HHS launches new NIH clinic to study, care for people with vaccine injuries

 WASHINGTON (TNND) — The Health and Human Services Department has launched a new National Institutes of Health clinic to study and care for people with vaccine injuries.

HHS announced Thursday that the "clinic dedicated to studying and caring for patients experiencing health problems following vaccination" opened on Monday.

The clinic is for NIH clinicians and researchers to evaluate patients, investigate potential causes of health problems experienced after vaccination, and identify better approaches to caring for patients, according to HHS.

“We must listen to patients and families who report vaccine injuries—not dismiss or gaslight them,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said in a statement.

“President Trump and I are building a health system that takes them seriously, follows the evidence, and uses what we learn to make vaccines safer. This is how we earn back trust in our public health institutions.”HHS also said that it has proposed reimbursing physicians when they report suspected vaccine-related injuries to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) through a new Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services policy, will require electronic health records for vaccine-related adverse events, and is modernizing VAERS to improve reporting.

The purpose of these actions, according to HHS, is "to strengthen how the federal government identifies, documents, investigates, and responds to health problems reported following vaccination, with a focus on improving patient care and generating better evidence about potential vaccine-related injuries."

Kennedy has repeatedly claimed that vaccines are linked to a variety of adverse health effects.While giving a keynote address last month at a Children’s Health Defense conference, the antivaccine group Kennedy previously chaired, the secretary claimed vaccines were linked to the chronic disease epidemic. Kennedy said that vaccines are linked to several adverse conditions, including “diabetes, death, sudden infant death syndrome, anorexia, allergic reactions, allergies, asthma [and] autoimmune diseases,” The Hill reported.