HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is planning a federal vaccine injury initiative that includes a new research clinic at the National Institutes of Health and a new billing code to reimburse physicians for reporting serious vaccine side effects, The New York Times reported Oct. 7, citing multiple people familiar with the effort.
Mr. Kennedy discussed the initiative during an unannounced visit to the NIH campus in Bethesda, Md., earlier this week — his first trip there as HHS secretary — to meet with patients who believe vaccines injured them. CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz, MD; CDC Director Erica Schwartz, MD, and acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas also joined the visit.
NIH described the effort in two notices posted to its website in June. The notices said HHS and NIH will investigate vaccine injuries through better data collection and a new research program at the NIH Clinical Center that may expand to centers across the country. One notice also calls for large-scale studies of vaccines’ positive and negative long-term health outcomes.
HHS did not respond to the Times‘ requests for comment. A spokesperson for NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, declined to comment.
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.
The initiative comes as measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases are rising in the U.S. amid declining vaccination rates.
Editor’s note: Becker’s reached out to HHS for comment and will update the article if more information becomes available.
