Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long denied claims that his skepticism of some vaccines makes him anti-all vaccines, but the accusations nonetheless persist and will likely resurge following his latest actions.

Last week, Kennedy issued a stop-work order for a company granted a multi-million contract by the prior Biden-Harris administration to develop a new vaccine against the covid-19 virus, Fox News reported.

Meanwhile, separate reports revealed that Kennedy is also re-evaluating an even more costly Biden-era contract for a new bird flu vaccine and has canceled or postponed regularly scheduled meetings for health officials to discuss plans for the next season's influenza vaccines.

Paused a study on anew oral covid-19 vaccine

According to Fox News, Sec. Kennedy issued a 90-day stop-work order last Friday that instructed U.S. biotech company Vaxart Inc. to pause its work on the development of a new coronavirus vaccine in pill form, even as the company was set to begin on Monday clinical trials involving 10,000 participants.

The three-month pause will be used by HHS to review the company's initial findings and decide what, if anything, should be the next step in the process.

Vaxart scored a $460 million contract in 2023 through an HHS subagency as part of the Biden-Harris administration's $4.7 billion Project NextGen initiative, of which the company has already received $240 million to cover the costs of the preliminary study that is now under review.

It is unclear if Vaxart will be permitted to receive the remainder of the contracted amount, though it is believed that the company can still recoup the costs of continuing to monitor the participants in the preliminary study.

"While it is crucial that the Department [of] Health and Human Services (HHS) support pandemic preparedness, four years of the Biden administration’s failed oversight have made it necessary to review agreements for vaccine production, including Vaxart’s," Kennedy said in a statement. "I look forward to working with Vaxart and medical experts to ensure this work produces safe, effective, and fiscal-minded vaccine technology."

Re-evaluating late Biden contract with Moderna for bird flu vaccine

At the same time that HHS is reviewing the prior administration's 2023 contract with Vaxart for a covid-19 vaccine in pill form, Bloomberg News reported that Sec. Kennedy is also "re-evaluating" an even pricier last-minute contract for a new bird flu vaccine.

In the waning days of the Biden-Harris administration, Moderna Inc. was awarded a $590 million contract to develop a vaccine for the avian flu using the same sort of messenger RNA-based technology that it utilized four years earlier for its covid-19 vaccine.

The review is reportedly focused more on the taxpayer dollars involved in the Moderna contract than the development of the vaccine itself.

Canceled meetings about next strains of flu vaccines

As if that wasn't enough to rekindle all of the anti-vaccine critiques of Sec. Kennedy, NBC News reported this week that the Food and Drug Administration, which is overseen by HHS, canceled a pending vaccine advisory committee meeting scheduled for March that was supposed to render a decision on which strains of influenza to develop annual flu shots for ahead of the next season.

That cancelation came just a few days after the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, also under the HHS umbrella, inexplicably postponed its own vaccine advisory committee's pending meeting to discuss not just the next round of flu shots but also the development of new vaccines for a variety of other communicable diseases.

Interestingly enough, the outlet noted that representatives from both the CDC and FDA were still expected to participate virtually in an upcoming World Health Organization meeting about the next round of flu vaccines, even as President Trump began the process via executive order last month to withdraw the U.S. from the WHO.