By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D., Children’s Health Defense
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced it has reinstated the Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines, a federal panel created by Congress to improve the safety of childhood vaccines.
The announcement comes one day before the deadline for the agency to respond to a lawsuit alleging that U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. violated federal law by failing to set up the task force when he took over as agency secretary.
The lawsuit, filed in May by attorney Ray Flores and funded by Children’s Health Defense (CHD), alleged that Kennedy was violating the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which requires the HHS secretary to form a vaccine task force promoting vaccine safety and report on its progress to Congress every two years.
“This is a great day for children and a great day for CHD,” Flores told The Defender. He said that tomorrow he plans to file a dismissal “without prejudice,” which means that if the agency fails to follow through on its commitment, he can refile the lawsuit.
CHD CEO Mary Holland celebrated the news. “We are grateful to Secretary Kennedy for fulfilling his duty under the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. It took nearly 30 years for HHS to do this, but at last, we have an HHS secretary who is following the law on this vital issue.”
The 1986 act requires HHS to establish a task force that includes the health secretary, the commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the directors of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Since Congress passed the act over 35 years ago, no health secretary has reported to Congress on steps taken to make vaccines safer, according to Flores.
In 2018, when Kennedy worked as a lawyer, he and co-counsel Aaron Siri sued HHS to obtain copies of the biennial reports from the task force. The lawsuit revealed that no reports were ever submitted. HHS created the first task force in 1990, but it was disbanded in 1998, with no reports produced.
The 1986 act includes a broad provision allowing citizens to sue the secretary if the requirements are not met, which was the basis for Flores to file the lawsuit.
Holland also offered kudos “to attorney Ray Flores, who recognized this unfulfilled obligation and set this HHS action in motion. Citizens can and do create real change for the better.”
At the end of July, Kennedy requested two additional weeks to respond to the lawsuit.
In today’s announcement, just before the extension’s deadline, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya said:
“By reinstating this Task Force, we are reaffirming our commitment to rigorous science, continuous improvement, and the trust of American families. NIH is proud to lead this effort to advance vaccine safety and support innovation that protects children without compromise.”
The Task Force will work with the CDC vaccine advisory committee to provide regular recommendations on the development and refinement of childhood vaccines that cause fewer and less serious adverse reactions than existing vaccines, and to improve vaccine development, production, distribution and adverse reaction reporting.
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Brenda Baletti, Ph.D., is a senior reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master's from the University of Texas at Austin.
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