RFK Jr. resurrects task force to improve childhood vaccine safety

The Health and Human Services Department said Thursday it is reviving a federal task force created to improve the safety of childhood vaccines, saying it's needed to reaffirm its commitment to vaccine oversight. Why it matters: The move could be a prelude to changes to the federal childhood vaccination schedule and comes just months after the anti-vaccine group Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. founded backed a lawsuit against him that sought to re-establish the task force.Steps like reviving the panel are critical "in light of this jump in the number of CDC-recommended childhood vaccines," the lawsuit said.Driving the news: The task force will be chaired by NIH director Jay Bhattacharya and make recommendations on the development of childhood vaccines that "result in fewer and less serious adverse reactions than those vaccines currently on the market," HHS said.It will also weigh in on improvements in vaccine development, production, distribution, and the reporting of adverse reactions.Task force members will include senior leadership from NIH, the FDA and the CDC.Between the lines: It's the latest move by the agency under Kennedy to upend policy on vaccines for children. Kennedy in May cut back access on COVID shots for healthy kids and healthy pregnant women. He also straddled the line between recommending vaccinations and endorsing ineffective treatments during the Texas measles outbreak.What they're saying: "RFK Jr. will use this task force to legitimize his false claims about vaccine safety, which will then be used to manipulate the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program," said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia."He will do nothing to make vaccines safer. But that's not really his goal. His goal is to lessen their use," Offit said."This is a response to a performative lawsuit that was filed to give RFK Jr. another mechanism to put kids at risk of preventable diseases," Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan, told Axios.This is a developing story that will be updated.

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