Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the United States would cease contributing to worldwide vaccine alliance Gavi until the entity has won the public trust once more.

Kennedy delivered a speech at the Gavi pledging summit last week, where the organization desired to raise $9 billion, listing the ways in which the group allegedly made poor recommendations around the COVID vaccine and promoted consensus thought.

“When the science was inconvenient, Gavi ignored the science,” Kennedy asserted. “I call on Gavi today to re-earn the public trust and to justify the $8 billion that America has provided in funding since 2001.”

Gavi responded to the warning with a statement saying the entity makes decisions in alignment with the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization at the World Health Organization, insisting that the board is “a group of independent experts that reviews all available data through a rigorous, transparent, and independent process.”

Biden administration officials previously pledged over $1 billion to Gavi, which is seeking to distribute millions of childhood vaccines worldwide. Kennedy nevertheless insisted that the entity has not seriously considered the effects of the inoculations.

“I’ll tell you how to start taking vaccine safety seriously: Consider the best science available, even when the science contradicts established paradigms. Until that happens, the United States won’t contribute more to Gavi.”

Kennedy added that “when vaccine safety issues have come before Gavi, Gavi has treated them not as a patient health problem, but as a public relations problem.”