Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has responded after critics voiced opposition to newly posted Centers for Disease Control and Prevention contracts for COVID-19 vaccines.
“The claim that CDC has already spent $1.24 billion on COVID-19 vaccines is simply wrong,” Kennedy wrote on X on June 18.
The CDC, part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), recently posted contracts worth some $1.2 billion for COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.
“The contracts cited are indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contracts put in place ahead of the season to ensure availability if needed,” Kennedy said.
“HHS and CDC have not purchased COVID-19 vaccines for the upcoming respiratory season and have made no decisions regarding future purchases. IDIQ contracts allowing future orders are not the same as spending taxpayer dollars.”
HHS did not respond to a request for more information by the time of publication.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the chairman of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, had written to Kennedy on June 16, demanding to know why the contracts had been awarded “for a vaccine linked to serious adverse events—including potentially the deaths of children,” and said the step “suggests CDC continues to fail to take its vaccine safety responsibilities seriously.”
Aaron Siri, a lawyer who previously represented Kennedy, also wrote to acting CDC Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya this week about the agreements.
“CDC should cancel these contracts on the basis that it would be the moral, ethical, and compassionate thing to do,” Siri said, citing data from a CDC safety system that showed many people who received one of the vaccines reported needing medical care afterward.
The CDC for years recommended COVID-19 vaccines for most of the population, saying the shots’ benefits outweighed their risks.
Under a directive from Kennedy, the CDC stopped recommending the vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women. Later in 2025, acting on advice from the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, the agency said that any person who wanted one of the vaccines should first consult a health care professional and take into account the risks of the vaccine in addition to other information.
The latter update was blocked by a federal judge in March.
The Trump administration has appealed the decision, and the U.S. Court of Appeals recently agreed to expedite the appeal.
“Should a pathogen emerge tomorrow, the government’s only path to respond would run through the district court,” government lawyers told the court in a June 17 filing.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and other groups that sued over the changes have not yet filed a competing brief.