(LifeSiteNews) — U.S. Secretary for Health & Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has declared he wants to “fix” the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) to better serve those who suffer adverse events, although he has yet to elaborate on how.
On July 28, Kennedy posted to X about the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which grants vaccine manufacturers general immunity from liability for injuries from their products and instead establishes the VICP through which affected individuals can seek financial compensation under certain circumstances.
The 1986 Vaccine Act gave vaccine makers immunity against lawsuits by children who suffer vaccine injuries. The statute, and numerous subsequent court decisions, recognized that vaccines, like all medicines, are, in the words of the American Academy of Pediatrics case,…
— Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) July 28, 2025
“To date, the Vaccine Court has paid out $5.4 billion to 12,000 petitioners. But the VICP no longer functions to achieve its Congressional intent. Instead, the VICP has devolved into a morass of inefficiency, favoritism, and outright corruption as government lawyers and the Special Masters who serve as Vaccine Court judges prioritize the solvency of the HHS Trust Fund, over their duty to compensate victims,” he said.
“The structure itself hobbles claimants. The defendant is HHS, not the vaccine makers; and claimants are therefore facing the monumental power and bottomless pockets of the U.S. government represented by the Department of Justice. Furthermore, most of the Special Masters come from government, legal, or political posts, and typically display an extreme bias that favors the government side. There is no discovery, and the rules of evidence do not apply,” Kennedy added.
“Instead of ‘quickly and fairly’ awarding compensation, Special Masters dismiss over half of the cases. Most of those that proceed typically take 5+ years to resolve, with many languishing for more than 10 years as parents struggle to care for children suffering with often extreme disabilities,” he said.
“The VICP is broken, and I intend to fix it,” Kennedy declared. “I will not allow the VICP to continue to ignore its mandate and fail its mission of quickly and fairly compensating vaccine-injured individuals.”
The secretary added that he is working with U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on the matter but did not provide details on what exactly they are doing or how much can be done under current law. Presumably HHS and the Justice Department would be able to adjust the process so that claims are adjudicated in a more timely, less biased manner.
Meanwhile, Republican U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona has recently reintroduced legislation that would make deeper changes: ending the liability shield for vaccine manufacturers and allowing individuals to bring civil actions directly against vaccine administrators or manufacturers, allow for such civil actions to be pursued regardless of whether a victim has filed a petition with the program, remove the statute of limitations for individuals seeking compensation under the previous law, and eliminate the COVID-19 shots’ classification as “countermeasures” in a “public health emergency” under the federal Public Readiness & Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act of 2005.
There is a large body of evidence against the COVID shots, which were developed in record time by the first Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed initiative.
The federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reports 38,709 deaths, 221,030 hospitalizations, 22,331 heart attacks, and 28,966 myocarditis and pericarditis cases as of June 27, among other ailments. U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) researchers have recognized a “high verification rate of reports of myocarditis to VAERS after mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccination,” leading to the conclusion that “under-reporting is more likely” than over-reporting.
An analysis of 99 million people across eight countries published in the journal Vaccine “observed significantly higher risks of myocarditis following the first, second and third doses” of mRNA-based COVID shots, as well as signs of increased risk of “pericarditis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis,” and other “potential safety signals that require further investigation.” In April 2024, the CDC was forced to release by court order 780,000 previously undisclosed reports of serious adverse reactions, and a study out of Japan found “statistically significant increases” in cancer deaths after third doses of mRNA-based COVID-19 shots, and offered several theories for a causal link.
In January, a long-awaited Florida grand jury report on the COVID shot manufacturers found that there are “profound and serious issues” in pharmaceutical companies’ review process, including reluctance to share what evidence of adverse events they found.
In May, U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner Marty Makary and vaccine chief Dr. Vinay Prasad announced that there would no longer be blanket recommendations for all Americans to receive the shot, but the “risk factors” it would still be recommended for include asthma, cancer, cerebrovascular disease, chronic kidney diseases, a handful of chronic liver and lung diseases, diabetes, disabilities such as Down’s syndrome, heart conditions, HIV, dementia, Parkinson’s, obesity, smoking, tuberculosis, and more. Health & Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. subsequently announced COVID shots would not be recommended to healthy children or pregnant women.
However, last month the Trump administration approved a new mRNA-based COVID-19 jab from Moderna, for “individuals who have been previously vaccinated with any COVID-19 vaccine and are: 65 years and older, or 12 through 64 with at least one underlying condition that puts them at high risk for severe outcomes from COVID-19.”
In a recent interview, Makary asked for patience from those unsatisfied by the administration’s handling of the shots, insisting more time was needed for comprehensive trials to get more definitive data.
