Kennedy Reinstates HHS Task Force on Childhood Vaccines

Written By Lexx Thornton

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Thursday that HHS is reinstating the Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines, which disbanded in 1998. The decision comes months after a group he once led sued to bring back the panel. 

 The Children’s Health Defense, which Kennedy founded, filed a lawsuit in May against Kennedy over his failure to reconstitute the task force. Kennedy founded CHD years before he launched his presidential campaign in 2023, before dropping out and endorsing President Donald Trump’s campaign. 

 The move is the latest in a string of decisions by Kennedy and his department, seemingly aligned with some of the goals of the anti-vaccine movement. 

 Here are others: 

ACIP overhaul: In June, Kennedy fired the panel that votes on changes to the childhood and adult vaccine schedules, replacing them with new members more closely aligned with his more vaccine-skeptical views. 

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has long drawn the ire of anti-vaccine activists and groups, many of which have argued that the panel’s members had conflicts of interest. ACIP members were already required to follow transparency rules and disclose potential conflicts. 

 At the reconstituted panel’s first meeting the same month, the new members voted to stop recommending that anyone get a flu vaccine containing thimerosal. The CDC website says that there is “no evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines, except for minor reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site.” 

But the anti-vaccine movement and Kennedy himself have long theorized that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative, causes neurological issues. The decision came after a presentation from Lyn Redwood, a former president of the CHD, who identified herself only as a “private citizen.” 

 Covid vaccine changes: Kennedy bucked the normal ACIP process in May, when he announced changes to the CDC’s Covid-19 vaccine recommendations without first waiting for a vote from the panel, as customary. 

 Those changes included removing the recommendation that healthy pregnant women get vaccinated and narrowing the recommendation for healthy children. 

Many anti-vaccine groups have argued that the Covid vaccine is unsafe for children. In 2022, CHD sued the FDA over its emergency use authorization of the shots, arguing “defendants used this precarious emergency power to push dangerous drugs on minors.” 

 mRNA cancellations: Kennedy announced plans last week to cancel $500 million in messenger RNA vaccine development projects — the technology used during Trump’s first term amid the “Project Warp Speed” effort to swiftly develop a Covid vaccine. Anti-vaccine groups have repeatedly argued that the technology is unsafe — arguments echoed by Kennedy in his explanation of the decision.