Kennedy wants to expand the injury compensation program to include COVID-19 vaccines, while also stretching the “statute of limitations” to more than three years.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has instituted a team to study the U.S. National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program with the stated aim of improving the ways in which vaccine toxicities are identified and victims compensated.
“I’ve brought in a team this week that is starting to work” toward these changes, Kennedy said in an hour-and-a-half-long interview with former Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson.
Established by the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, the U.S.’s Vaccine Injury Compensation Program is a “no-fault” system of resolving vaccine injury petitions. It seeks to provide an alternative to lawsuits, which according to a fact sheet from the Health Resources & Services Administration could lead to vaccine shortages across the country. From 2006 to 2023, more than 13,300 petitions were filed under the program, of which nearly 9,700 were granted compensation, according to a June 2025 document from the HRSA.
Only routine vaccines are covered by the injury compensation program, such as those for polio, hepatitis A and B and seasonal flu. COVID-19 shots are excluded from the program—something that Kennedy took issue with. According to a July 2024 study, common side effects of COVID-19 vaccination in the U.S. include headaches, in around 16% of vaccinated people, and fever, developing in approximately 14%. Serious complications arose in under 5% and included COVID-19, shortness of breath and death.
Data from the HRSA show that as of June 1, 2025, nearly 14,000 people have filed claims related to injuries from COVID-19 products, of which more than 10,700 allege deaths or injuries from vaccines.
“We’re looking for ways to enlarge that program so that COVID vaccine-injured people can be compensated,” Kennedy said during the interview, adding that his department is particularly working to “enlarge the statute of limitations” for the program.
Currently, the system is set up such that patients have to file their petitions within three years of the first symptom of injury, but Kennedy said that this is too short. “A lot of people don’t discover their injuries until after that,” he told Carlson.
Kennedy also blasted what he characterized as inefficiencies and corruption at the heart of the compensation program. “There’s no discovery in that program, there’s no rules of evidence,” he said, adding that the compensation system doesn’t penalize vaccine developers. Instead, victims petition the HHS, which is “represented traditionally by the Department of Justice.”
“And the lawyers in the Department of Justice, the leaders of it were corrupt,” Kennedy claimed. “They saw their job as protecting the trust fund.”
Since assuming leadership of HHS earlier this year, Kennedy has enacted sweeping changes to U.S. vaccine policy. In May, he removed COVID-19 from the CDC’s recommended vaccines for healthy children and healthy pregnant women.
Perhaps most controversial is his decision to empty the CDC’s vaccine advisory board last month before reinstating the panel with fewer members, some of whom have documented histories of anti-vaccine statements. Kennedy doubled down on this decision during his interview with Carlson, accusing the ousted advisors of being “sock puppets” to the pharma industry.
