The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said it is reviving a long-defunct task force on the safety of childhood vaccines, responding to a demand from the anti-vaccine organization founded by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
In a statement Thursday, the HHS said the task force will focus on the development and promotion of childhood vaccines “that result in fewer and less serious adverse reactions than those vaccines currently on the market.”
The panel will also work on improving the reporting of adverse reactions and supporting research on vaccine safety, according to the HHS.
The task force was first required by the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which also required the HHS secretary to provide Congress with progress reports every two years.
The task force will be composed of senior leadership from across federal health agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration. NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya will serve as chair.
“By reinstating this Task Force, we are reaffirming our commitment to rigorous science, continuous improvement, and the trust of American families,” Bhattacharya said in a statement. “NIH is proud to lead this effort to advance vaccine safety and support innovation that protects children without compromise.”
The NIH has not previously been involved in vaccine safety oversight, which has historically been the purview of the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Critics said resurrecting the panel, which made its final report to Congress in 1998, could be another way for Kennedy’s HHS to undermine public confidence in vaccines and redirect or stop investments in childhood vaccines.
Kennedy has questioned the safety of childhood vaccines for decades and frequently claimed existing vaccines that have been on the market for decades and have repeatedly been proven safe — like the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine — are risky.
“It’s another politically-controlled forum that can be used for bad messaging and to make investment in and production of vaccines less viable,” Dorit Reiss, a law professor at University of California Law San Francisco, said in an email. “Secretary Kennedy has worked to undermine vaccines for 20 years; this likely seems to him like another tool to make vaccines less accessible.”
Kennedy and his allies have been interested in the panel for years, arguing its absence shows the government has not taken appropriate steps to ensure vaccines are safe for children.
Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine organization Kennedy founded prior to becoming HHS secretary, funded a lawsuit filed in May to compel Kennedy to reestablish the task force and its reports to Congress.
While he was part of Children’s Health Defense in 2018, Kennedy — along with fellow vaccine critic and adviser Del Bigtree — filed a Freedom of Information Act request for copies of the reports from the HHS.
When no reports were found, Kennedy and Bigtree sued the department to produce them, part of an effort to bolster their misleading narrative about vaccine safety.
Kennedy has long called for an investigation into childhood shots, saying they have been inadequately studied. Reconvening the vaccine safety panel could be a key step toward changing the childhood immunization schedule, which recommends which shots children receive and when.
In June, Kennedy ousted all members of an influential CDC vaccine advisory panel and handpicked the replacements, many of whom have expressed skepticism or criticism about vaccines and COVID-19 vaccines specifically.
During the panel’s first meeting just weeks later it announced plans to launch an investigation into the cumulative effect of the childhood and adolescent vaccine schedules.
Earlier this year, Kennedy said the presidential Make America Healthy Again Commission is also scrutinizing the childhood vaccine schedule as a potential cause of the country’s chronic disease epidemic.
