RFK JR and Trump Could Pull the COVID-19 Vaccine

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Very likely those students had the flu virus already.

It seems a little far-fetched that every student that got the shot also already had the flu, all at the same time.

They really put it in animals? What is uncontrollable & unsafe? Why have Covid vaccines if it in animals to get in our bodies anyway?

That's how the flu virus works.

I think there's been some sort of miscommunication here, because what you're saying is unrealistic, so clearly what I've said didn't come across correctly, but I'm not sure how to clarify.

I'm vaccinated and somehow I still got COVID twice ?!

Luckily I'm not allergic to vaccines and I plan to get the vaccine if I still able to even though I'm not all that social anyways.

Maybe people will suddenly remember why they had originally voted the orange messiah out of office in the first place, when people start dying again in the next Covid outbreak.

Three West Coast states are forming a public health alliance to provide "credible information" on vaccine safety in response to the turmoil within the Trump administration.

This announcement heralds a shift from the federal vaccine recommendation system that has been in place for decades to a patchwork structure that varies from state to state.

The governors of California, Oregon, and Washington announced Wednesday that they were working to provide unified recommendations to "ensure residents remain protected by science, not politics." The action comes after months of upheaval at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including the termination of the agency's director last week.

Governors Gavin Newsom, Tina Kotek, and Bob Ferguson warned that there will be severe consequences if the CDC becomes "a political tool that increasingly peddles ideology instead of science."

"President [Donald] Trump’s mass firing of CDC doctors and scientists — and his blatant politicization of the agency — is a direct assault on the health and safety of the American people," the statement said.

The press release announcing the West Coast Health Alliance on Wednesday criticized the CDC’s dismantling, saying that there is an absence of consistent, science-based federal leadership in public health. It said the alliance's shared principles will be finalized "in the coming weeks."

Without clarity from the federal government, individual states may begin to craft their own public health orders. New Mexico’s Department of Health announced last week that it was ordering pharmacies to “remove potential barriers and ensure access to COVID-19 vaccines."

The decision came after some pharmacies said they could not administer the new versions of the Covid shots until the CDC advisory panel met and issued its official guidance.

A statement from Health and Human Services criticized Democrat-run states for pandemic policies that "eroded the American people’s trust in public health agencies." It also defended the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

"ACIP remains the scientific body guiding immunization recommendations in this country, and HHS will ensure policy is based on rigorous evidence and Gold Standard Science, not the failed politics of the pandemic," the statement said.

More chaos unfolded at the CDC in recent days after the White House said it was firing director Susan Monarez after she refused to resign. Attorneys for Monarez said she "refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda."

Her dismissal sparked a mass exodus of top CDC officials. Nine former directors and acting directors published an essay in the New York Times on Monday, accusing Kennedy of endangering Americans.

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said Wednesday that the state will work to eliminate all vaccine mandates.

“All of them. All of them,” he said during a news conference as the crowd stood and erupted in applause. “Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery." He said the Florida Department of Health will work in partnership with the governor.

He said forcing vaccine mandates is “wrong” and “immoral.”

"Who am I as a government or anyone else, who am I as a man standing here now, to tell you what you should put in your body? Lapado said. "Who am I to tell you what your child should put in [their] body? I don’t have that right.”

Florida requires current vaccinations for students going to public school. Those requirements are outlined on the Florida Health website.

The state is not banning vaccinations.

“You want to put whatever different vaccines in your body, God bless you. I hope you make an informed decision,” Ladapo said. “You don’t want to put whatever vaccines in your body, God bless you. I hope you make an informed decision. That’s how it should be.”

Dr. Robert Malone, whom Kennedy recently appointed to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s independent vaccine advisory committee, wrote on X that he had spoken with Ladapo on Tuesday, calling him “a measured scientist who is on fire to change the system for the better.” As a member of the advisory committee, Malone is instrumental in making recommendations to the CDC about who should get certain vaccines. He has been vocally critical of vaccines.

