The Trump administration is reportedly planning to phase out the COVID-19 vaccine, according to a report from the Daily Beast.

Dr. Aseem Malhotra, who is one of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “closest associates,” told the outlet that while a decision to remove the COVID-19 vaccine from the market could come “within months,” it could occur “in a number of stages.” Malhotra also added that “those closest” to Kennedy have reportedly expressed that they “cannot understand” why the COVID-19 vaccine “continues to be prescribed.”

“It could [happen] in a number of stages, including learning more about the data,” Malhotra, who is a British cardiologist, told the outlet. “But given the increased talk of vaccine injuries in the past few weeks among the administration, it could also come with one clean decision.”

Malhotra also noted that “skepticism among Kennedy’s circle” regarding the COVID-19 vaccine comes from a 2022 peer-review paper, which “examined secondary analysis of ‘serious adverse events reported in … clinical trials of Pfizer and Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in adults'”:

Malhotra said skepticism among Kennedy’s circle of the COVID-19 jab is driven by a 2022 paper by a group of physicians and university professors and researchers, which appeared in the journal Vaccine.

The peer-reviewed paper examined secondary analysis of “serious adverse events reported in … clinical trials of Pfizer and Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in adults,” and said that those given the mRNA vaccines had a 16 percent higher risk of “excess serious adverse events” than those in the placebo group.

Breitbart News’s Alana Mastrangelo reported at the beginning of August that Kennedy announced the HHS would be “canceling mRNA vaccine development investments and contracts.”

Kennedy explained that there was an HHS division called the “Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority,” otherwise known as BARDA. Kennedy added that BARDA, which is responsible for some of the “most advanced scientific research,” recently “reviewed 22 mRNA vaccine development investments, and began canceling them.”