RFK Jr. resurrects decades-old vaccine safety task force

Rachel Cohrs Zhang, Bloomberg News on Aug 14, 2025

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

The Department of Health and Human Services is resurrecting a decades-old vaccine safety task force, the agency announced Thursday.

It’s a full-circle moment for HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who claimed after the 2016 election that President Donald Trump had asked him to chair a “commission on vaccine safety and scientific integrity” following a meeting at Trump Tower. During Trump’s first term, that promise fell by the wayside and the panel didn’t come to fruition.

The revival of the task force is the latest step Kennedy has taken to put his stamp on the processes to approve, recommend and monitor the safety of vaccines. He spent years before entering government service questioning whether vaccines are safe and properly tested.

The Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines was first created in the 1980s. Congress directed members to make policy recommendations about developing vaccines with fewer adverse reactions, as well as the production, distribution and safety monitoring of immunizations. The original task force was disbanded in 1998 after producing a report outlining vaccine safety recommendations.

“By reinstating this Task Force, we are reaffirming our commitment to rigorous science, continuous improvement, and the trust of American families,” National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya said in a written statement.

Dorit Reiss, a professor at UC Law San Francisco, said it’s unclear what value the panel will add, as its responsibilities overlap with other government committees. She said that if panelists who aren’t vaccine experts are appointed, they could undermine immunizations without improving safety.

Kennedy and his allies have complained for years that the task force should have continued and produced reports every two years. They sued HHS for records related to its work before Kennedy took office.

Aaron Siri, the managing partner at the law firm Siri & Glimstad who filed the public records lawsuit alongside Kennedy, welcomed the news that the task force was reinstated.

“The fact that it was disbanded, when it is clearly intended by law as a perpetual committee, reflects that HHS long ago abandoned its vaccine safety duties,” he said in a statement to Bloomberg. “Hopefully, that changes today.”

The anti-vaccine group where Kennedy served as board chair and chief litigation counsel before joining the government, Children’s Health Defense, funded a lawsuit against the HHS secretary in May for not creating the task force. Mary Holland, the group’s president and chief executive officer, said she is grateful to Kennedy for following the law now.

The HHS announcement didn’t provide any detail about who would be part of the revived task force.

In comments after voting for Kennedy’s confirmation, Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said the HHS secretary promised that Cassidy would be able to select “a representative on any board or commission formed to review vaccine safety.”

Cassidy’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the new panel.

Kennedy has also changed the normal functioning of another government vaccine panel, the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In June, he fired every member of the expert advisory panel and replaced them with his own picks, some of whom had criticized Covid vaccines.

____

(With assistance from Zachary Sherwood.)