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Weeks after the National Institutes of Health (NIH) launched its new vaccine injury center, key details remain unclear — including what the center actually does and who can seek care there.
To learn more about how the center operates and how the public can access it, The Defender spoke this week with an NIH official knowledgeable about the project.
“The Vaccinology Immunology Center — which is what we’re calling it — is actually a research study/protocol,” the health official said. “It got that name ‘center’ because we actually wanted to distinguish it from a clinic,” where people get routine healthcare.
The official acknowledged that the terminology for the new NIH center has been “rather confusing for people.” The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services initially referred to it as a “clinic dedicated to studying and caring for patients experiencing health problems following vaccination.”
The Vaccinology Immunology Center operates within the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ (NIAID) Vaccine Research Center — which can add another level of confusion, as it’s a center inside a larger center, the official said.
And the new center is physically located inside yet another “center” — the NIH Clinical Center — a preexisting hospital on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland.
Study limited to adults, for now
The Vaccinology Immunology Center initially will focus exclusively on adults enrolled in the study. It won’t provide routine medical care, but leadership is committed to connecting participants with local doctors for ongoing treatment, according to the official.
Eventually, officials hope to enroll children once the NIH Clinical Center establishes a pediatric unit, the official said. Work on the pediatric unit is underway, “including starting a pediatric intensive care unit,” the official said.
The eligibility criteria for selecting participants won’t be published until the study protocol is finalized, the official said. “We’re still going through the nuts and bolts. We don’t know what to tell people to submit until we finalize the study protocol.”
The NIH plans to launch the study by the end of this year. “This whole thing went from an idea under discussion in July to now getting off the ground in October. That’s monumentally quick for an NIH study,” he said. People should stay tuned and know that NIH staff are working as fast as they can to hammer out the study details, he said.
People interested in enrolling in the study can call the NIH Clinical Center’s Office of Patient Recruitment at 1-800-411-1222 or email [email protected].
The official said he expects many of the people who sign up will have been injured by COVID-19 shots, given the vast number of people who took that vaccine. However, the study is open to those injured by any vaccine.
“We’re not limiting it to any particular vaccine,” the official said. “In fact, one of our hypotheses going in is that perhaps the mechanisms of immunological abnormalities are similar across these vaccines.”
The latest data in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, show that as of Sept. 25, there were 1,678,901 reports of injuries following COVID-19 vaccines, including 320,107 reports of serious injuries or deaths.
Study will focus on biological mechanism behind vaccine injuries
NIH scientists plan to examine the biological mechanisms behind adverse vaccine reactions and investigate long-term symptoms after an infection, such as long COVID.
According to an FAQ about the new center included with a joint statement from NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya and NIAID Acting Director John Powers III, researchers at the center will work with study participants to initially answer these questions:
- What biological mechanisms could explain the symptoms?
- What other causes or contributing factors might be involved?
- Why might some people face greater risk than others?
- Which approaches could improve treatment and care?
As the NIH scientists start investigating these questions, new questions will likely arise that the researchers want to explore, the official said.
“The goal of this new study is to actually explore the immunology of why people are experiencing what they’re experiencing — and this is a big shift for NIAID,” the official said.
Over time, officials hope the study will yield scientific results that can be used to develop safer vaccines and effective treatments for those suffering long-term symptoms from an infection or a vaccine injury.
“All we’re trying to do is figure out why these folks have these things and actually try to help them,” the official said.
He added:
“Part of being a good doctor is having some empathy for people. These are folks that clearly are experiencing something in their lives, and I say this all the time, it is a massive privilege to work here, that you live and work in a country that thinks that research is such a valuable thing that we’re willing to take tax dollars and put it towards this.”
In the past, NIAID research focused narrowly on germs, or microbes, without paying much attention to how a person’s immune system responded to the germs, the official said.
NIAID’s Strategic Plan 2026-2030 states that the agency’s vision is to “improve human health through an integrated, person-centered approach to immune-mediated and infectious diseases research.”
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Will NIH study deliver meaningful answers to the vaccine-injured?
According to TrialSite News (TSN), only time will tell whether NIH succeeds in delivering answers for the vast number of vaccine-injured individuals.
In TSN’s view, the “real test” isn’t whether the NIH dares to study vaccine injury. “It is whether patients receive scientifically credible answers — and whether those answers change medical practice.”
When asked how the NIH will ensure that its research is independently conducted without industry bias, the official said NIH scientists don’t talk with drug or vaccine makers about the studies they do.
The official made no mention of Jack Leslie, a pharma industry PR executive who chairs the NIH Clinical Center Research Hospital Board and recently leaked criticism of the NIH’s new center to The New York Times.
According to the official, NIH scientists are focused on doing solid research. NIH studies go through scientific review “to make sure they’re scientifically rigorous” and then are reviewed by an institutional review board — “But nobody’s putting their thumb on the scale on those things. Those are independent, and we’re going to follow those processes,” he said.
He added:
“People are always worried that the information that comes out of a scientific study might be misused or misrepresented. That’s not our job. Our job is to present the information as it comes out of the study. What people do with it after that is their business.”
Related articles in The Defender
- Pharma PR Executive Leaked Insider Criticism of NIH Vaccine Injury Center to New York Times — Paper Neglected to Mention His Industry Ties
- NIH Will Run Vaccine Injury Research and Treatment Center, Pay Doctors to Report Vaccine Injuries
- RFK Jr. Leading ‘Intense,’ Multi-Agency Study on Childhood Vaccine Safety, New York Times Reports
- NIH in Early 2022 Abruptly Stopped Responding to People Injured by COVID Shots
