The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) will terminate or scale down funding for dozens of research projects examining why people resist vaccines and how to boost vaccination rates, the Washington Post, citing internal documents, reported.

An email revealed that on Monday morning local time, the NIH received a new list of grants slated for cancellation effective immediately. These projects were deemed inconsistent with the NIH’s funding priorities related to vaccine hesitancy or uptake.

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The NIH’s new development comes under the oversight of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the newly appointed U.S. Health Secretary and a long-standing vaccine skeptic. For nearly two decades, Kennedy has faced widespread criticism from the scientific community for disseminating discredited claims linking vaccines to autism, making him notorious.

While it remains unclear whether Kennedy directly or indirectly influenced the NIH’s decision to cancel or pare back vaccine-related funding, his appointment as Health Secretary has already sent shockwaves through the research community. Last week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a Health Department agency, was directed to investigate potential links between vaccines and autism, despite multiple studies finding no such correlation.

Separately, the Nature journal reported that immense budget cuts to the NIH by the U.S. government have raised concerns within the scientific community about the agency’s future. The NIH remains the world’s largest biomedical funding body and a global leader among similar institutions, with an annual budget of approximately USD47 billion.

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According to the World RePORT project, which tracks global research spending, the NIH's expenditure reached USD32.828 billion, about 24.7 times more than the world's second largest funding agency, London charity Wellcome (about USD1.279 billion).