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U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. removed four members from the federal commission that advises the secretary on the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), STAT reported.
The move may signal that Kennedy is paving the way to make changes to the program, which Kennedy previously described as a “very heartless system.”
In July 2025, Kennedy said in a detailed post on X that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) planned to overhaul the vaccine injury compensation program. “The VICP is broken, and I intend to fix it,” he posted.
The VICP was established under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which made it nearly impossible to sue vaccine makers directly for vaccine injuries.
The Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines (ACCV), housed under HHS, reviews policy and makes recommendations on issues related to the VICP.
The nine-member commission can recommend whether and how people who file vaccine injury claims are compensated for their injuries. It also directs research priorities related to vaccine injuries and the monitoring of adverse events.
The panel consists of health professionals, representatives for vaccine-injured children, legal counsel for vaccine makers and members of the general public.
Kennedy likely wants commission to ‘start doing the work that it needs to be doing’
The committee most recently met on Dec. 29, 2025, but didn’t take any action.
The panel’s inaction is part of the problem that Kennedy may be trying to address, said Wayne Rohde, author of two books on the federal vaccine court, which is part of the VICP.
When Kennedy overhauled the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), he said it was to address the issue of committee members’ conflicts of interest, Rohde said.
“But in the case of the ACCV,” he said, Kennedy likely “wants to get the ACCV to actually start doing the work that it needs to be doing, which is advising the Secretary on vaccine issues.”
For years, Rohde said, the panel has functioned more as a resume builder for its members than as a vehicle for the serious debate of recommendations made by different stakeholders.
Rohde disputed speculation by legacy media that Kennedy plans to fill the committee with people friendly to his viewpoints. “He wants, in my opinion, a very active debate within this community to decide vaccine policy recommendations and forward them to his office.”
Commission members serve at discretion of HHS secretary
Last week, Endpoints News reported that at least two committee members were informed they had been removed before their terms were slated to end.
Today, STAT reported that the number of committee members removed has gone up to at least four.
Two of the members removed were attorney Veronica McNally of Michigan State College of Law and Dr. Wendy Lane of the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
McNally also served as ACIP’s consumer representative from 2018 to 2022.
Pediatricians Natasha Burgert and Jashua Williams were also terminated prematurely, according to The Hill.
According to STAT, Lane questioned her removal and was told via email that her dismissal was not performance-related and that the committee could be remade at the discretion of the secretary.
No replacements have yet been announced, and HHS did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
What could change with a reconstituted committee?
Rohde said the commission, which is supposed to meet four times a year, has been meeting only twice. The committee held two-day Zoom meetings that they designated as separate meetings to meet their charter’s mandates.
The commission hasn’t made a serious recommendation in years, he said. The meetings typically consist of presentations by federal agency staff, followed by little or no debate.
Rohde hoped that Kennedy’s changes would “recharge and rededicate this advisory commission,” by including people from different perspectives who will “challenge everything” — instead of simply “rubber-stamping” vaccine policy decisions as it did in the past. “That made the committee kind of a joke,” he said.
In an interview with Tucker Carlson in July 2025, Kennedy indicated that he had hired new staff to help “revolutionize” the vaccine injury program.
Kennedy told Carlson that possible changes involved adding COVID-19 vaccine injuries to the compensation program or extending the statute of limitations for people to file a claim. Currently, injured parties must file a claim within three years.
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Will new commission members make changes to Vaccine Injury Table?
The VICP was designed to provide compensation to families of children injured by vaccines through a no-fault administrative process, and to protect vaccine makers from lawsuits.
It’s funded by a 75-cent surcharge on vaccines, and covers injuries related to vaccines listed on the CDC childhood immunization schedule — except COVID-19 vaccines, which are covered under a separate program.
Since it was established, the VICP has paid over $5.4 billion to 12,000 people who filed claims, Kennedy said in his X post. However, that number represents fewer than half of the claims that were filed.
Countless other vaccine-injured people who would benefit from compensation have never filed — either because they don’t know about the program or because their injuries weren’t recognized within the two- or three-year statute of limitations.
Compensation is based on the Vaccine Injury Table, which includes the list of vaccines, known associated injuries and the time periods in which they must occur.
If a claim is filed for an injury not listed on the table, the claimant must prove the vaccine caused the injury in the vaccine court. Those cases are notoriously challenging to prove and decisions handed down by the Special Masters who preside over the cases are inconsistent.
Some media outlets, including Endpoints, have reported that the personnel change at ACCV may indicate possible upcoming changes to the Vaccine Injury Table itself, making it easier for vaccine-injured people to be compensated for their claims.
Earlier this year, the CDC changed its recommendations for routine childhood vaccination. Several vaccines previously recommended as routine now have “shared-clinical decision making” status for children who are not “high-risk.”
Those vaccines will continue to be covered by insurance, but there has been some debate about how those changes will affect liability protections.
HHS says the changes to the vaccine schedule do not affect liability protections, STAT reported.
However, attorney Aaron Siri argued that through rulemaking, HHS could remove the vaccines that are no longer routinely recommended from the Vaccine Injury Table. That would shift liability back to the vaccine manufacturers.
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