“The idea that children would be allowed to go to school unvaccinated is absolutely frightening,” said Dr. Richard Besser, a former acting director Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Ladapo has railed against vaccines in Florida in the past, saying that people under 65 shouldn't get an mRNA Covid vaccine, at the time contradicting guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And during a 2024 measles outbreak in the state, he said that parents should watch for measles symptoms but could make their own decision about whether to send children to school. He did not encourage vaccination.

US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified Thursday in perhaps the most combative congressional hearing of 2025.

He appeared in front of the Senate Finance Committee amid a growing storm engulfing his department — including the recent firing of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director who had been confirmed less than a month earlier, a series of moves that could limit vaccine access and the canceling of $500 million in research into mRNA vaccines.

It’s all led even some Republicans to raise alarms about what’s happening at HHS. And on Thursday, some of those Republicans and many Democrats had a chance to register their concerns and try and adjust Kennedy’s course.

1. Senators tried to pit Kennedy against Trump
Republican politicians often speak to the “audience of one” – i.e. subtly gearing their comments toward Trump.

On Thursday, it was both Republican and Democrats employing this tactic.

A series of senators seemed to try to pit Kennedy against the president, suggesting Kennedy was undermining Trump and the successes of Operation Warp Speed, the Covid-19 vaccine program Trump launched late in his first term. It was as if they were trying to get Trump to intervene.

It started with GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, a medical doctor who was crucial to Kennedy winning confirmation early this year but has grown alarmed at his moves on vaccines.

The Louisiana Republican, who’s facing a primary threat from the right, began by asking Kennedy whether Trump deserved a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed, and Kennedy agreed that Trump did. (Saying Trump deserves Nobel Prizes has become common among those seeking to curry favor with him.)

“Absolutely, senator,” Kennedy said, adding: “It’s phenomenal.”

But then Cassidy pointed to Kennedy’s comments critical of the vaccines that Warp Speed produced, his work to strip access to them, and his recent canceling of $500 million in contracts for development of mRNA vaccines, like the ones produced by Warp Speed.

“So, this just seems inconsistent that you would agree with me” about Trump’s Nobel Prize, Cassidy said. “The president deserves tremendous amount of credit for this.”

After Cassidy planted that seed, a series of Democrats returned to the point. Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington even allowed that it was a “monumental achievement” for Trump, which Kennedy endorsed even though he generally talked around the issue.

By the end, the HHS secretary’s critics might have landed one a key blow.

Trump has repeatedly built up the success of Warp Speed, claiming it saved millions of lives. He at one point suggested the number could stretch into the tens of millions.

But Kennedy declined to attach a number to the lives saved. He wouldn’t even agree it was 1 million.

“I don’t know if it saved a million lives,” he said, only allowing that it saved “quite a few.”

“Unfortunately, you are undermining one of the president’s biggest achievements,” said Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, “which, as the president said, saved millions of American lives.”

Trump had turned heads on Monday with a social media post that some interpreted as critical of what’s happening under Kennedy’s leadership. The president complained the CDC was “being ripped apart” by debate over the success of the Covid vaccines, though he didn’t explicitly blame Kennedy.

The message to Trump from senators, who have limited tools to rein in Kennedy, seemed to be: Maybe this guy isn’t on your side.

2. Other Republicans deliver brushbacks to Kennedy
While Cassidy was perhaps the most-anticipated Republican questioner on the panel, he wasn’t the only one to raise concerns about Kennedy’s vaccine moves.

Others did so more gently, but in ways that suggested Kennedy should be careful.

Perhaps most surprising was Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 2 Republican in the chamber.

“Secretary Kennedy, in your confirmation hearings, you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines,” he said. “Since then, I have grown deeply concerned.”

The four-term senator, who was also an orthopedic surgeon, added: “There are real concerns that safe, proven vaccines like measles, like hepatitis B and others, could be in jeopardy. And that would put Americans at risk and reverse decades of progress.”

Barrasso cited recent measles outbreaks in communities with low vaccination rates. He also suggestively cited how George Washington once reversed himself to support the smallpox vaccine for soldiers – seemingly suggesting maybe Kennedy should take a page out of that book.

GOP Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina also repeatedly suggested that Kennedy had violated his promises on vaccines.

