Dining beneath the palm trees at Mar-a-Lago in December 2024, President-elect Donald Trump sought to calm the nerves of pharmaceutical industry leaders. The topic of concern was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent anti-vaccine activist whom Trump had tapped to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). "I think he’s going to be much less radical than you would think," Trump assured executives from Eli Lilly and Pfizer at a news conference later that month, according to CNN.
Eight months later, that assurance has been put to the test. By August 18, 2025, Kennedy had intensified his campaign against the nation’s vaccine system—setting his sights on the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), a fund established to settle claims of vaccine-related injuries. The outcome, some legal scholars and public health leaders warn, could be catastrophic: the fund may be bankrupted, leaving pharmaceutical companies exposed to lawsuits and possibly driving them out of the vaccine business altogether.
Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan, didn’t mince words. "It’s a radical agenda," she told KFF Health News. "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."
At the heart of Kennedy’s campaign is his claim—repeated without scientific evidence—that vaccines are linked to autism, neurotoxicity, allergies, and even death. He leads the "Make America Healthy Again" movement, which promotes "medical freedom" and questions the safety of vaccines, despite overwhelming scientific consensus to the contrary.
Kennedy has been clear about his intentions to overhaul the VICP. On July 28, 2025, he posted on X (formerly Twitter), "the VICP is broken, and I intend to fix it." The Department of Health and Human Services is now working with the Department of Justice to revamp the program, which currently shields drug manufacturers from most liability over vaccine injuries. HHS officials, for their part, insist that Kennedy is not opposed to immunizations. "Secretary Kennedy is not anti-vaccine — he is pro-safety, pro-transparency, and pro-accountability," said Vianca Rodriguez Feliciano, an HHS spokesperson, in an email to KFF Health News.
Yet behind the scenes, according to multiple sources familiar with internal discussions, Kennedy has been laying the groundwork to restrict the availability of widely used immunizations. The first step in his multipronged strategy: sow doubt about vaccine safety. At an April 2025 Cabinet meeting, Kennedy announced a massive HHS study aimed at identifying the cause of rising autism diagnoses by September 2025. He tapped David Geier—a researcher known for repeating the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism—to oversee the research.
In July 2025, Kennedy raised concerns about the use of aluminum in vaccines at a governors’ meeting, linking it to allergies—despite a recent study in the Annals of Internal Medicine finding no such connection. He’s widely expected to ask a federal vaccine advisory committee to review the use of aluminum in vaccines, a move that could have far-reaching consequences.
The autism research and aluminum debate are just the opening salvos in Kennedy’s broader effort to target the VICP. The compensation fund, established in 1988, has paid out more than $5 billion to people claiming vaccine injuries, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration. Before a lawsuit can be filed in court, injured individuals must bring their claims to the program’s nonjury "vaccine court," which reviews the evidence and determines compensation based on a table of recognized injuries maintained by HRSA and overseen by the HHS secretary.
Kennedy wants to add autism and allergies to this list, according to two people familiar with internal discussions and public concerns raised by vaccine developers and former regulators. If research led by HHS were to blame vaccines for autism, or if a federal advisory panel recommended against aluminum, it could open the floodgates for claims. "Given the rate of autism, if a lot of cases are brought, that could bankrupt the program," Dorit Reiss, a professor at University of California Law San Francisco, told CNN. David Dodd, president and CEO of GeoVax Labs, added, "The compensation fund, if it’s gone, would impact decisions to proceed or not to proceed."
The potential fallout is clear: if the VICP is depleted, pharmaceutical companies—already facing thin profit margins on vaccines—may simply stop making them rather than risk costly lawsuits. A federal advisory panel recommendation against aluminum could also force drugmakers to reformulate vaccines or exit the market entirely.
Kennedy has strategically placed vaccine skeptics in key decision-making positions at both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). He’s also relied on leaders from the anti-vaccine movement to vet candidates for him. The result has been a series of regulatory and policy decisions that have narrowed vaccine access and slowed development. In August 2025, HHS announced it was halting $500 million in grants and contracts for the development of mRNA vaccines, including improved Covid-19 shots. The federal government also stopped recommending Covid-19 vaccines for healthy pregnant women and children, bypassing the usual input from advisory committees.
Kennedy’s reconstitution of the federal vaccine advisory committee was equally controversial. He installed his own handpicked members, many of them vaccine skeptics, and removed major medical associations such as the American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association from their liaison roles. The new panel recommended against flu shots containing thimerosal, a preservative erroneously linked to autism.
In July 2025, Kennedy struck a deal with the White House regarding Vinay Prasad, a top FDA vaccine regulator who had become a lightning rod for criticism after the agency halted shipments of a gene therapy over safety concerns. Amid mounting pressure, Prasad was asked to resign as head of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, and the center was split into two operations—giving Kennedy the authority to select the person overseeing vaccines. Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb warned on CNBC that the move "would be very destructive to the agency." Prasad left the agency in July but is now returning in an unclear role.
Legal challenges have followed. Kennedy was sued by Ray Flores, senior outside counsel for Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group he founded, for allegedly failing to launch a vaccine safety task force required to report findings to Congress. Kennedy and his allies reportedly view the suit as friendly, seeking an outcome he desires. Less friendly are lawsuits from the American Academy of Pediatrics and other public health groups, who argue that Kennedy’s actions endanger children’s health.
The backlash has been fierce. "This is reckless. This is dangerous. This will cost lives. We must fight back," Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass.) posted on X on August 5. 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."
Undeterred, Kennedy’s supporters have launched a sweeping public relations campaign. In July 2025, the nonprofit MAHA Action hosted a call to energize his base and rolled out a six-figure ad campaign touting Kennedy and the Trump administration’s health initiatives. "Make no mistake, this is a revolution that will change the face of public health policy," Tony Lyons, MAHA Action’s president, declared. "Americans are demanding radical transparency and gold standard science."
On August 14, 2025, HHS announced the revival of a federal panel disbanded in 1998 to oversee pediatric vaccines, signaling that the battle over vaccine policy is far from over. As the debate rages, the future of U.S. immunization efforts—and the very structure of public health oversight—hangs in the balance.
