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Ray Flores’ lawsuit against U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. began with a narrow legal claim: The federal government had failed for decades to carry out a congressional mandate to maintain a task force devoted to making childhood vaccines safer.
Fifteen months later, the obscure panel that Flores sued HHS — with the backing of Children’s Health Defense (CHD) — to revive has become a central part of President Donald Trump’s effort to reshape the nation’s childhood vaccination policy.
An executive order signed Monday directs the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines to develop a new approach to the timing and sequencing of childhood immunizations, explore alternatives to aluminum-containing adjuvants, and continuously evaluate the risks and benefits of childhood vaccines.
The task force’s broader role requires plans be delivered to the White House within 90 days.
“This demonstrates President Trump’s sense of urgency since the Secretary’s report is not due to congressional committees for another year,” Flores told The Defender.
The HHS did not respond to a request for comment from The Defender.
For decades, HHS failed to submit the required reports
Flores’ lawsuit centered on the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which Congress enacted in part to establish a compensation program for people injured by vaccines while limiting manufacturers’ liability.
Under 42 U.S. Code Sections 300aa-27, HHS is directed to promote the development of vaccines with “fewer and less serious adverse reactions” and to improve vaccine licensing, manufacturing, testing, labeling, distribution, surveillance, adverse-event reporting and recalls to reduce the risks of adverse reactions.
The law also requires the HHS secretary to establish a Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines composed of the directors of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with the NIH director serving as chairman. The statute mandates that the team periodically report to Congress on efforts to improve vaccine safety.
Yet according to Flores’ lawsuit, HHS had failed to submit the required reports for decades, and a task force established in 1990 was disbanded in 1998 and never reestablished.
The complaint also pointed to the growth of the childhood immunization schedule. It said the CDC’s 1983 schedule included four vaccines, while the 2025 schedule included more than 75 doses across 19 vaccines.
Flores, who sued HHS as a private citizen, argued that the expansion made the law’s requirements for ongoing safety evaluation particularly crucial.
Flores, a California attorney who moved his family to Nevada, gave HHS 60 days’ notice in March 2025 that he intended to file suit.
When HHS didn’t respond, Flores sued the agency in May 2025, alleging it had failed for decades to carry out the 1986 federal law requiring the HHS secretary to promote safer childhood vaccines, establish a task force of senior federal health officials and report periodically to Congress on vaccine-safety efforts.
In August 2025, shortly before the deadline to respond to Flores’ lawsuit, HHS reinstated the Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines.
“The task force’s reestablishment is the biggest victory in the Health Freedom Movement, period,” Flores wrote on Substack after HHS announced the reinstatement.
HHS has not said the lawsuit prompted the task force’s restoration.
The complaint filed by Flores also drew on a 2018 lawsuit Kennedy filed against HHS before becoming secretary. In that case, Kennedy and the Informed Consent Action Network sought copies of the vaccine-safety reports that the 1986 law required HHS to send to Congress.
According to Flores’ complaint, HHS ultimately said it could not locate copies of the reports.
Flores’ 2025 complaint argued that the government had failed to fulfill the same statutory obligation Kennedy had previously challenged.
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A ‘challenge to set up a truly unbiased’ review
The people overseeing the panel are critical to the process.
HHS said in a news release when it reinstated the task force that it would include senior leadership from NIH, FDA and CDC, with NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya serving as chairman. The group was to work with the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines.
That structure largely mirrors the one Congress specified in 1986.
The task force is therefore not, at least on paper, an outside commission created by the White House. It is a statutory HHS body made up of senior federal health officials, which some medical experts find problematic.
Dr. Jane M. Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, said the task force does not solve underlying issues of political persuasion.
Orient told The Defender:
“I don’t believe the President should be telling you what vaccines your child should get, but neither should a nonaccountable committee of government-approved ‘experts,’ who likely have pervasive conflicts of interest, or the AAP [American Academy of Pediatrics].
“That should be decided by parents on the advice of a physician dedicated to the welfare of each patient, with fully informed consent, not the dumbed-down, incomplete vaccine ‘information sheets.’”
Other medical experts pointed to issues around panel consensus.
Dr. Michael Palmer, who works with the Doctors for COVID Ethics, said getting experts to agree on a single standard may also prove difficult.
“Generally speaking, it will be a huge challenge to set up a truly unbiased review process, and then to translate the findings into actions,” Palmer said. “While there may be some childhood vaccines for which the risk-benefit ratio is genuinely difficult to determine, there are others for which it is a ‘no-brainer,’” in which “the risk clearly outweighs any benefit.”
CHD scientist Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., said the deeply fractured political sector writ large could affect what happens next in the medical space.
“Anything done by executive order can be undone by executive order,” Jablonowski said. “If immunization policy remains politically dividing, the executive order is up for reelection on November 7, 2028. The remaining 819 days is not a lot of time to do the science.”
The question now is whether the task force will function as a scientific and regulatory body focused on reducing adverse reactions and improving vaccine safety, or become a political vehicle for pharmaceutical companies.
The first major test will be the panel’s proposals to the president set to be delivered within its first 90 days.
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., contributed to this report.
Related articles in The Defender
- Trump Signs Executive Order Aimed at Reducing Number of Childhood Vaccines
- Breaking: HHS Reinstates Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines in Response to Lawsuit Funded by Children’s Health Defense
- Lawsuit Targets HHS for Failing to Set Up Task Force on Childhood Vaccine Safety
- RFK Jr. Seeks Extra Time to Explore ‘Early Resolution’ in Vaccine Safety Lawsuit
- Trump Signs Executive Order Backing HHS on Childhood Vaccine Reform — Will It Matter?
