What happened

Heath Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Tuesday he had ordered a "coordinated wind-down" of mRNA vaccine development programs at the government's biodefense agency. The decision canceled or modified 22 projects worth nearly $500 million, primarily for work on vaccines and therapeutics for respiratory viruses including influenza, H5N1 bird flu and Covid-19, according to the Health and Human Services Department.

Who said what

Kennedy said in a video statement that the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) would "replace the troubled mRNA programs" with "safer, broader vaccine strategies, like whole-virus vaccines" — a century-old technique he has also recently criticized, The New York Times said. As the "pandemic showed us," Kennedy added, incor

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