Health
US Re-establishes Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines Amid Lawsuit
Washington, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on August 14, 2025, that it is re-establishing the Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines. This panel of health officials will focus on recommendations for vaccine development, distribution, and monitoring.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, will lead the task force. It will also include the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, according to Andrew Nixon, HHS Director of Communications. Additional panel members will be announced later.
The task force’s revival follows a lawsuit from Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine advocacy group previously led by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The group filed a lawsuit against Kennedy for failing to establish the task force. Experts view this move as performative since Kennedy had proposed reviving it for years.
Originally created by Congress in 1986, the task force last issued a report in 1998. It will work closely with the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines, which addresses Vaccine Injury Compensation Program issues.
Kennedy had previously sued the NIH in 2018 to obtain records of the dormant task force, a suit that was voluntarily dismissed with prejudice.
The task force is expected to submit its first formal report to Congress within two years, with updates every two years thereafter. The recommendations will focus on creating childhood vaccines with fewer and less serious adverse reactions and improving reporting processes related to vaccine development and adverse events.
Vaccine experts expressed skepticism about the task force’s intentions. Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine scientist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, criticized Kennedy’s anti-vaccine stance. “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has fixed beliefs that vaccines are dangerous,” Offit said. “He is now in a position to set up task forces that might support his view that vaccines do more harm than good.”
The revival of the task force aims to enhance safety measures surrounding childhood vaccination, but it is met with mixed reactions from within the public health community.
