HHS has launched four agencywide actions targeting vaccine injuries, including a new National Institutes of Health clinic for patients reporting health problems after vaccination and a proposed CMS policy to pay physicians for reporting suspected injuries.
Six things to know:
1. NIH opened the vaccine injury clinic Oct. 5 at its Bethesda, Md., campus. The clinic pairs patient care with research, allowing NIH clinicians and scientists to evaluate patients, investigate potential causes and identify better treatment approaches.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the clinic this week alongside CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz, MD; CDC Director Erica Schwartz, MD; and acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas, according to The New York Times
2. CMS proposed, for the first time, reimbursing physicians for time spent filing suspected vaccine injury reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, aligning Medicare vaccine reporting with typical Medicare reimbursement policies.
3. Federal health IT standards overseen by HHS’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology will require EHRs to capture vaccine-related adverse events so the data follows patients across care settings.
4. The CDC is modernizing VAERS. On Sept. 28, the agency announced a contract to make the system accessible on mobile devices and improve tools for researchers and clinicians investigating safety signals.
5. Vaccine safety experts told the Times they would welcome more research but questioned whether the effort will be grounded in science.
“We need to think about if there are serious adverse events that are occurring from certain vaccines, how do we make sure that these are studied appropriately so that we understand what leads to them, so that we can design safer vaccines in the future,” Helen Chu, MD, an immunologist who sat on the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices until Mr. Kennedy overhauled the group last spring, told the Times.
6. The initiative comes as measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases are rising in the U.S. amid declining vaccination rates. The American Medical Association said it supports legitimate vaccine safety monitoring but that research must be objective and transparent.
“Continuing to undermine confidence in established vaccination practices will further lower immunization rates and fuel the return of preventable diseases,” AMA President Willie Underwood III, MD, said in an Oct. 8 statement.
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