HHS Opens Federal Clinic to Investigate Vaccine Injuries

 The Trump administration has opened a federal clinic to investigate suspected vaccine injuries and is considering paying doctors to report adverse reactions as part of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s push to strengthen vaccine safety oversight.

The clinic opened Monday at the National Institutes of Health headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday.

Kennedy said the initiative will strengthen vaccine safety research and provide care for patients reporting health problems following vaccination.

"We must listen to patients and families who report vaccine injuries — not dismiss or gaslight them," Kennedy said in a statement.

"President [Donald] Trump and I are building a health system that takes them seriously, follows the evidence, and uses what we learn to make vaccines safer," he said.

"This is how we earn back trust in our public health institutions," he added.

The department also proposed reimbursing physicians who report suspected vaccine injuries to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, through Medicare.

HHS will also require electronic health records to capture vaccine-related adverse events and is modernizing VAERS to improve reporting and research.

The initiative has drawn mixed reactions from vaccine researchers, who generally welcome additional safety studies but question whether Kennedy's approach will remain scientifically independent.

Kathryn Edwards, a pediatrician at Vanderbilt University, warned that the initiative could become politicized.

"It's really laudable," Edwards told Science of the effort.

"But if it's not done in a scientific way it will be more anti-vaccine propaganda," she said.

Dr. Helen Chu, an immunologist and former member of a federal vaccine advisory panel, told The New York Times that investigating serious adverse reactions could help researchers develop safer vaccines.

"I do think that we do need to take these adverse events more seriously, and I think that we need to build that into how we fund scientific research in the future," Chu said.

Retired physician Danice Hertz, who advocates for patients reporting vaccine injuries, welcomed the initiative, telling Science, "In my opinion, it should have happened a long time ago."

"There are a lot of very sick people out there," Hertz said.

Kennedy has repeatedly questioned vaccine safety and suggested vaccinations contribute to chronic illnesses, including autism, despite extensive research finding no causal connection.

During a recent Children's Health Defense conference, Kennedy linked vaccines to several conditions, including "diabetes, death, sudden infant death syndrome, anorexia, allergic reactions, allergies, asthma, [and] autoimmune diseases."

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cautions that VAERS reports do not establish whether vaccines caused reported medical conditions.

The agency says submissions "may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/hhs-opens-federal-clinic-investigate-214843268.html