A new NIH clinic and more reporting
The US Department of Health and Human Services has launched a set of actions aimed at how the federal government identifies, documents and investigates health problems reported after vaccination. The plan, announced on 8 October, includes a clinic at the National Institutes of Health dedicated to studying and caring for patients who report health problems following vaccination. The clinic opened on 5 October.
Other parts of the initiative include changes to federal monitoring systems and reimbursements for doctors who file reports to VAERS, the national vaccine adverse event reporting system. HHS said the payment proposal is meant to lower barriers to physician reporting. The New York Times reported that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services may create a new billing code to pay doctors for such reports.
Support and criticism
"We must listen to patients and families who report vaccine injuries-not dismiss or gaslight them," HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement. "President Trump and I are building a health system that takes them seriously, follows the evidence, and uses what we learn to make vaccines safer."
The initiative drew immediate criticism from parts of the medical community. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said the effort would produce misleading studies and further shake parents' confidence in vaccines. HHS has also proposed a rule to draft a list of injuries believed to be related to COVID-19 vaccines, which would streamline compensation claims. That rule is expected to be proposed in November, with a public comment period ending in January 2027.
A difficult measles year
The push comes in a year when vaccine-preventable disease has spread widely in the United States. The CDC reported 4,080 confirmed measles cases as of 8 October, the highest annual total since the country declared measles eliminated in 2000. Cases have been reported by 47 jurisdictions, and about 95% of patients were unvaccinated or of unknown vaccination status. Roughly one in ten was hospitalised. Public health experts say the outbreak has been driven by falling vaccination coverage, and some warn the new federal focus on vaccine injury reporting could make that harder to fix.