The choice of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the nation’s top health agency is breathing life into an effort to reform a decades-old government program for paying people injured by vaccines.
Thousands of people are waiting to see whether the US Department of Health and Human Services will pay their claims for injuries or death allegedly from vaccines. Handled through a program shielding drugmakers from lawsuits, claimants can wait for years for word on whether they’ll be paid.
Lawmakers have pushed for changes to the Reagan-era process without success. Reformers say the Biden administration has been unhelpful, and that vaccine skepticism and reluctance to touch Covid-19 measures—handled through another government program—have stymied change.
Kennedy’s longstanding criticism of vaccines and the pharmaceutical industry is giving some hope for renewed momentum. Others worry his vaccine skepticism could erode support for modernizing the injury program and fuel skepticism that reformers say cuts against their mission.
“He’s got a big microphone, and now he’s going to have the power in which to blast out his views,” said Jeffrey Pop, a nationwide vaccine injury attorney. “I hope he’ll moderate his views and not try to paint all vaccines as being bad and evil, because, I mean, I’ve lived through the polio public health threat. And that’s the greatest example of a successful vaccine.”
Potential Changes
The HHS’ National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program covers injuries for childhood routine vaccinations. Critics say the program is too slow—it could take up to three years to complete an injury review—and pays too little for injuries. Eight “special masters” oversee disputes and have yet to decide on over 3,700 claims as of Dec. 1.
Covid vaccine injury claims fall under a different program—the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program—meant for public health emergencies. The CICP, according to critics, lacks transparency and is poorly equipped to handle the 10,000-plus claims alleging injury from Covid vaccines and other treatments.
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) has introduced legislation (H.R. 5142) to hire more special masters and move pending Covid-19 vaccine claims into the VICP. He said he received “mostly no help” from the Biden administration, and lawmakers “afraid to stir up vaccine skeptics stood in the way.”
It’s “very unclear” how Kennedy may affect VICP legislation, Doggett said.
A Kennedy-backed group, Children’s Health Defense, backs legislation (H.R. 7551) by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) that would remove liability protections for drugmakers. Doggett said this approach would threaten vaccine availability.
“A complete replacement of this system will make it much less likely that the vaccines that we need” will be available, Doggett said. “That will have serious health consequences.”
Vaccine Bar
David Carney, president of the Vaccine Injured Petitioners Bar Association, said he hopes the Trump administration will “not swear off vaccines and not create some sort of mass hesitancy.”
Nevertheless, Kennedy is “talking about vaccine schedules. He’s talking about parental choice. So it at least seems as though it’s at the forefront of his mind,” said Carney, also a partner at Green & Schafle. “I’m hoping there’s a needle to be thread here so we can shine light on the fact that vaccine injuries are real and that a robust vaccination policy is important for public health.”
The HHS’ abilities to make changes are limited without Congress. However, the secretary can testify before lawmakers and recommend adding Covid-19 to the VICP.
A press person for Kennedy didn’t respond to interview requests for this story.
Renee Gentry, director of the Vaccine Injury Litigation Clinic at George Washington Law, said she anticipates Kennedy being “far more active” than other HHS secretaries in pushing VICP reform, and that the bar considers Kennedy someone they could work with and educate.
“Vaccines are certainly a focus of his, and I don’t know that I can say that of any other prior secretary of HHS that I have worked under,” Gentry said.
A Republican-led government may be more receptive to reform.
“As a plaintiff lawyer, typically, your friends on the Hill are Democrats, and it’s the exact opposite in this because Democrats are very strongly pro-vaccine, which we say we are as well,” Gentry said.
Vaccine hesitancy has roots in a “tone deaf effort on the part of public health to slam down any comments about vaccine injuries at all. And you can’t talk about vaccine injuries—that will make people not want to get vaccinated,” Gentry said. “Unfortunately, the exact opposite has happened.”
‘Screaming from the Outside’
The World Health Organization considers vaccinations among the best ways to prevent disease. It estimates up to 5 million lives are saved a year from childhood immunizations.
Serious vaccine injuries are rare, according to the HHS. Individuals who suffer them, however, may feel sidelined by the government’s handling of vaccine injuries and its inability to bring the compensation program into the modern age.
“We’ve been screaming from the outside for four years now, and we haven’t gotten anywhere,” said Brianne Dressen, co-chairman of React19, an interest group for people alleging Covid-19 vaccine injuries.
In 2024, Dressen sued AstraZeneca, claiming she was injured in a clinical trial. In a separate lawsuit, React19 sued the HHS over the CICP.
Dressen said Kennedy, an acquaintance, provides a chance for injured people to “finally be able to have their voices heard from the inside of the building.”
She said her “deepest desire” for a Kennedy-led HHS is to change the view of vaccine injuries from a political issue to a medical condition. “Nothing politically polarizing, nothing emotionally charged, just a medical condition,” she said.
“There are obstacles, especially from pharmaceutical companies. But from victims, he’d get a lot of support,” Pop said. “His overarching idea of you can’t necessarily trust the statistics of vaccine injury and vaccine efficiency might be helpful to victims, and certainly might be to” the vaccine injury compensation process.
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