Kennedy's Vaccine Injury Clinic and Compensation Overhaul Draw Scientific, Public Pushback

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. opened a new vaccine injury clinic at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, on October 5, 2026, as part of a broader effort to change how the federal government studies, reports and compensates reported vaccine injuries, according to Bloomberg Law and CIDRAP, a public-health news service run by the University of Minnesota.

What the new NIH clinic does

CIDRAP reported that the initiative includes modernizing the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) to make it easier for physicians to file reports, and a new Medicare billing code that would reimburse doctors for reporting suspected vaccine injuries. NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz and CDC Director Erica Schwartz joined Kennedy for the announcement, CIDRAP said. The outlet also noted the clinic's research may focus in part on aluminum-containing vaccine ingredients, which it said have been repeatedly studied and found safe in prior research.

Bloomberg Law reported that Kennedy's announcement did not include a budget, an organizational structure or a timeline for the clinic's work.

NIH's own board pushes back

The NIH Clinical Center's governing board voted unanimously to back a statement criticizing how the clinic was unveiled, according to the Genetic Literacy Project, a science-communication outlet. Board chairman Jack Leslie, a former chair of the public-relations firm Weber Shandwick and a past World Health Organization adviser, objected to signage reading "Vaccine Injured" displayed during Kennedy's visit, arguing it suggested the research had reached conclusions before it began.

Leslie warned that the framing could discredit the clinic's eventual findings either way: if researchers find evidence of harm, he said, critics will attribute it to a secretary who has long argued vaccines are dangerous; if they find none, patients who believe they were injured may view the clinic as a sham, according to the Genetic Literacy Project's account of his statement.

HHS spokeswoman Emily Hilliard responded that the goal is to ensure "people who experience health problems following vaccination are taken seriously," the outlet reported. NIH Clinical Center CEO Dr. Jonathan Green described the clinic as an extension of existing vaccine research that required no new resources, rather than a new scientific direction.

Changes to vaccine injury compensation and advisory panels

The clinic is part of a wider set of changes Kennedy has pursued since taking office. STAT News reported that Kennedy removed at least four of the nine members of the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines (ACCV) ahead of the scheduled end of their terms, including former member Veronica McNally. HHS did not respond to STAT's request for comment, and Kennedy had not named replacements at the time of reporting.

STAT noted the ACCV oversees claims under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and that reshaping its membership could make it easier for Kennedy to expand the list of injuries the program recognizes, including a possible addition of autism — an outcome he has previously said he wants investigated. STAT described the move as similar to Kennedy's earlier restructuring of the CDC's main vaccine advisory panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, with members it characterized as more skeptical of vaccines.

What polls say about public support

Independent polling conducted both before and after the clinic's opening shows broad public backing for existing vaccine-access rules and skepticism toward Kennedy's changes. A January 2026 survey of 1,013 voters by the Partnership to Fight Infectious Disease and Research!America, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points, found that 90% of respondents said policymakers must ensure vaccine access, and 78% said political interference is influencing vaccine policy, according to CIDRAP's report on the poll.

A separate survey of independent voters commissioned by the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, cited by RealClearHealth, found 59% disapproved of Kennedy's job performance as HHS secretary versus 30% who approved. The same survey found 61% of independent voters viewed the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program favorably, while 59% opposed Kennedy's proposal to dismantle it.

What remains unknown

Several operational details of the new clinic remain undisclosed. Bloomberg Law reported that Kennedy's October 5 announcement did not specify a budget, staffing plan or research timeline, and HHS has not published a formal protocol describing how patients will be selected for study or how findings will be reviewed.

It is also not yet clear whether the NIH Clinical Center board's objections will change how the clinic operates, or whether Kennedy will act on the ACCV restructuring to formally add new conditions, such as autism, to the federal vaccine injury table.