The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is relaunching a task force focused on the safety of childhood vaccines. The federal panel will be chaired by National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Jay Bhattacharya, M.D., Ph.D.

The panel, called the Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines, was created by Congress nearly 40 years ago and was aimed at finding ways to improve childhood vaccines. The panel’s initial iteration was disbanded in 1998, according to an Aug. 14 HHS release.

The new task force will include leaders from the NIH, the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and will work with the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines—a federal board that provides financial compensation in the rare case that kids are injured by a vaccine.

Together, leadership is expected to work on refining childhood vaccines so they “result in fewer and less serious adverse reactions” than vaccines currently on the market, the HHS said.

Millions of American children safely receive FDA-approved vaccines every year, with the most common side effects being mild in nature, like pain at the injection site, according to the CDC. 

The resurrected task force is also expected to improve vaccine development and production, and enhance adverse reaction reporting while supporting research to make vaccines safer, according to the release. 

Since 1990, adverse events have been tracked by the HHS using a national vaccine safety surveillance program. The government did not say how it planned to improve upon current strategies.

The task force is expected to deliver its first formal report to Congress within two years, with updates expected every two years after that.

The move appears to be a step toward undoing the current childhood immunization schedule, which has long been a goal of vaccine conspiracist and HHS head Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Just this May, an anti-vaccine group founded by RFK Jr. filed a lawsuit against the HHS for not reconvening the task force. 

In his short tenure as secretary of HHS so far, RFK Jr. has already removed all 17 sitting members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, fueling criticism from medical associations and experts alike.

Also unsettling is RFK Jr.’s long history of endorsing the claim that autism may be linked to vaccines. Scientific research has continuously demonstrated no relationship between vaccines and autism, according to the HHS’ own CDC.

The new task force follows the HHS’ wind-down of mRNA vaccine research last week, another major escalation of RFK Jr.’s campaign against vaccines. While the HHS head cited “the science” as a reason behind the rollback, the NIH’s Bhattacharya said the science was promising but the discontinuation was due to public distrust of the platform.  

Bhattacharya is known for his opposition to COVID-19 mandates.

"By reinstating this task force, we are reaffirming our commitment to rigorous science, continuous improvement and the trust of American families," Bhattacharya said in the release. "NIH is proud to lead this effort to advance vaccine safety and support innovation that protects children without compromise."

The current Trump administration has invested $500 million for developing a universal vaccine—a shot designed to protect against multiple strains of a pandemic-prone virus at once.

Scientists have been chasing the concept for decades to no avail. This type of vaccine may prompt a strong immune response from the body but has been tied to more frequent mild side effects, especially in children, persuading the industry to largely drop the approach years ago. 

Formation of the task force also shortly follows a fatal shooting that occurred at the CDC’s Atlanta headquarters last week. The 30-year-old shooter’s father contacted police to identify his son, telling officials his son was in mental distress and had blamed COVID-19 vaccines for his and others’ illnesses.

After the shooting, in which police officer David Rose, 33, was killed, CDC staffers and other public health figures are calling on leadership to take a stronger stance on vaccine misinformation and inflammatory rhetoric that fuel such attacks.