided voters with reasonable notice and opportunity to correct the deficiency on their ballot envelopes.

Even so, many voters on Maui have shared similar stories about being informed their signatures didn’t match. Resident Grace Min, who was not part of the lawsuit, was among those who received one of the letters.

“I just find it highly unusual that my (ballot) signature would not have matched my signature,” she said.

She had been paying particular attention to the county government race that she knew would be close, so it was important for her to make sure her vote was counted. She emailed an affidavit confirming the ballot was hers, but also had questions about the verification process and was concerned the time allowed for curing ballots was so short.

“I just have to imagine there had to have been people who didn’t fix their signature,” Min said, “and that doesn’t seem very fair.”

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NEW YORK — Chad Chronister, Donald Trump’s pick to run the Drug Enforcement Administration, said Tuesday he was withdrawing his name from consideration, becoming the second person selected by the president-elect to bow out quickly after being nominated for a position requiring Senate confirmation.

Sheriff Chronister, the top law enforcement officer in Hillsborough County, Florida, said in a post on X that he was backing away from the opportunity, which he called “the honor of a lifetime.”

“Over the past several days, as the gravity of this very important responsibility set in, I’ve concluded that I must respectfully withdraw from consideration,” Chronister wrote. He did not elaborate, and Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Chronister follows former Republican congressman Matt Gaetz, Trump’s first pick to serve as attorney general, in withdrawing his name for a post in the administration. Gaetz withdrew following scrutiny over a federal sex trafficking investigation that cast doubt on his ability to be confirmed as the nation’s chief federal law enforcement officer.

Trump’s pick of Chronister for the DEA job drew backlash from conservatives, who raised concerns over his actions during the COVID-19 pandemic and his saying that his office “does not engage in federal immigration enforcement activities.”

In March 2020, Chronister arrested the pastor of a megachurch who held services with hundreds of people and violated a safer-at-home order in place aimed at limiting the spread of the Covid virus.

“Shame on this pastor, their legal staff and the leaders of this staff for forcing us to do our job. That’s not what we wanted to do during a declared state of emergency,” Chronister said at the time. “We are hopeful that this will be a wakeup call.”

U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky, was among those airing public complaints, saying Chronister should be “disqualified” for the arrest.

Others flagged comments Chronister made in a video about Florida’s immigration laws that he released in 2023 that circulated again online after Trump named him last weekend.

In the video, Chronister praised the “rich diversity” of his community and called it “a place where people from all walks of life come together.”

He said it was important to note his office “does not engage in federal immigration enforcement activities. We do not target individuals based on their immigration status. That’s the authority of federal agencies.”

Trump has made a sweeping crackdown on immigration a central focus of his campaign and his aims for his coming administration.

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Associated Press writer Adriana Gomez Licon in Fort Lauderdale, Florida contributed to this report.