Inside RFK Jr.’s Attempts to Undermine the U.S. Vaccine System

- RFK Jr. is continuing to dramatically remake America's health system.

This week, he announced the United States will slash funding for mRNA vaccine development.

You'll remember that mRNA vaccines were vital in fighting COVID-19, and they're seen as a key tool to control future pandemics because they can be manufactured quickly.

Even Trump's former Surgeon General, Dr. Jerome Adams, said this move will cost lives.

Anna Merlin, reporter for "Mother Jones," wrote about RFK's war on these immunizations, and here she is with Hari Sreenivasan.

- Christiane, thanks.

Anna Merlin, you recently wrote a piece in "Mother Jones" titled "The Plot Against Vaccines.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and His Allies Have Hit on a Way to Undermine Immunization."

First, I guess, let's just sort of break down the article bit by bit.

Is there an overarching plot, or how far along are we in this?

- Right, my colleague, Kira Butler, and I, who co-wrote the article with me, looked at sort of a series of steps that Mr. Kennedy and the people he's installed at HHS have taken to, frankly, endanger the vaccine supply.

And we looked at both things that could potentially hurt the people trying to get vaccinated, could deter companies from making vaccines, and we also looked at the ways that he's trying to overhaul the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which works to compensate people who allege that they've been injured by vaccines.

So it's a pretty systematic approach, and it is, frankly, moving very, very quickly.

A lot of public health experts we talk to are really, really concerned.

- Okay, let's start with the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

I'm pretty safe in assuming that a majority of Americans don't even know what that is and how it works.

Explain what it is.

- So the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program was established in the 1980s after a scare over DTP vaccines, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis.

Basically, throughout the 1970s, there were a growing number of personal injury lawsuits alleging injuries from DTP vaccines, and the amount of money being asked for from those lawsuits kept skyrocketing.

So by the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, drug manufacturers were increasingly reluctant to make those vaccines and, indeed, to make vaccines at all, despite the fact that most public health experts and scientists who looked at these lawsuits didn't necessarily think that the injuries that were being alleged came from these vaccines.

So there started to be a real nationwide concern over the vaccine supply, endangering the vaccine supply, which, of course, doesn't just hurt the US.

It also hurts the rest of the world because a lot of major drug companies are housed here in the US.

So basically, they came up with this system, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program that went into effect a few years later that essentially created what is called a no-fault system where people who allege that they or their children were injured by vaccines go into this specialized program that is set up to compensate them.

Most cases, about 60% of cases, are heard without going into a courtroom, so to speak.

The system is actually designed to compensate people very quickly, even if the injuries aren't necessarily proved to be caused by vaccines.

It's a pretty unique program.

And then the cases that are heard in a courtroom of sorts are heard by what are called special masters who are judicial appointees who are specially trained in vaccine law, vaccine cases, the science around vaccines, the sort of established system about how some vaccines can, in very rare cases, cause some injury to some people.

So it is a pretty revolutionary system.

And while people who work within it, you know, like the attorneys who represent vaccine-injured people, would tell you that it is in need of some updates, by and large, it has been working pretty well since the 1980s.

- So this seems like a compromise.

On the one hand, the public health infrastructure says, "Listen, vaccines overall are important."

And at the same time, there might be injuries.

Is that right?

- Yeah, that's correct.

I mean, broadly, we know, and we have known for centuries at this point, that vaccination is a good thing and it is good for public health.

However, like every medical product, it is not risk-free for absolutely everyone.

So this system basically concludes that it is our social responsibility to compensate those very few people who might be injured by vaccines and to do so quickly.

- So what are some of the examples of people who have been in front of this system who get paid out?

- So if you look at hrsa.gov, you can see that there are so-called table injuries.

There is a list of vaccines and the supposed injuries that can, in some rare cases, be caused by them, right?

And so you can see that there are things like encephalitis.

One of the most common injuries is actually not an allergic reaction.

It is what's called serva, which is a shoulder injury that can happen if the vaccine is administered too high or too low in the muscle.

So these so-called table injuries not only say which vaccine could, in rare cases, cause which injury, it also gives you a timeframe that is generally scientifically agreed upon for when these injuries could take place, which is, again, an important counter to what Secretary Kennedy and other people like him have claimed, which is pinning any number of childhood and adult syndromes to vaccines, even if there is no evidence that that is the case and even if the vaccines were administered years ago.

-RFK Jr. seems to be incredibly critical of this court.

He recently tweeted out that the ICP 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.

Well, why is RFK so critical of this court, this process?

