Dining under the palm trees on the Mar-a-Lago patio in December, President Donald Trump assured drug giant Elily and Pfizer chief executives that anti-vaccination activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was not the fundamental choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
“I don’t think he’s much more radical than you think,” Trump said later that month at a news conference at the resort’s Palm Beach, Florida.
Eight months have passed and Kennedy is stepping up his attack on the vaccine system.
Top of his target list: Federal Vaccine Compensation Program to resolve injuries claims. His strategy could potentially bankrupt or reduce the fund, and some legal scholars and public health leaders say they are forced to shut down pharmaceutical companies completely at liability risk and cost.
“This is a radical agenda,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist with vaccine and infectious disease tissues at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. “He uses a variety of mechanisms and there are no guardrails in practice. People will catch up, but it’s not enough to stop the waves of death or the death of children.”
Kennedy says changes to the US vaccine system are necessary. Because, without evidence, vaccinations are associated with autism, neurotoxicity, allergies, and death. He is a leader in the “to bring America’s health back to health” movement, and is an informal campaign that eschews traditional medicine and supports “freedom of medicine.” Many supporters oppose the vaccine, and despite scientific evidence to oppose them, they believe they are not safe.
Kennedy admitted to reform the vaccine fund known as the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, writing on social platform X on July 28th that “VICP is broken and I’m going to fix it.” HHS is working with the Department of Justice to revamp its programs that protect pharmaceutical companies from most liability for injuries.
HHS did not respond to requests to speak to Kennedy, but agency officials said he was not opposed to vaccinations.
“Committee Kennedy is not an anti-vaccine, he has safety, transparency and promotional capabilities.
But behind the scenes, Kennedy has laid the foundations for limiting the availability of widely used vaccinations.
The strategy began to shape in the spring. First Step: pose unfounded questions about vaccine safety. At a cabinet meeting in April, Kennedy told Trump that HHS was conducting a large-scale study by September identifying the causes of rising autism diagnosis.
According to media reports, Kennedy has appointed David Geier, a researcher who has repeated the exposed claims that the vaccine causes autism and oversees the work.
Kennedy then questioned the use of aluminum and was added to many vaccines to boost the immune response. He linked it to allergies at the governor’s July meeting, but recent research in the chronicles of internal medicine found it unrelated. He is widely expected to ask the Federal Vaccine Advisory Committee to conduct a review.
According to two people, concerns about autism research and aluminum were early salvos in the push to chase the reward fund.
The fund has paid more than $5 billion since it was founded in 1988, providing money to people for vaccine injuries, according to the Department of Health Resources and Services.
Before filing a lawsuit in court, the injured individual will bring his/her claim to the non-jug vaccine court of the program that reviews the evidence. The fund will provide compensation from small excise taxes on vaccines.
Compensation is determined in part by a table maintained by the HRSA and supervised by the HHS Secretary. It lists each vaccine and related injuries and includes routine vaccinations recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, subject to excise tax. Injuries include anaphylaxis and encephalitis. After taking a certain vaccine, those who have experienced such injuries within a certain time can earn money.
Kennedy wants to add autism or allergy to the document, according to two people familiar with internal debates and concerns raised publicly by some vaccine developers and previous regulators. HHS-led research has managed to achieve its goals, for example, when condemning a vaccine for autism, or when the Federal Vaccine Advisory Board recommends for aluminum in the vaccine.
“Given the rate of autism, if a lot of cases are raised, it could lead to the program bankruptcy,” said Dorit Rice, a professor at the University of California Law San Francisco.
If that happens, pharmaceutical companies could halt vaccinations production. This is not a expensive lawsuit drawn from claimants who can’t make money because the federal vaccine injury fund is dry and doesn’t tend to be very profitable.
“If the compensation fund is gone, it will affect the decision to proceed or not,” said David Dodd, president and CEO of Geovax Labs, a biotechnology company that develops vaccines and immunotherapy.
