Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been Health and Human Services secretary for less than two weeks, but he’s already pressing what looks like an anti-vaccine agenda. The HHS secretary has many tools to undermine vaccines, and his early moves are revealing.

News reports say he’s preparing to sack members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. This is the group that decides whether and how to recommend vaccines for the public. Its recommendations help determine which vaccines are covered under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

That’s the program Congress established to compensate individuals injured by vaccines. Its aim is to limit litigation against vaccine makers so they’ll take the high risk of developing them.

Kennedy is targeting the committee members for alleged conflicts of interest. But none of the members work for drug companies. They’re medical professors and physicians with careers studying vaccines.

Perhaps Kennedy doesn’t like that they have done research showing vaccines are beneficial.

Kennedy’s concern about conflicts of interest is especially striking given his own ties to trial lawyers who sue drug companies. He helped spearhead litigation against Merck over its HPV vaccine in which he had a 10% financial interest. He recently agreed to cede his stake to his son who works at the law firm, Wisner Baum, that is suing the company.

Relatedly, there are notable developments in that HPV litigation. The first jury trial began a month ago in a California court. The plaintiff alleges that Merck’s Gardasil HPV vaccine caused her postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome.

The Food and Drug Administration in 2016 determined there was no evidence that the vaccine caused this syndrome. Merck’s vaccine trials showed no difference in the syndrome’s incidence in the placebo and vaccine groups.

Yet Wisner Baum claims Merck “hid adverse events by dismissing them as unrelated to the vaccine.” That’s hard to reckon given that the FDA review details wide-ranging adverse events in trial participants.

Independent doctors who worked on the trial were also blinded to whether patients received the vaccine when they determined if an injury was caused by the vaccine. This evidence may explain why the California trial wasn’t going the plaintiff firm’s way. After several weeks of hearings, lead trial lawyer Mark Lanier asked Merck to adjourn the trial and start a new one in September.

Mr. Lanier says publicity around Mr. Kennedy’s confirmation hearing may have tainted the jurors. But the plaintiffs could have sought to delay the trial at any time. Why seek a new one after three weeks of hearings–and notably–the day after Mr. Kennedy was confirmed? Do they hope Mr. Kennedy will use his new position to help their case?

Mr. Lanier told Reuters, “without elaborating,” the news service said, that he expects a new scientific study by September that might help his case. Our sources say he’s referring to a study the CDC is currently conducting on POTS and adolescent vaccinations.

Merck consented to Mr. Lanier’s request, which lets it focus on defenses in federal multi-district litigation. But the Gardasil plaintiffs and trial lawyers around the country now have a very powerful friend in government who can help them.

Would Louisiana doctor and Sen. Bill Cassidy, who provided a decisive vote for RFK Jr.’s confirmation, care to comment?

The Wall Street Journal