Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks as President Donald Trump listens at an event at the White House last month to promote his proposal to improve Americans' access to their medical records in the East Room of the White House, AP

WASHINGTON — The Department of Health and Human Services will cancel contracts and pull funding for some vaccines that are being developed to fight respiratory viruses like COVID-19 and the flu.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary and a longtime vaccine critic, announced in a statement Tuesday that $500 million worth of vaccine development projects, all using mRNA technology, will be halted.

The projects — 22 of them — are being led by some of the nation’s leading pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and Moderna to prevent

See Full Page