“I do also believe that some of your statements seem to contradict what you said in the prior hearing,” said Tillis, whose decision not to run for reelection next year frees him from some of the primary fears that often haunt GOP lawmakers.

Neither senator pressed the secretary to respond, but they seemed to be laying markers.

Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism was hardly a secret when he was confirmed. But the subject didn’t seem to interest many Republicans besides Cassidy back then. It clearly does now.

3. Kennedy was hugely combative
It’s difficult to overstate how combative Kennedy was during this hearing. Whether that’s because of the pressure he’s under or because he deduced that’s what Trump likes to see, it was striking.

After Cassidy pressed him on Operation Warp Speed, Kennedy responded, “Is this a question, Senator Cassidy, or is this a speech that you don’t want me to answer?”

After the Louisiana Republican claimed that Kennedy’s moves mean “effectively we’re denying people vaccines,” the HHS secretary shot back: “You’re wrong.”

Kennedy accused Democrats on the committee of “making stuff up.” He told one, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He accused another of “talking gibberish.”

4. Kennedy struggled to account for his promise on vaccine access
Perhaps the most significant policy question looming over the hearing – and the future of Kennedy and the CDC – is the one Cassidy concluded with: how much Kennedy’s actions are actually going to restrict access to vaccines.

During his confirmation hearings in January, Kennedy made a very broad promise: “I will do nothing as HHS Secretary that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking vaccines.”

But HHS’s moves have clearly jeopardized access to Covid vaccines. By narrowing their approval, the agency has added barriers for people – if they can even get them at all.

Kennedy repeatedly walked a fine line. Rather than hewing to his previous message about not making vaccine access difficult, he suggested people would still be able to access vaccines, at least somehow.

Cassidy showed him a social media post from conservative commentator Erick Erickson, who said HHS’s moves have prevented his wife, who has Stage IV lung cancer, from getting the Covid vaccine. Kennedy said it was “wrong” that people were effectively being denied the vaccine.

(Erickson stood by his post on Thursday, writing, “my wife literally went to get the vaccine and CVS could not give it to her.”)

Ultimately, under intense questioning from Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Kennedy suggested it was good enough that vaccines were still available, at least in some form.

“I’m not taking vaccines away from anybody,” Kennedy said, adding: “You can still get Covid vaccines, senator.”

But Kennedy tacitly admitted that narrowing approval made it harder to access. He acknowledged, for example, that “it depends on the state” when it comes to whether people can easily access the vaccine at a pharmacy. He also said HHS is not going to “recommend every product in the world.”

But Tillis clearly wasn’t impressed.

“There seem to be several reports that would seem to refute” Kennedy’s promise, Tillis said.

5. What to watch next
One exchange early in the hearing will surely be revisited.

Kennedy was asked to respond to the recently ousted CDC Director Dr. Susan Monarez’s claims about him. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed Thursday, she wrote that during a meeting in late August with Kennedy, she “was told to preapprove the recommendations” of a vaccine advisory committee to which Kennedy has recently appointed some vaccine skeptics.

Kennedy not only flatly denied it but accused Monarez of lying.

“I did not say that to her,” Kennedy said repeatedly.

Often in such circumstances, witnesses will talk around the issue and suggest that maybe there was a misunderstanding. But Kennedy didn’t do that.

Monarez’s attorneys responded Thursday by saying Monarez “stands by” her account and “would repeat it all under oath.”

It will be interesting to see if another committee – such as Cassidy’s Senate health committee – probes further.

ason Mitton wanted one of the new COVID-19 vaccines before leaving on a business trip. But the pharmacists at a drug store near his home in Austin, Texas, refused.

"He's like: 'Do you have a doctor's note?' I said: 'No, I don't.' He said: 'Well, the FDA standards say that you don't qualify. And our policy is that we won't administer it unless you qualify,'" says Mitton.

Mitton, who's 55 and says he has high blood pressure and high cholesterol that's controlled by medication, plans to keep trying to get vaccinated.

"I think it's ridiculous," Mitton says. "I think it should be a person's right to get the vaccine or not. So I'm very angry."

