Washington DC - The US Food and Drug Administration is conducting a broad investigation into deaths potentially linked to Covid-19 vaccines, a spokesperson for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said.

"FDA is doing a thorough investigation, across multiple age groups, of deaths potentially related to Covid vaccines," a spokesperson for RFK Jr.'s Health and Human Services department, Andrew Nixon, told AFP.

Bloomberg and the Washington Post had previously reported on the probe.

The review, which was initially intended to focus on possible child deaths, has sparked controversy in recent weeks following the leak of an internal document in late November.

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Attributed to a senior FDA official, the memo claimed Covid vaccines are linked to at least 10 infant deaths, without providing any evidence.

The efficacy and safety of Covid vaccines have been studied and documented worldwide, as have rare cases of severe side effects that do not undermine the vaccine's benefits for most age groups, according to health authorities from all around the world.

Nixon declined to specify the methods, data, and timeline for the investigation's completion.

Experts have voiced concern over the actions of the FDA under RFK Jr., who is known for spreading misinformation and dangerous conspiracy theories.

In 2023, he called the vaccines deadly and scandalously claimed that the virus itself was ethnically "targeted" to harm Black and White people while sparing Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.

RFK Jr.'s has been accused of waging "a war on science and vaccines" by radically restricting access to proven treatments and replacing independent experts with hand-picked promoters of his unscientific theories.