U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday canceled projects worth nearly $500 million for vaccine development using mRNA technology. He defended that action while speaking at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.

“The mRNA vaccines, we know from COVID, don’t work against upper respiratory infections,” he told reporters. “They don’t work very well — Let me put it that way.”

Kennedy is a long-time skeptic of the scientific consensus on vaccines. Reports published in peer-reviewed journals have found COVID-19 vaccines, using mRNA technology, to be highly effective . Kennedy said mRNA vaccines might be useful for cancers and diseases other than respiratory infections.

Alaska’s U.S. senators flanked Kennedy as he spoke. Both voted to confirm him

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