Under pressure from anti-vaccine activists, the Department of Health and Human Services has reinstated the Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines, claiming that the committee will “improve the safety, quality, and oversight of vaccines administered to American children.” The Task Force was disbanded in 1998.
TIM CAULFIELD; [email protected], @CaulfieldTim
Caulfield is a professor and research director at the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta.
Caulfield told the Institute for Public Accuracy: “This is a really significant public health development. In the ‘before times,’ it would have made headlines, but now it’s getting lost in how much noise there is right now… I’ve studied and followed vaccine hesitancy for decades. Everyone wants safe vaccines. I work with researchers all over the world dedicated to ensuring that vaccines are safe. But this committee employs a logic fallacy that anti-vaxxers often use; the logic is that if you criticize this move [to reinstate the Task Force], then you don’t care about safe vaccines.
“The bottom line is that there has been more ongoing oversight and research with respect to vaccines than there has been into nearly any other biomedical intervention. It’s a complete fallacy to say that childhood vaccines haven’t been researched or that there’s no oversight. That is what this move to reinstate the Task Force is trying to imply. This move is trying to create uncertainty about the safety of vaccines. The goal is to doubt-monger and create the impression that we need this because vaccines aren’t safe. Alas, these strategies work. Even though the broad scientific consensus is that these vaccines are safe and effective, the population is increasingly vaccine hesitant.
“It is very frustrating, especially when you put this move in the broader context of what this administration has already done to undermine public confidence in vaccines and undermine the ability of the CDC and FDA and NIH to do research and ensure vaccines are safe. They are infusing all these institutions with anti-vaccine rhetoric that normalizes and legitimizes those positions. All of that has happened already––and then enter this decision to resurrect this committee. I’m not surprised that the administration found yet another way to undermine vaccines. But if you have embraced a non-scientific portrayal of vaccines, then this is a pretty cynical move. It’s a good PR move for the anti-vaccine movement.
“RFK Jr. disbanded the Vaccine Advisory Committee and put it back together with anti-vaxxers and people without the expertise to evaluate vaccines. So we have reason to be very worried. He has also suggested that independent professional organizations with deep knowledge and expertise should be banned from contributing to discussions about vaccine oversight. Given those two actions, it’s extremely worrisome.”
Caulfield, who is based in Canada, emphasized that these changes do not only impact the United States. “The rhetoric that emanates from RFK Jr. and the Trump administration more broadly do harm to the entire world, because they normalize and legitimize untruths about vaccines and contribute to a worldwide confidence crisis. I live in the most conservative province in Canada, where the same rhetoric is being picked up by political leaders. This is the only province so far to stop funding Covid vaccines based on the rhetoric flowing from the U.S. The other problem, of course, is that the U.S. is the biggest funder of biomedical research.”