WASHINGTON — Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is vowing to “fix” the federal program for compensating Americans injured by vaccines, opening the door to sweeping changes for a system long targeted by anti-vaccine activists.
Health experts and lawyers say updates are needed to help clear a backlog of cases in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, created by Congress in 1986 as a no-fault payment system for presumed vaccine injuries.
But they also worry Kennedy’s changes will reflect his history as a leader in the anti-vaccine movement, which has alternately called for abolishing the program or expanding it to cover unproven injuries and illnesses that aren’t connected to vaccines.
Kennedy and other critics believe the program is “too miserly in what it considers to be a vaccine injury,” said Jason Schwartz, a public health expert at Yale University. “That’s created great concern that he could expand what’s included.”
Anti-vaccine groups have long suggested a link between vaccines and autism, despite scientific consensus that childhood vaccines don’t cause the condition. Adding autism to the list of injuries covered by the plan “would dramatically increase the number of compensable cases, potentially bankrupting it,” Schwartz said.
Signed into law under President Ronald Reagan, the compensation program is designed to provide quick, efficient compensation to Americans who report known injuries associated with vaccines, such as rare allergic reactions. At the time of its creation, a number of vaccine-makers were exiting the business due to risks of class action lawsuits.
In a recent social media post, Kennedy called the program “broken” and accused federal lawyers and adjudicators who run it of “inefficiency, favoritism and outright corruption.”
Kennedy didn’t specify the changes he’s seeking. But some of the people he’s enlisted to help have a history of bringing vaccine injury cases.
In June, the Department of Health and Human Services awarded a $150,000 contract to an Arizona law firm for “expertise” in the program. The firm’s Andrew Downing, an attorney specializing in vaccine injury cases, was listed in the HHS staff directory for a time.
“We just brought a guy in this week who is going to be revolutionizing the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program,” Kennedy told Tucker Carlson shortly after the award.
Revamping the program would be the latest in a string of decisions that have upended U.S. vaccine policy, including this week’s cancellation of research funding for vaccines using mRNA technology.
Downing has had a leading role in lawsuits against Merck alleging injuries from its HPV vaccine, Gardasil, including a rare movement disorder.
In a podcast last year for people with the condition, Downing lamented that the injury compensation program “has taken a hard line” against such cases, leading lawyers to file injury lawsuits in civil court. Approximately 70% of the Gardasil cases against Merck started as claims filed by Downing in the federal injury program, according to court records.
A judge dismissed more than 120 of those cases, citing “a paucity of evidence” that Gardasil caused patients’ problems.
A spokesman for Kennedy declined to comment on Downing’s hiring.
Kennedy himself has been involved in the Gardasil litigation, as both an attorney and consul