-Secretary Kennedy has been critical of it for years, going back to his time as the head of the anti-vaccine organization Children's Health Defense.

While I don't know what Mr. Kennedy's personal ire about the program is linked to, a lot of personal injury attorneys in the anti-vaccine movement are critical of the program because they would like these cases to be heard in civil court.

And, indeed, Mr. Kennedy has been counsel in some of the few vaccine cases that are heard in civil court, a series of class-action lawsuits over the Gardasil vaccine.

So I would say that in listening to the comments that Mr. Kennedy has made recently about this program, it is pretty striking some of the basic facts that he misstates.

He claims that the system is designed not to compensate people.

He claims that it's a lot more adversarial than it actually is.

He doesn't mention that 60% of people are compensated without ever going before a special master.

It is -- Again, these are statistics that are easy to find if you work for the federal government or look at a government-run website.

So it's very surprising to me how many things he says about the program that most people would disagree with.

>> One of the lines of reasoning that Secretary Kennedy has used in the past is that courts like the one that deal with vaccines are set up in a way to protect the profits of pharmaceutical companies.

What's wrong with that thinking?

If they had to go to civil court, wouldn't there be the possibility that they would have to pay lots more to people who are suffering from vaccines?

>> So there's a couple things wrong here.

One is that as anybody who's paid the slightest attention to the American civil court system knows, it's adversarial.

It's expensive.

It takes a long time.

So we would be asking patients who may also already be dealing with serious injuries to go through a very long, very expensive court system where, for instance, their legal fees are not paid for, which in many cases, they are paid for in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

They also stand a chance of losing.

You know, this is something that is not often mentioned when Secretary Kennedy talks about this.

This is a process that does not have a guaranteed outcome.

This was set up, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program was set up for patients.

It was set up to make sure that they have a better chance.

Civil court is a lot more unpredictable.

It involves people going up against juries who may or may not side with them.

And so overall, we need increased compensation in this program.

These people are not getting paid enough.

The caps are too low because they were established a long time ago.

There needs to be more special masters hearing these cases so they go through more quickly.

If Secretary Kennedy and the people he appointed talked to lawyers for vaccine injured plaintiffs, they would have a lot of suggestions for how to overhaul the program.

It wouldn't involve weakening or dismantling it in the ways that he seems to be suggesting.

>> Let's take a look at, you know, a different kind of line of his attack on immunizations or vaccines.

He has, as the Secretary, the power to help appoint people in positions who decide what sort of vaccines we should be pursuing, which ones should be taken off the shelves, which should be suggested for use, et cetera.

Who has he filled those leadership positions with?

>> Yeah.

One really noteworthy thing that happened recently that you probably saw the headlines about is that Secretary Kennedy removed all 17 members of ACIP, which is an advisory body that helps CDC decide what should appear on the vaccine schedule and the sort of guidance we give to the American public about vaccines.

So, Secretary Kennedy removed all 17 members of ACIP and replaced them with people who, in several cases, have very distinct and long-term ties to the anti-vaccine movement and to other forms of medical skepticism and sort of contested medical advice.

So, he's done that.

That is ongoing.

He has suspended the US's funding to GABI, the Vaccine Alliance, which helps vaccinate children in some of the poorest places in the world in developing countries against diseases like polio, Ebola, meningitis.

He's installed a series of people throughout HHS.

There's been a number of actions, and they're happening very fast.

>> What's the response been from the existing medical community?

And does that break down along, I don't know, partisan lines?

Is it just Democrat doctors or Republican doctors that are either in support of this or in opposition to this?

>> No.

This is broadly unpopular with the medical community.

Another thing that HHS has done under Mr. Kennedy is kicked out long-established medical associations from the CDC working groups that talk about vaccines.

Again, this is like the American Medical Association and another half dozen really big medical bodies.

The concern has been very widespread, and it has been nonpartisan.

This is a serious concern for public health experts, scientists, doctors who study vaccination.

And, you know, the biggest concern overall is that it's going to be confusing to the American public.

You're suddenly going to have somebody in a position of extraordinary power making contested and extremely questionable claims about the safety of the vaccination system that, you know, we've worked so hard as sort of the U.S. public health system has worked so hard to build trust in these programs.

>> You know, it's also interesting that we're already seeing a decrease in vaccinations, and that's accelerated post-COVID, right?

>> Yeah.

Yeah, that's true.

COVID was a really profitable and fruitful time for anti-vaccine groups.

They were able to use people's fear and confusion about what was going on to drive first skepticism about COVID vaccines and mRNA technology, and then vaccines more broadly.

As you're saying, we've seen a decrease in the number of children getting vaccinated for school.

