Health

RFK Jr. Resurrects Decades-Old Vaccine Safety Task Force

Vials of a vaccine move along a conveyor on a production line.
Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg

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By Rachel Cohrs Zhang

August 14, 2025 at 6:57 PM UTC

Updated on

August 14, 2025 at 8:39 PM UTC

The Department of Health and Human Services is resurrecting a decades-old vaccine safety task force, the agency announced Thursday.

It’s a full-circle moment for HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who claimed after the 2016 election that President Donald Trump had asked him to chair a “commission on vaccine safety and scientific integrity” following a meeting at Trump Tower. During Trump’s first term, that promise fell by the wayside and the panel didn’t come to fruition.