Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Monday that he will work to "fix" the program that compensates victims of vaccine injuries, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.
Kennedy, a long-time vaccine skeptic and former vaccine injury plaintiff lawyer, accused the program and its so-called "Vaccine Court" of corruption and inefficiency in a post on X. He has long been an outspoken critic of the program.
"I will not allow the VICP to continue to ignore its mandate and fail its mission of quickly and fairly compensating vaccine-injured individuals," he wrote, adding he was working with Attorney General Pam Bondi. "Together, we will steer the Vaccine Court back to its original congressional intent."
He said the structure disadvantaged claimants because the Department of Health and Human Services – which he now leads – is the defendant, as opposed to vaccine makers.
Changing the VICP would be the latest in a series of far-reaching actions by Kennedy to reshape U.S. regulation of vaccines, food, and medicine.
In June, he fired all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a panel of vaccine experts, replacing them with seven handpicked members, including known vaccine skeptics.
One of the new vaccine advisers has earned thousands of dollars as an expert witness in litigation against Merck's Gardasil vaccine, court records show. Kennedy himself played an instrumental role in organizing mass litigation against Merck over the vaccine.
He also is planning to remove all the members of another advisory panel that determines what cancer screenings and other preventive health measures insurers must cover, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. An HHS spokesperson said Kennedy had not yet made a decision regarding the 16-member U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.
Kennedy has for years sown doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines. He has a history of clashing with the medical establishment and spreading misinformation about vaccines, including promoting a debunked link between vaccines and autism despite scientific evidence to the contrary.
He has also said the measles vaccine contains cells from aborted fetuses and that the mumps vaccination does not work, comments he made as the U.S. battles one of its worst outbreaks of measles in 25 years.