HHS pressed to expand vaccine injury table
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A leading anti-vaccine activist is petitioning the Department of Health and Human Services to add more than 300 conditions to a table used for vaccine injury compensation claims — and is threatening to sue the agency if it doesn't.
Why it matters: The effort is led by vaccine-injury lawyer Aaron Siri, a longtime ally of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was invited to brief a vaccine advisory committee in December on the childhood immunization schedule.
- Siri's petition could be another test of the Trump administration's willingness to accommodate vaccine controversy ahead of the midterm elections.
The big picture: Federal vaccine law has established a legal system to compensate people with vaccine injuries without bringing a civil lawsuit.
What we're watching: If Kennedy doesn't update the vaccine injury list, Siri has threatened to sue. Covered vaccines and the injuries associated with them are specified by HHS.
- Anti-vaccine advocates have long argued that the system excludes too many vaccine injuries, leaving victims unable to pursue compensation.
Siri's petition, brought on behalf of the Informed Consent Action Network, argues for a broader definition of "associated with" in connection with vaccine use, which would effectively swell the list of covered conditions.
- It argues that "the federal government's mere consideration of a vaccine injury is sufficient to add that injury to the Vaccine Injury Table, regardless of whether any causation was found," per a memo on the petition written by Richard Hughes, a partner at Epstein, Becker & Green.
- Hughes is leading the legal effort that has temporarily paused the Trump administration's most significant changes to federal vaccine policies.
- Calling Siri's interpretation of the law "ridiculous," Hughes said that this approach "would necessarily have a chilling effect on government-funded research into vaccine injuries, and/or bloat the Vaccine Injury Table with inappropriate injuries."
"I have no doubt RFK Jr. wants to update the table and the only reason he wouldn't, is because the White House won't let him," Siri posted on X. "If that happens, a federal lawsuit will be forthcoming at the end of the 60-day notice period."
