Way Past Due: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to Spearhead a Vaccine-Injury Research Initiative

October is Vaccine Injury Awareness Month, and on Monday, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the launch of a research initiative through the National Institutes of Health and Infectious Diseases (NIH) to study the vaccine injured. Kennedy joined with NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Erica Schwartz, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, and Acting Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Kyle Diamantas, among others, for a ribbon-cutting ceremony of a new NIH clinic to study and care for vaccine-injured patients. 

According to reports, the rollout also featured a roundtable with parents who feel their children were harmed by vaccines. The plans for this initiative have been in the works for the past year and took final form in mid-September, with a particular focus on studying the harms caused by the COVID vaccines. The initiative will also include a proposal to reimburse doctors for reporting suspected vaccine injuries and improving and modernizing the VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) database, which was built to track vaccine adverse events.

The NIH did an exclusive with Science Magazine detailing some of the plans.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) is preparing to launch a clinical research program to study people who believe they were harmed by vaccines, including COVID-19 vaccines. In an internal meeting last week, officials at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) discussed plans for a new research center on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland, that could start up in mid-October, Science has learned.

The agency also plans to fund outside researchers to study adverse effects of vaccines, piggybacking off existing studies of people with vaccine-related illnesses. The amount of funding for the efforts has not been determined.

Some researchers say the new efforts will be a welcome addition to an area that has not received much attention to date. “In my opinion, it should have happened a long time ago,” says Danice Hertz, a retired physician who became a patient advocate after developing long-term side effects from COVID-19 vaccination. “There are a lot of very sick people out there.”

There are far too many sick people, and because NIH and CDC leadership in prior administrations, as well as the medical profession in general, have been dismissive of or disregarded patients who have reported vaccine injury, it has been nearly impossible for those patients to receive answers, let alone focused treatment to address their injuries.

October is vaccine injury awareness month💔 Behind every vaccine injury statistic is a real person, a real family, who is suffering because they thought they were doing the right thing. A parent who was once pro-vax until they saw what they did to their child. Too many say they were told their injuries were impossible. Too many say their symptoms were dismissed. Too many have spent years searching for answers, treatment and acknowledgment. Vaccine injury is not something we should be afraid to talk about. This month, we honor those who have been injured. We remember those who have lost their lives. And we stand with the families who continue fighting to be heard. Their stories matter and they deserve to be heard. Throughout October, Children’s Health Defense will continue sharing their stories and fighting for a world where no one is silenced for speaking about what happened to them.

— Children’s Health Defense (@ChildrensHD) October 7, 2026

October is vaccine injury awareness month💔

Behind every vaccine injury statistic is a real person, a real family, who is suffering because they thought they were doing the right thing.

A parent who was once pro-vax until they saw what they did to their child.

Too many say they were told their injuries were impossible. Too many say their symptoms were dismissed. Too many have spent years searching for answers, treatment and acknowledgment.

Vaccine injury is not something we should be afraid to talk about.

This month, we honor those who have been injured. We remember those who have lost their lives. And we stand with the families who continue fighting to be heard.

Their stories matter and they deserve to be heard.

Throughout October, Children’s Health Defense will continue sharing their stories and fighting for a world where no one is silenced for speaking about what happened to them.

Kennedy appeared on Fox News "The Ingraham Angle" and explained that part of the problem with understanding vaccine injury is that there is not enough data available. Kennedy said reporting found on the VAERS database is only one percent of actual injuries.

WATCH:

🚨BREAKING: HHS Secretary RFK Jr. just announced he's creating a VACCINE INJURY REPORT SYSTEM. This is HUGE! God bless RFK Jr.! https://t.co/6574iONhmJ

— Q Ascension™️ (@QAscension347) October 6, 2026

Of course, the usual suspects are crying about Kennedy not adhering to the "science" with this research initiative, without any evidence — scientific or otherwise — that this will indeed occur. 

Still, some worry the program could become politicized by groups seeking to present vaccines as unsafe. NIH sits within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), whose secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is a longtime critic of vaccines and has questioned the safety of the messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines that were widely used during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s really laudable,” Kathryn Edwards, a pediatrician at Vanderbilt University, says of the effort. “But if it’s not done in a scientific way it will be more antivaccine propaganda.”

I've spent 10 hours in public reading from the most horrifying nonfiction text I've seen: Cries for Help from V-Safe data. This was the CDC's vaccine safety monitoring system, meant to assure people that the government cares. Defenders of the CDC have said that it was never designed to provide care. But the website said the exact opposite. They lied. Thank you @React19org https://t.co/lym8ckIRd7

— Jeffrey A Tucker (@jeffreytucker) October 7, 2026

Kennedy also used his keynote address at the September Children's Health Defense DC Conference to preview the vaccine injury research initiative. Kennedy detailed this heartbreaking story about the fallout from vaccine injuries, and why this research initiative and accountability are so critical.

WATCH:

RFK Jr. says pro-vaccine researchers found girls given the DTP shot were 10 TIMES MORE LIKELY TO DIE over the next three months than unvaccinated children. The girls weren’t dying of diphtheria, tetanus, or whooping cough. However, they were dying of sepsis, respiratory problems, and common infections. So on paper, it “worked.” Then a pro-vaccine Danish team looked closer and reached an unexpected conclusion: the shot was killing MORE children than it saved. Girls dying at ten times the rate of the unvaccinated, and the media ignored it. This should be front page news.

— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) October 7, 2026 

In terms of COVID, we have formerly healthy young people who, after being administered the vaccine, ended up with catastrophic conditions like myocarditis, or miscarried their babies. As in the Danish study Kennedy referenced above, we have no idea about the connections between certain illnesses and vaccine administration until studies are done. So, the fact that this initiative has gained ground and is being taken seriously is a huge leap forward. If done properly, it could help alleviate the suffering of those who have suffered for decades, not to mention saving thousands of lives in the future.

Editor's Note: The Democrat Party has been infected by socialism, and it's spreading FAST. Democrats are claiming there's nothing to worry about, but we know the truth.

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