On a balmy December evening in 2024, the patio at Mar-a-Lago was abuzz with anticipation. President-elect Donald Trump, flanked by the heads of pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly and Pfizer, made a promise that would soon reverberate through the nation’s public health infrastructure. Addressing concerns about his pick for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Trump assured the executives that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—long known for his skepticism toward vaccines—would not be the radical they feared. "I think he’s going to be much less radical than you would think," Trump declared, according to reporting from Bloomberg.
Yet, just eight months later, Kennedy’s approach to vaccine policy has proven anything but conventional. According to Bloomberg, Kennedy has intensified his critique of the federal vaccine compensation program, the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), a fund that has paid out more than $5 billion since its inception in 1988. Kennedy, now HHS Secretary, announced on July 28, 2025, via the social platform X, "the VICP is broken, and I intend to fix it." His stated goal: reform a system he claims is failing Americans harmed by vaccines—though he offers little scientific evidence to support his broader claims that vaccines are linked to autism, neurotoxicity, allergies, and even death.
Kennedy’s multipronged strategy has sent shockwaves through the scientific and medical communities. At a governors’ meeting in July 2025, he raised concerns about aluminum adjuvants in vaccines, linking them to allergies. This assertion came despite a recent study in the Annals of Internal Medicine finding no such connection, as highlighted by Bloomberg. Public health leaders, such as virologist Angela Rasmussen at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan, are alarmed. "It’s a radical agenda," Rasmussen told Bloomberg. "He’s using a bunch of different mechanisms and there really are no guardrails. People are going to catch on but it’s not going to be enough to stop the waves of deaths, and deaths of children."
Central to Kennedy’s plan is the VICP itself. The program, funded by a small excise tax on vaccines, offers compensation for injuries determined to be caused by vaccines, such as anaphylaxis and encephalitis. Claims are reviewed by a nonjury vaccine court, with compensation determined by a table maintained by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). Kennedy is reportedly pushing to add conditions like autism and allergies to this table—an action that legal scholars warn could bankrupt the fund, given the high rates of autism diagnoses in the U.S. Dorit Reiss, a professor at UC Law San Francisco, told Bloomberg, "Given the rate of autism, if a lot of cases are brought, that could bankrupt the program."
The implications could be severe. Pharmaceutical companies, already facing slim profits on vaccines, might decide to exit the market rather than risk costly litigation if the VICP were depleted. David Dodd, president and CEO of GeoVax Labs, said, "The compensation fund, if it’s gone, would impact decisions to proceed or not to proceed." Reformulating vaccines to remove aluminum—should a federal advisory panel recommend it—would also entail significant costs and logistical hurdles.
Kennedy’s influence extends beyond policy proposals. According to Bloomberg, he has reconstituted the federal vaccine advisory committee, appointing members skeptical of vaccines and removing liaisons from major industry groups, including the American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association. This newly configured panel has already recommended against flu vaccines containing a preservative erroneously linked to autism. In August 2025, HHS announced the revival of a federal panel, disbanded in 1998, to oversee pediatric vaccines—another move that has drawn scrutiny from public health advocates.
Behind the scenes, Kennedy has maneuvered to place vaccine skeptics in key regulatory roles at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In July 2025, Kennedy struck a deal with Trump and White House staff regarding Vinay Prasad, a top vaccine regulator at the FDA. Facing pressure from conservative commentators and lawmakers, Prasad resigned as head of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, which oversees vaccines and biologics. The center was then divided, with Kennedy gaining authority to select who would oversee vaccines—a move former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb called "very destructive to the agency" in an interview with CNBC.
Meanwhile, Kennedy’s actions have sparked a flurry of legal challenges. In July, he was sued by Ray Flores, senior outside counsel for Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group founded by Kennedy. The lawsuit, funded by the group, alleges that Kennedy failed to launch a task force to study vaccine safety as required by law. Yet, according to Bloomberg, this suit is seen by Kennedy’s allies as "friendly," seeking an outcome he desires. Less amicable is a lawsuit from the American Academy of Pediatrics and other public health organizations, who argue that Kennedy’s actions threaten to undermine vaccine access and development.
The repercussions of Kennedy’s policies are already being felt. In August 2025, HHS announced it was halting $500 million in grants for mRNA vaccine development, including improved COVID-19 vaccines. The federal government also stopped recommending COVID-19 shots for healthy pregnant women and children, bypassing the traditional input from vaccine advisory committees. These decisions have drawn sharp criticism from public health leaders and lawmakers. Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass.) declared on X, "This is reckless. This is dangerous. This will cost lives. We must fight back." Jerome Adams, former U.S. surgeon general, echoed the sentiment: "I’ve tried to be objective & non-alarmist in response to current HHS actions – but quite frankly this move is going to cost lives."
Amid the policy turmoil, Kennedy’s supporters are mounting a vigorous public relations campaign. The nonprofit MAHA Action, in July 2025, initiated a six-figure ad campaign promoting Kennedy and Trump administration health initiatives. "Make no mistake, this is a revolution that will change the face of public health policy," Tony Lyons, president of MAHA Action, proclaimed in a statement. "Americans are demanding radical transparency and gold standard science." Speculation is mounting that Kennedy may be considering a 2028 presidential run, fueled by the fervor of his supporters and the scope of his ambitions.
The opposition to Kennedy’s agenda is not limited to government and industry insiders. On August 19, 2025, a group of vaccine-skeptical doctors and opponents of vaccine mandates filed a federal court challenge against the CDC’s childhood immunization schedule, as reported by POLITICO. Drs. Paul Thomas and Kenneth Stoller, along with Stand for Health Freedom, argue that the schedule lacks adequate scientific backing and violates constitutional rights. They’re asking a federal judge to reclassify most vaccines on the schedule to "shared clinical decision-making" rather than "routine," pending more rigorous safety studies. The CDC’s recommendations, while technically advisory, heavily influence state-level vaccine mandates for schoolchildren.
Critics of this legal action, like Dorit Reiss of UC Law San Francisco, point out that the doctors’ medical licenses were revoked not simply for their vaccine views, but for selling baseless medical exemptions and promoting unproven alternative schedules—some of which left children unprotected against preventable diseases. The broader debate, however, underscores the growing polarization around vaccine policy in the United States.
As the dust settles on a tumultuous year for American public health, the nation finds itself at a crossroads. The future of vaccine policy, once guided by consensus and scientific rigor, now hangs in the balance—caught between competing visions of medical freedom, public safety, and the very definition of evidence-based care.