The Federal Vaccine Advisory Committee is also recommended for aluminum in the shot, which can also force drugmakers to make expensive modifications or even send the market out.
Kennedy placed people around him to implement the strategy. He is being pushed to get vaccine skeptics in a decision-making position in the CDC that recommends vaccines and Food and Drug Administration to approve them.
He also slammed anti-vaccine movement leaders to vets as candidates for him.
The results were regulatory and policy decisions, as well as access and development of vaccines.
HHS said this month it has suspended contracts with $500 million grants for the development of MRNA vaccines.
The federal government has stopped recommending Covidshots for healthy pregnant women and children, bypassing opinions from the traditionally heavy vaccine advisory committee.
Kennedy reorganized the committee along with his own selected members, including vaccine skeptics, and removed the American Medical Association, the American Nurse Association, and other industry groups that served as liaisons for the committee. The revised panel is recommended for influenza vaccines containing preservatives that are incorrectly linked to autism.
Kennedy’s decision to put vaccine skeptics into surveillance positions in a deal he recently concluded with Trump and his staff, according to two people familiar with the situation. The arrangement was brought together on a Sunday night in July when Kennedy received a call from the White House.
The subject was Vinay Prasad, the FDA’s top vaccine regulator. He recently touched on a wave of industry criticism for playing a role in the agency’s decision to ask biotech company Salepta Therapeutics to stop shipping gene therapy for safety concerns.
Social media posts and conservative commentators were furious. Far-right provocateur Laura Rumer said he should fire Prasad on X on July 21, referring to Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), calling him a “self-proclaimed progressive liberal and Bernie Sanders fanboy.” Legislature lawmakers began to stir up questions in the White House.
People said the engagement reached Trump, who wanted to kick Prasad. However, Kennedy was worried about losing Prasad. He felt there was a need for vaccination critics who would oversee the vaccine at the agency.
So Kennedy signed a deal. Prasad will be asked to resign as head of the FDA’s Center for Biological Evaluation and Research, which regulates biology such as factorin products and gene therapy. The center will also be split into two operations, giving Kennedy the authority to select who will oversee the vaccine.
Some public health leaders have shared details of the arrangement publicly and raised concerns about its potential impact. Former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in an interview with CNBC on August 1 that he thought it was “very disruptive for the agency.”
Prasad is now back after leaving the agency in July, but it is unclear whether his role has changed.
Recently, Kennedy was sued by Ray Flores, an external senior lawyer for child health defense. Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group founded by Kennedy, is funding the lawsuit, claiming that Kennedy did not launch a task force to study vaccine safety, which says it would need to report the findings to Congress. However, Kennedy and his allies are looking for the outcome he wants, and those familiar with the matter consider the lawsuit to be friendly.
On August 14, HHS announced it would revive the federal committee, which dissolved in 1998 and dissolved in order to provide pediatric vaccine surveillance.
Kennedy’s work on the vaccine has sparked unfriendly lawsuits, including those brought by the American Academy of Pediatrics and other public health groups. His recent decision to halt funding for mRNA vaccine development has resulted in an uptrend of social media criticism.
“This is reckless. It’s dangerous. It takes life. We have to fight back,” Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) said on X on August 5th.
“I tried to be an objective and non-monoposter in response to the current actions of HHS, but frankly, this move costs life,” Jerome Adams, a US surgeon in the previous Trump administration, said on the same platform on August 5th.
Kennedy and his supporters remain unattended. In the counterpunch, his supporters have launched an unprecedented public relations campaign to promote HHS secretaries, prompting speculation that they may be pondering the 2028 presidential election.
Non-profit Maha Action called for Kennedy’s supporters to stimulate Kennedy’s supporters in July and launched a six-figure ad campaign celebrating Kennedy and the Trump administration’s health initiatives.
“Undoubtedly, this is a revolution that will change the face of public health policy,” Maha Action president Tony Lyons said in a statement. “Americans demand radical transparency and gold standard science.”
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