COVID vaccines used to be available for drop-in patients at many pharmacies. Now with federal policy changes, availability is more limited and may depend on state-by-state guidance.
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The same goes for Cheryl Huges, 64, who lives outside Cleveland. She was planning to get another shot as soon as the updated versions became available. But, she's not eligible.

"I'm furious," says Hughes. "Who wants to get sick?"

For the first time, COVID vaccines aren't available to anyone ages 6 months and older to obtain simply by walking into a pharmacy and asking to get inoculated.

In a major departure, the Food and Drug Administration only approved the shots for those at greatest risk for getting seriously ill from COVID because they're at least 65 years old or have another health issue that makes them highly vulnerable.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other Trump administration health officials argue that most otherwise healthy, younger people have so much immunity that they don't necessarily need annual boosters anymore.

But many Americans who don't meet the new criteria do still want to get vaccinated to avoid getting sick or spreading the virus to vulnerable family members.

And independent medical organizations like the Infectious Disease Society of America argue that everyone should have the option to get vaccinated because there is convincing evidence that the vaccines reduce the risk of serious complications, including hospitalization and death, even for people who are otherwise healthy.

The Food and Drug Administration's approvals for the latest round of COVID-19 shots restrict the shots to people at higher risk of complications from COVID.
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Hughes wants to remain healthy so she can care for her husband, who has dementia. She's his only caretaker.

"If I get sick, my husband might have to go into a care facility. I could lose my job. It would be terrible," Hughes says.

What it takes to get the shot
Secretary Kennedy has repeatedly claimed the new rules won't prevent anyone from getting vaccinated if they want to. But many people have told NPR that they are having trouble.

In principle, you can still get vaccinated if you meet the criteria, get a doctor to prescribe a shot, or if you "self attest" that you're eligible by telling the pharmacist you meet the criteria.

But sometimes people are turned away because supplies of the reformulated shots haven't arrived yet. Sometimes it's because they didn't meet the new criteria. Or they're told they can get a shot if they get a prescription first, only to be inexplicably rejected anyway when they return with a doctor's order.

Some people describe hunting for a shot from pharmacy to pharmacy and doctor's office to doctor's office — even sometimes seeking one out of state.

The companies that make the shots, Moderna, Pfizer and Novavax, didn't say exactly how many doses they were making this year, given the narrower FDA approvals. But Pfizer says it is preparing "similar volumes" as last year, and that it's confident it will meet demand. It also says millions of doses have already shipped.

Claire Hannan, the executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers, says she doesn't expect vaccine supply to be a problem. She says pharmacies are able to order the COVID shots and they've been shipped out.

"I think it's going to be harder to access," she says. "But I think anybody that wants it, you know, will be able to get it. But they're just going to have to work hard to find it."

But some clinics and pharmacies haven't received the supplies they've ordered yet. And some doctors' offices, including pediatricians, and clinics may decide not to stock the shots this year if they don't expect enough demand.

If you're trying to find one, Pfizer and Moderna both have vaccine-finder websites up and running.

Waiting for the CDC's guidance
One major snag is that pharmacists in some states are prohibited from administering the shots until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issues specific recommendations for who should get vaccinated.

In past years, those recommendations came in the spring. But Kennedy fired the entire Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the independent group that formulates those recommendations, and replaced the members with his own advisers.

Kennedy's new committee is finally scheduled to meet next week about the COVID vaccines and other issues. That could alleviate some of the problems, including hesitancy that some pharmacists and doctors have because of the changing rules and confusion.

But it remains unclear what the advisers will do. They could make it easier, or harder, for people to get a shot. Many of the committee's new members share Kennedy's anti-vaccine views.

Either way, until the committee meeting happens, the shots that are part of the Vaccines for Children Program won't ship, says Hannan, who explained that people haven't been able to order them yet. About half of kids in the U.S. are eligible for free vaccines through the program.

Health insurance coverage could also prove tricky. Although Aetna and United Healthcare told NPR they will cover the COVID shot with no cost sharing for people with fully insured plans — even for people outside the FDA's narrower approval — it's not clear what other insurance companies will do. And even people who have Aetna or United could have other kinds of plans that don't cover the shot, which could set patients back around $200.

