In addition to providing a financial incentive for doctors to submit reports, the HHS is also working to overhaul VAERS to make it “simpler, more accessible, and easier to use.” That includes making the reporting system available on mobile devices—so doctors can report vaccine injuries on the go—and adding more tools for researchers studying vaccine injuries. The CDC has already awarded a nearly $1 million contract to a Virginia-based Christian tech company called SPN Solutions Inc.
Last, Kennedy’s initiative will also require electronic health records to include information about vaccine injuries. This requirement will be carried out through the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, which oversees federal health information technology standards. HHS said that by adding vaccine injuries to electronic medical records, healthcare providers will have a “more complete picture of a patient’s medical history.”
“We must listen to patients and families who report vaccine injuries—not dismiss or gaslight them,” Kennedy said in a statement. “President Trump and I are building a health system that takes them seriously, follows the evidence, and uses what we learn to make vaccines safer. This is how we earn back trust in our public health institutions.”
Health and medical experts agree that monitoring post-market vaccine safety events is of vital importance—VAERS has been acting as a sensitive early warning system since 1990, and the federal government has several other overlapping safety surveillance systems in place as well. Boosting research on uncommon adverse reactions to vaccines is also welcomed. But experts expect that Kennedy’s goals are not to improve safety or advance research, but instead to continue attacking life-saving vaccines by inflating risks and overemphasizing rare outcomes. He and his anti-vaccine allies have long done this using VAERS in its current form.
“Somehow the Trump-RFK Jr anti-vax agenda keeps getting more corrupt and dangerous,” Brad Woodhouse, president of Protect Our Care, said in a statement Thursday. “Now Secretary Kennedy wants to bribe doctors to claim they see vaccine harm without proof, which is just asking for higher insurance costs and a rash of waste, fraud and abuse.”