RFK Jr revives childhood vaccine task force

 In another sign of increased regulatory scrutiny of vaccines in the US, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has brought back a long-defunct task force that focused on the safety of childhood immunisations.

The Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines, which was set up in the mid-1980s but dissolved in 1998, was tasked with making recommendations on vaccine use and safety monitoring.

Its reinstatement had been sought by Children's Health Defense, an anti-vaccine advocacy group formerly led by Kennedy, which sued the HHS Secretary for failing to do so on the grounds that he was violating US laws on vaccine monitoring.

The task force will be led by NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya and will also include recently appointed CDC director Susan Monarez and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary. It will deliver its first report to Congress within two years, according to HHS, and its role will be to "improve the safety, quality, and oversight of vaccines administered to American children."

Tasks will include assisting the "development, promotion, and refinement" of childhood vaccines that have fewer serious side effects than those already on the market, and will also draft new guidance on "vaccine development, production, distribution, and adverse reaction reporting," said HHS.

It will work closely with the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines on recommendations, a group that reviews issues relating to the Vaccine Injury Compensation Programme (VICP). In July, Kennedy said he intended to make changes to the programme, claiming it "hobbles claimants" and "has devolved into a morass of inefficiency, favouritism, and outright corruption."

Under Kennedy, the HHS has cut federal funding for mRNA vaccines, removed COVID-19 shots from the CDC's routine immunisation recommendations for healthy children and pregnant women, and fired the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices (ACIP), subsequently stacking it with members who are more closely aligned with his thinking on vaccines.

There have also been cuts to funding for immunisation programmes, the launch of an inquiry into the idea that vaccines can cause autism, and a recommendation to ban the vaccine preservative thimerosal.

https://pharmaphorum.com/news/rfk-jr-revives-childhood-vaccine-task-force