Fears for vulnerable family members, kids
In the meantime, many Americans have been scrambling to try to figure out how to still get vaccinated.

"I'm very angry, frustrated," says Allison Cote, 32, of Bristol, Conn.

Cote wants to stay well to protect her father, who has heart failure, other family members who have diabetes, and one relative who recently got a kidney transplant.

She's also concerned about her 16-month-old son. He's not eligible to get vaccinated either this year, even though COVID can be very dangerous for babies. The new shots are only approved for children who have conditions that put them at high risk.

In fact, the CDC this spring dropped recommendations that children and pregnant women routinely get vaccinated. For children, the agency recommends parents talk to their doctors first about vaccinating their children.

"It's just really upsetting," Cote says. "Why do I have to jump through hoops to do this? It's kind of scary."

If she has to, Cote says she may do what some people are doing: just say she's eligible. But she doesn't feel great about that. And she has no idea how to get a shot for her baby boy.

"It's hard to watch this play out and know that there are so many lives at risk — and potentially my son's life is at risk too," Cote says.

Stephan Neidenbach, 45, a public school teacher from Annapolis, Md., is frustrated and angry too. He's worried about getting sick and spreading the virus to his students, his elderly parents or his mother-in-law, who has lung problems.

"I would feel horrible if I did get it and if I passed it off to someone that I cared about. It's terrifying," Neidenbach says.

He's considering fibbing about his eligibility to get a shot too.

Therese McRae, 37, of Sandy, Utah, also wants to get vaccinated. Her main motivation is to protect her 4-year-old daughter, who has Type 1 diabetes, which puts her at risk for serious complications.

"Being a parent of a young child with a complex medical diagnosis is hard enough," McRae says. "Having folks around her not being able to be vaccinated increases her risk. It's just very overwhelming. It's scary."

Karen Lambey, 43, who lives near Richmond, Va., desperately wants a vaccine too. She says she became immunocompromised after developing long COVID. Her pharmacist told her she needed a prescription to get the shot and she hasn't been able to find a doctor to give her one.

"Any sort of flu, COVID, would set me back significantly," Lambey says. "These are all extra hurdles that keep adding up. I feel disappointed because this is something that is important to my health."

And Lambey's parents are immune compromised too. She's afraid of spreading the virus to them. "That could potentially be life-threatening for them," she says. "I couldn't live with that."

Food and Drug Administration officials plan to present data they claim links the Covid vaccine to 25 deaths in children at what’s expected to be a closely watched vaccine advisory committee next week, a source confirmed to NBC News.

The Washington Post first reported the expected data.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, is scheduled to meet Thursday and Friday to review and make recommendations on several vaccines, including this fall’s updated Covid shots.

The FDA is basing its claim on an analysis of data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, a publicly available database maintained by the FDA and the CDC, according to three sources familiar with the plan.

But, two of the sources said, the agency is misusing the database which allows anyone — including doctors, patients and caregivers — to submit reports to VAERS about adverse events they believe are linked to vaccines. The reports are unverified, but the health agencies use the database as a guide for topics to investigate further.

Dorit Reiss, a vaccine policy expert at the University of California Law, San Francisco, said the database reports can't prove a connection between vaccination and children's deaths.

“To identify causation to a vaccine you need to show that the cause of death was something the vaccine caused, and by itself, a VAERS report would not show that — you need larger studies comparing incidents of the harm with or without the vaccine,” she said in an email.

In a statement, Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, said: “FDA and CDC staff routinely analyze VAERS and other safety monitoring data, and those reviews are being shared publicly through the established ACIP process.”

Last week, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary told CNN that the agency was looking into deaths of healthy children from the Covid shots.

“We’ve been looking into the VAERS database of self-reports that there have been children that have died from the Covid vaccine,” Makary said. “We’re going to release a report in the coming few weeks and we’re going to let people know. We’re doing an intense investigation.”

The VAERS website warns that reports can contain inaccurate, incomplete or biased information. "As a result, there are limitations on how the data can be used scientifically. Data from VAERS reports should always be interpreted with these limitations in mind."

