HHS wants to take a closer look at potential vaccine injuries

In October, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a broad initiative aimed at identifying, documenting, and investigating potential adverse effects from vaccines.

The initiative included opening a new National Institutes of Health (NIH) clinic to study and care for patients who experience health issues after vaccination; reimbursing doctors for reporting suspected adverse vaccine events to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a surveillance program established in 1990 that anyone can submit a report to regarding a potential adverse reaction to a vaccine; and requiring electronic health records (EHRs) to record vaccine-related injuries.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement that the agency is taking these steps to “earn back trust in our public health institutions.” But some experts worry the changes would further erode public trust in vaccines. Increasing vaccine skepticism has been linked to the rise in measles cases this year, which is straining healthcare workers and increasing costs in states with high rates of infection like Utah and Pennsylvania.

The board that oversees the NIH’s Bethesda, Maryland-based research hospital voted unanimously on Oct. 16 to support a statement saying the initiative would weaken public trust of vaccinations, the New York Times reported.

Losing trust. Kennedy has a long history of spreading vaccine misinformation, including the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism. In June 2025, he also fired all members of a CDC committee that helps set vaccine policy and replaced nearly half of them with people who have publicly criticized vaccines over the course of their careers. And in January 2026, the CDC dropped several routine vaccinations from the national childhood vaccine schedule.

Trust in vaccines has declined nationwide in recent years. In 2026, 57% of the public believes childhood vaccines are “very safe,” compared to 70% during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to data from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In 2015, 83% of US adults said they believed childhood immunizations such as the MMR vaccine were safe, according to a Pew Research poll.

Nothing new. The US already has significant infrastructure to ensure vaccine safety, according to John Gräbenstein, co-chair of the Expert Vaccine Analysis Team at Georgetown University. For instance, the CDC established in 2001 the Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment Project, which researches vaccine safety and adverse events, he said.

“We have extremely safe vaccines in the United States. Is it possible that there are rare events that are not fully understood, or that could be understood better? Yes, certainly,” Gräbenstein said. “Everybody who is involved in the vaccine delivery system wants there to be thorough review and more detailed analysis and better workups…and that’s part of confidence building.”

Some of the proposals included in the initiative “could be good” Gräbenstein added, “but it’s not like [this idea is] brand new or the only thing out there.”

HHS did not release information on how much money it’s planning to invest in the vaccine injury initiative or where that funding would come from. The agency did not respond to Healthcare Brew’s request for comment on the matter.

Scarce details. HHS has released few details on the specifics of the initiative outside of its press release.

One of the facets included is a new requirement from the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) for providers to record vaccine-related adverse events in patient EHRs. It’s unclear what exactly that requirement would entail, as EHRs already contain all patient-doctor encounters, Gräbenstein noted.

Rod Hise, a spokesperson for EHR giant Epic, told Healthcare Brew via email that “ONC explained that the announcement refers primarily to adding adverse-events data elements to USCDI [United States Core Data for Interoperability], a federal standard that defines a common set of data that can be exchanged between health IT systems,” which aligns with the kind of data Epic already collects.

When asked to clarify what the EHR requirement would entail, ONC confirmed it has added two data elements—adverse event condition and adverse event outcome—to its most recent USCDI version, released in July.

The announcement also included a plan to reimburse physicians for the time they spend reporting potential vaccine adverse events to VAERS, a change meant to “encourage” doctors to document potential vaccine-related injuries. Critics fear that could incentivize doctors to “misattribute” patients’ symptoms to vaccinations “without clear clinical evidence,” Bloomberg Law reported.

According to Gräbenstein, the reimbursement could be a positive thing, as it can take a lot of time and effort to report a complicated case if it requires compiling many records of scans or lab tests. However, there must be a balance, he added.

“If I were to pay you to collect VAERS reports on all the people who got a sore arm from getting their flu shot, I’d spend a bunch of money. I’d get a bunch of reports, but it wouldn’t be anything new, right?” he said.

An HHS spokesperson told Healthcare Brew that doctors “would not be paid based on whether a report is ultimately determined to be related to a vaccine, nor would reimbursement change the standard for evaluating those reports.”

“Reducing barriers to reporting strengthens vaccine safety monitoring. Rigorous surveillance, follow-up investigation, and transparency about what the evidence shows are essential to giving Americans accurate information and rebuilding public trust,” the spokesperson added.

The American Hospital Association declined Healthcare Brew’s request for comment on the proposal to compensate physicians for reporting vaccine-linked adverse events and to track potential related injuries in EHRs. Healthcare Brew also reached out to the CDC and NIH, but did not hear back by publication.