Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been implementing an anti-vaccine strategy that includes targeting a federal program that pays money to patients injured by immunizations, people familiar with the planning told KFF Health News.
The plan involves expanding the types of injuries eligible for compensation, potentially overwhelming the fund with claims that could bankrupt the program. Other elements of the strategy include a potential mandate that vaccine makers stop using a common additive, forcing them to make expensive reformulations or exit the market altogether.
The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has paid out more than $5 billion since its inception in 1988 with funds from a small tax on vaccines. The program was established to compensate patients for injuries while preventing lawsuits that could imperil pharmaceutical companies and vaccine supplies.
Before filing in court, injured individuals must bring their claims to the program’s nonjury vaccine court to determine what, if any, compensation should be provided.
To expand the list of eligible injuries, Kennedy is looking to link vaccines to allergies or autism even though no scientific data confirms a connection. HHS has already launched a probe into the causes of autism that is expected to implicate vaccines.
“Given the rate of autism, if a lot of cases are brought, that could bankrupt the program,” said Dorit Reiss, a professor at University of California Law San Francisco.
Kennedy has weighed having a vaccine advisory group examine aluminum, which is used in some vaccines. In July he linked aluminum to allergies, although a recent study in the Annals of Internal Medicine found no connection.
Some public health leaders derided the strategy as harmful.
“It’s a radical agenda,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. “He’s using a bunch of different mechanisms and there really are no guardrails. People are going to catch on but it’s not going to be enough to stop the waves of deaths, and deaths of children.”
HHS says Kennedy is not against vaccines.
“Secretary Kennedy is not anti-vaccine – he is pro-safety, pro-transparency, and pro-accountability,” Vianca Rodriguez Feliciano, an HHS spokesperson, said in an email.
Kennedy has said he wants to alter the vaccine injury fund, writing July 28 on the social platform X that it is “broken, and I intend to fix it.” HHS is working with the Department of Justice to revamp the program.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
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