The Washington Post reported that Makary’s special adviser Dr. Tracy Beth Høeg, a sports medicine physician who criticized Covid shots for children during the pandemic, is expected to present the new findings at next week’s vaccine committee meeting.

One former FDA official, who requested anonymity to speak freely, pushed back on the findings.

“I can tell you on a stack of Bibles that we looked through all of the autopsy reports and that we didn’t find anything,” the official said in a text message. “Unless someone was hiding them from us I don’t know what they’re referring to.”

Food and Drug Administration officials plan to present data they claim links the Covid vaccine to 25 deaths in children at what’s expected to be a closely watched vaccine advisory committee next week, a source confirmed to NBC News.

The Washington Post first reported the expected data.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, is scheduled to meet Thursday and Friday to review and make recommendations on several vaccines, including this fall’s updated Covid shots.

The FDA is basing its claim on an analysis of data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, a publicly available database maintained by the FDA and the CDC, according to three sources familiar with the plan.

But, two of the sources said, the agency is misusing the database which allows anyone — including doctors, patients and caregivers — to submit reports to VAERS about adverse events they believe are linked to vaccines. The reports are unverified, but the health agencies use the database as a guide for topics to investigate further.

Dorit Reiss, a vaccine policy expert at the University of California Law, San Francisco, said the database reports can't prove a connection between vaccination and children's deaths.

“To identify causation to a vaccine you need to show that the cause of death was something the vaccine caused, and by itself, a VAERS report would not show that — you need larger studies comparing incidents of the harm with or without the vaccine,” she said in an email.

In a statement, Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, said: “FDA and CDC staff routinely analyze VAERS and other safety monitoring data, and those reviews are being shared publicly through the established ACIP process.”

Last week, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary told CNN that the agency was looking into deaths of healthy children from the Covid shots.

“We’ve been looking into the VAERS database of self-reports that there have been children that have died from the Covid vaccine,” Makary said. “We’re going to release a report in the coming few weeks and we’re going to let people know. We’re doing an intense investigation.”

The VAERS website warns that reports can contain inaccurate, incomplete or biased information. "As a result, there are limitations on how the data can be used scientifically. Data from VAERS reports should always be interpreted with these limitations in mind."

The Washington Post reported that Makary’s special adviser Dr. Tracy Beth Høeg, a sports medicine physician who criticized Covid shots for children during the pandemic, is expected to present the new findings at next week’s vaccine committee meeting.

One former FDA official, who requested anonymity to speak freely, pushed back on the findings.

“I can tell you on a stack of Bibles that we looked through all of the autopsy reports and that we didn’t find anything,” the official said in a text message. “Unless someone was hiding them from us I don’t know what they’re referring to.”

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist, has promised not to “take away anybody’s vaccines.”

Beyond restricting who is eligible for certain shots — as he’s already done for this year’s Covid vaccines — experts say Kennedy can take steps that could drive drug companies to stop making vaccines entirely.

In the 1980s, lawsuits fueled by the nascent anti-vaccine movement led more than a dozen manufacturers to stop producing vaccines, creating shortages, according to Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Domestic vaccine production survived only because Congress stepped in to create a no-fault alternative to the traditional legal system, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, or VICP, which protected vaccine makers from liability and created a special vaccine court to award financial damages to people harmed by vaccines, said Dr. Walter Orenstein, an infectious disease expert and emeritus professor of medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine.

The program’s legal protections for plaintiffs and drugmakers have helped ensure the United States has a reliable supply of vaccines ever since, Orenstein said.

As health secretary, Kennedy has that program in his sights.

Kennedy — who has long cast vaccine manufacturers as the enemy and has been involved in litigation against them — has amped up his attacks on the VICP, criticizing the program on social media and TV.

In a July post on X, Kennedy disparaged the VICP as corrupt and “broken” and vowed to “fix it.”

“The VICP routinely dismisses meritorious cases outright or drags them out for years,” Kennedy wrote. “Instead of ‘quickly and fairly’ awarding compensation, Special Masters dismiss over half of the cases.”

When asked for comment on Kennedy and VICP, Emily Hilliard, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, referred NBC News to the secretary’s X post.

