REPORT: RFK Jr. to Launch Major Federal Vaccine Injury Initiative

JUST IN: HHS Sec. RFK Jr. is reportedly launching a MAJOR federal effort to investigate VACCINE INJURIES, including a brand new NIH clinic to study and treat the injured — NYT

LONG OVERDUE!

Doctors would get a new billing code so they're actually PAID to report serious… pic.twitter.com/aepdeNEt79

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 8, 2026

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JUST IN: HHS Sec. RFK Jr. is reportedly launching a MAJOR federal effort to investigate VACCINE INJURIES, including a brand new NIH clinic to study and treat the injured — NYT

LONG OVERDUE!

Doctors would get a new billing code so they’re actually PAID to report serious vaccine side effects, plus an upgrade to the broken reporting system

For years, the vaccine-injured were ignored, censored, and called conspiracy theorists. Those days are officially over.

Thank you, @SecKennedy!

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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will announce a new research initiative at the National Institutes of Health to study vaccine injuries on Monday, according to people familiar with the matter.
Kennedy will visit the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland, to unveil the initiative, the people said.

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Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long questioned the safety of vaccines, is planning a broad federal effort to address vaccine injuries, including a new research clinic at the National Institutes of Health and a new billing code to reimburse doctors for filing reports of serious vaccine side effects, according to multiple people familiar with the initiative.

Mr. Kennedy talked about the initiative when he and other top health officials made an unannounced visit to the N.I.H. in Bethesda, Md., earlier this week — his first trip there as secretary — to meet with patients who believe they have been injured by vaccines, according to the people, who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it…

The N.I.H. described the new effort in two little-noticed documents posted on its website in June. The so-called “highlighted topics” notices alerted prospective investigators that the health department “in collaboration with N.I.H., will investigate vaccine injuries with improved data collection and analysis, including through a new vaccine injury research program at the N.I.H. Clinical Center that may expand to centers around the country.”

Mr. Kennedy has made vaccine safety a cornerstone of his tenure as health secretary, despite decades of research showing serious vaccine side effects are rare. Much of his work has focused on a purported link between vaccines and autism, though numerous studies have failed to show such a link. The Trump administration has poured millions into autism research, including funding studies that independent researchers have praised as legitimate academic science.

Mr. Kennedy has long argued that chemicals in vaccines, including mercury and aluminum salts, are dangerous. Experts say there is no evidence that either are harmful.

He has also suggested, without evidence, that vaccines are linked to chronic disease, and has complained that there are no long-term studies about the effects of vaccination. One of the N.I.H. “highlighted topics” announcements calls for large-scale evaluations of vaccines and “their relationships with both positive and negative long-term health outcomes across the lifespan.”

Last month, officials at the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences proposed to fund a broad-based initiative to examine chemical exposures in the environment, and described the plan to a meeting of outside advisers.

The proposal does not explicitly state that the research will relate to vaccines. But one of its goals is “advancing understanding of aluminum, including aluminum-containing compounds encountered through environmental, consumer product, occupational and medically relevant exposures,” and one person familiar with the work said that vaccine research could be a part of it.

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