And, you know, that has happened previously in other areas of history.

It's always a concern, but it's a special concern right now because we're still dealing with a devastating measles outbreak across the country that, again, HHS has not been speaking about as much as you might expect.

Measles is incredibly dangerous.

It's especially dangerous for children and infants.

And if those kids are not vaccinated against measles, it could be and have been for at least two children in Texas so far deadly.

>> What's been the Secretary's response to the measles outbreak?

>> Secretary Kennedy suggested that at least one of the children who died of measles was malnourished, which is not true.

We do not have any evidence that that is the case.

And Secretary Kennedy's former organization, Children's Health Defense, has actually interviewed the parents of the children who died in Texas and is sort of attempting to bring them around to the anti-vaccination cause.

So I think it's fair to say that a lot of public health experts, myself and my colleague, Kira Butler, talked to really expressed a desire for HHS to do more to reemphasize that people should get their children vaccinated against measles and to not muddy the waters and confuse people about what is safe and what isn't.

>> You know, underlying this notion that there could be different environmental factors is sort of a challenge, if not outright denial, of kind of germ theory and science that we've established for 150 or 200 years at least now, right?

And I wonder what is in place of that?

What is the Secretary and the people that he works with who are part of this movement, what do they believe in if they don't think that measles spreads the way that it actually does?

>> Yeah.

My colleague, Kira Butler, has written about this in some detail.

Secretary Kennedy in one of his books suggested a belief in what is called miasma theory, which is basically as he describes it and the way that he describes it is not quite accurate to the historical belief.

But essentially, the idea with miasma theory is that people get sick from things like dirty air and environmental factors, but they can be protected from illness by better nutrition and by building up their own immune systems.

And while that was probably a useful idea before we knew what germs were, you know, several centuries ago, now that we know that germs and viruses get people sick, you have to take that into account when you're thinking about how to protect people from illness.

So, we've asked several times if Secretary Kennedy still believes in and promotes miasma theory, and I would love to know more about whether or not he still holds that to be true.

>> From your piece, there's a comment from the department and from one of their spokespersons.

The Secretary Kennedy is committed to restoring scientific integrity, transparency, and public trust in federal health policy, especially with concerns vaccines.

Any suggestion that his goal is to make vaccines harder to access or discourage manufacturers is completely false.

How are the actions that he is taking now, how would they decrease the interest of manufacturers to make these medicines?

>> Right.

So, we can look at exactly what happened in the 1980s with the DTP vaccine, which is that as these civil cases and these enormous jury awards started to rack up, drug manufacturers started to pull out of making vaccines.

You know, this isn't something that they have to do, and frankly, they often choose not to because vaccines, contrary to what a lot of folks in the anti-vaccine movement will tell you, don't make them a ton of money.

That is not a super profitable product for drug manufacturers or doctors.

So, they could simply choose not to make them, not to market them due to concerns over getting sued.

And that is very much the place where the public health experts that Kira and I spoke to are worried that we will find ourselves if this type of anti-vaccine rhetoric from the federal government continues.

So, it remains to be seen, and I would say, as I have been saying when I've talked to folks about this, if you need to get up to date on any of your vaccines at all, talk to your doctor.

Like, get that going as soon as you can.

>> Just so we don't leave this conversation in any doubt here, where is the science on vaccines today?

>> Vaccines are incredibly safe.

They're incredibly effective.

We started vaccinating people as a society around the same time that we learned that it's good to wash your hands.

This is a very old, very established science.

But if you have any concerns, and say, if you're somebody who doesn't trust the American medical establishment, right, you're somebody who just is really concerned about what you see as corruption in American medicine, you can look at studies from places like Denmark.

Denmark just released another landmark study tracking children over the last 24 years to specifically look at whether there's concern over aluminum adjuvants in vaccines.

Aluminum adjuvants have been used in vaccines for a long time to increase their efficacy, and Secretary Kennedy and others have claimed that maybe that is unsafe.

So, again, Denmark looked at this data for the past 24 years and determined that no, aluminum adjuvants are safe.

There is so much science, not just in the US, but across the world, showing that vaccines are safe, that they're effective, and they are a good idea for most people.

And of course, if you have any doubts about this for yourself or your children, you should talk to your doctor.

But the concern now is that there is going to be a disconnect between what the American health system is saying, what people like the HHS Secretary are saying, and what you might hear from the medical professional in your life, which is confusing for people.

>> Yeah, which might make some very difficult conversations that doctors have to have.

Anna Merlin, senior reporter for Mother Jones.

Thanks so much for joining us.