The Pharmaceutical Manufacturers of America, an industry group, said that the VICP doesn’t shield drug companies from all liability. People whose claims are denied by the VICP can still sue in a traditional court, said Andrew Powaleny, a PhRMA spokesperson.

The program, which is funded through a 75-cent surcharge on vaccines, has helped thousands of people, Powaleny said, awarding $5.4 billion to plaintiffs since its founding.

Offit said that eliminating or undermining the VICP could lead history to repeat itself.

“If you want to destroy vaccines in this country, if your goal is to eliminate vaccine manufacturing in this country, the best way to do that is through attacking the VICP,” Offit said.

‘Opening the floodgates’
The VICP is not without its limitations, said Dorit Reiss, a professor and vaccine policy expert at the University of California, San Francisco School of Law.

The program desperately needs more resources to address the backlog of cases, Reiss said. The program also allows families only three years to make a claim, even though some potentially serious injuries might not become apparent for four or five years.

Although members of Congress have tried to pass legislation several times to give the VICP more resources — including the ability to hire more special masters, who act as judges — the efforts have never succeeded.

Because Congress created the VICP, only Congress has the authority to update or eliminate it, Reiss said.

Yet the health secretary wields significant power over the program. And he has big plans.

In an interview with Tucker Carlson in June, Kennedy said, “We just brought a guy in this week who’s going to be revolutionizing the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.”

Although Kennedy didn’t name the employee, he has brought Andrew Downing, an attorney with experience suing vaccine manufacturers, onto his staff, a development that was first reported in June by NOTUS, a digital news site. Downing is listed in HHS’ employee directory as a counselor in the Office of the Secretary. Both Downing and Kennedy, who is also a lawyer, have been involved with lawsuits against Merck over its HPV vaccine, Gardasil.

Kennedy could threaten vaccine production by making two types of changes to the VICP, experts say: by adding new conditions to the VICP’s list of injuries, or by withdrawing recommendations for certain vaccines.

The VICP compensates people who have been injured by any of the 16 routinely recommended pediatric vaccines, as long as the balance of medical evidence shows that their health problem is related to vaccines, Reiss said. So while VICP compensates people for severe allergic reactions, the program does not compensate people whose children develop autism, because research has found no link between autism and vaccines.

Offit fears that Kennedy wants to add autism and other conditions to the VICP program.

Kennedy has commissioned a report on the causes of autism and has said it would be released in September. Dr. Marty Makary, head of the Food and Drug Administration, told Bloomberg TV on Sept. 8 that the report would come out “within a month.”

An anti-vaccine activist, David Geier, was picked by Kennedy to write the report, so it’s likely that the paper will echo Kennedy’s claims linking vaccines to autism, Offit said.

Adding autism to VICP would “open the floodgates to claims previously dismissed, overwhelming the system and inflating program costs,” said Y. Tony Yang, a professor at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health. Vaccine “manufacturers would read that as legal and reputational risk, which historically leads to exits or constrained supply.”

Changing vaccine recommendations
In order for vaccines to be included in the VICP, they must be recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Reiss said. If a vaccine is removed from the agency’s recommendations, people who believe they have been injured by that vaccine could no longer bring claims to the vaccine court and instead would have to go through the legal system, she said.

An onslaught of lawsuits in traditional courts could prompt drug companies to conclude that making vaccines costs them too much money, leading them to leave the market, experts say.

Orenstein said that pushing the lawsuits into the traditional legal system could also hurt plaintiffs.

The VICP protects children with legitimate vaccine injuries, he said, noting serious injuries are extremely rare. Orenstein said the nation owes a debt to families who vaccinate their children, whose immunity helps to protect medically fragile people who can’t be vaccinated or who don’t respond to vaccines.

David J. Carney, an attorney at Green & Schafle in Philadelphia and president of the Vaccine Injured Petitioners Bar Association, said that without the VICP, families of children with rare vaccine-related injuries would need to find to a lawyer to take their case and would have a much harder time winning compensation through the regular court system than through the VICP.

It “would force families into traditional civil litigation — a far more expensive and uncertain process,” Carney said.