Topline

The Food and Drug Administration withdrew studies supporting the safety and effectiveness of the COVID and shingles vaccines, according to multiple outlets, the latest move under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. taking aim at vaccines experts widely consider safe and effective.

The withdrawals, which were first reported by The New York Times, were made on research studies that found widely used vaccines against COVID were safe and identified Shingrix, a shingles vaccine, as an effective treatment.

The studies were conducted with millions of dollars in public funds, the Times reported, and found serious side effects of the vaccines were rare.

Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, told multiple outlets the studies were blocked “because the authors drew broad conclusions that were not supported by the underlying data.”

Forbes has reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services for comment.