By Ahmed Aboulenein and Julie Steenhuysen
WASHINGTON, March 25 (Reuters) – An anti-vaccine group aligned with U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is petitioning him to vastly broaden a federal list to include more than 300 injuries it says are linked to immunizations, and has threatened to sue if he does not.
The petition, dated March 20, calls for amendments to the Vaccine Injury Table, which currently lists 47 potential vaccine-related injuries. It enables expedited compensation for claimants without proving a vaccine actually caused their health issue if their symptoms match those on the list.
The petition includes a 60-day notice of intent to sue if Kennedy does not begin the process of amending the table.
The Informed Consent Action Network, part of the Kennedy-led Make America Healthy Again movement and founded by Kennedy’s former presidential campaign communications director Del Bigtree, based its petition on government-commissioned reports that evaluated adverse events associated with vaccines.
The reports did not establish vaccine causation for most injuries, but the petition argues that the government’s commissioning of the studies, in which it uses the word “associated” or says there is “some basis” to believe there is a causal link suffices under the legal standard for adding to the table, which says injuries “associated” with vaccines.
CRITICISM OF PETITION
Scientific and legal experts said the petition stretched legal definitions and would hamper future government research into vaccine injuries.
Noel Brewer, a public health professor at the University of North Carolina and a former member of a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s independent panel of outside vaccine experts, dismissed the reasoning as flawed.
“The lawyer is making the argument that the government considering if something could be harmful made it a harm that should be memorialized as such, and that doesn’t make any sense,” he said. Brewer was among 17 panel members fired by Kennedy last year.
Dorit Reiss, a vaccine law expert at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, also criticized the petition.
“The petition argues that simply analyzing potential harms establishes an association, even if the government found no evidence of one. That interpretation stretches the legal definitions,” she said.
The White House and Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to requests for comment.
The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, a no-fault alternative created to protect vaccine makers and providers from costly litigation and ensure vaccine supply stability, allows claimants to file injury claims against the government, not manufacturers.
LONG-HELD AMBITION
The petition places Kennedy, who profited from his anti-vaccine activities before becoming HHS Secretary, in a position to act on a long-held policy goal to reform the compensation system. He has previously described it as “broken” and “a morass of inefficiency.”
In August, Kennedy reinstated a federal task force for safer childhood vaccines that had been inactive for nearly three decades, one day before a deadline to respond to a lawsuit funded by Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group that he founded.
ICAN’s lawyer Aaron Siri, who has worked with Kennedy on vaccine litigation in the past and served as his presidential campaign’s lawyer, was asked whether he discussed the petition with the health secretary prior to filing it.
“This petition and notice was submitted without any coordination with anyone inside the federal government and we hope that HHS does the right thing in response to it,” Siri told Reuters.
TENSIONS WITH TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
The move is the latest sign of tensions between Kennedy’s MAHA base and President Donald Trump’s administration. Trump angered Kennedy’s supporters earlier this year when he signed an executive order to boost domestic production of the weedkiller glyphosate, which they oppose.
Siri, in a post on X on Monday, suggested that political constraints could hinder Kennedy’s ability to act.
“I have no doubt RFK Jr. wants to update the table and the only reason he wouldn’t is because the White House won’t let him,” Siri wrote. “If that happens, a federal lawsuit will be forthcoming at the end of the 60-day notice period.”
(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein in Washington and Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
