The counsel for an organization espousing legal reform said U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is allowing “junk science” to shape U.S. public policy.
“As a mom, I’m incredibly concerned by the unsettling infiltration of junk science that we’re seeing shape public policy in our country,” said Lauren Sheets Jarrell, vice president and counsel for civil justice policy at the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA). “Americans need to know the truth about what’s really driving this nationwide surge in lawsuits related to issues that impact our families like Tylenol, vaccines, and climate change.”
“As HHS Secretary, RFK Jr. is spouting the same junk science theories to make nationwide policy decisions that trial lawyers have used in courtrooms for years,” Sheets Jarrell said. “We’re seeing ‘research’ that couldn’t stand up in court being repackaged as public health policy and then handed back to the trial bar as ammunition for the next wave of lawsuits.”
Her comments came as ATRA released a report called “The Junk Science Playbook,” which said that policy shifts at HHS mirror litigation strategies long used in mass tort cases.
According to the report, changes to advisory panels, regulatory interpretations, and public health messaging could weaken long-standing liability frameworks that protect vaccine manufacturers and other health care innovators from expansive lawsuits. ATRA said that trial attorneys often rely on evolving regulatory positions to bolster claims in court, and that federal policy shifts can directly influence litigation trends.
The report points specifically to the stability of the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VCIP), which was established by Congress in 1986 under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act to provide a no-fault alternative to traditional litigation while maintaining vaccine supply.
ATRA said in its report that undermining that structure could increase exposure to large-scale lawsuits.
In an Inside Health Policy interview published Jan. 12, plaintiffs’ attorney Aaron Siri said that he anticipates Kennedy “will amend the federal Vaccine Injury Table to remove vaccines that are no longer routinely recommended, which would open manufacturers to standard product-liability lawsuits, allowing injured patients to sue vaccine makers like any other company accused of failing to make a product safer or warn of known harms.”
“Once the Vaccine Injury Table is amended to remove the vaccines that are no longer routinely recommended, every attorney in the country will be able to handle vaccine injury claims in the same manner as injury claims from any other product,” Siri said, reported Inside Health Policy.
Siri is managing partner of Siri & Glimstad LLP and “represented Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. during his presidential campaign,” Fortune reported in Dec. 2024. That report also said Siri helped Kennedy interview candidates to work at HHS.
Ross Marchand, executive director of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA), said such changes to VCIP could disrupt supply and discourage innovation.
“The main danger with proposed changes affecting the Vaccine Injury Table is that they would bring back the pre-VICP status quo of nonstop litigation that bankrupted vaccine manufacturers and disrupted supplies,” Marchand told Patient Daily earlier this week. “While it’s easy to only focus on regulations coming from the executive branch—especially after the recent FDA fiasco involving Moderna’s mRNA flu vaccine—out-of-control litigation is basically regulation by the judiciary.”
“If every vaccine maker is sued out of existence, there will be zero incentive to bring new products to market,” said Marchand. “That’s terrible for patients and sets an awful precedent for other industries, which have benefitted from various tort reforms that have made it easier to do business. Lawmakers should maintain liability protections and keep American innovation moving forward.”
The ATRA report also highlighted RFK, Jr’s “overhaul of the childhood vaccine schedule.”
“The same people pushing junk science in courtrooms are now writing the footnotes for national health policy,” Jarrell said. “Scaling back childhood vaccine recommendations on ideological grounds, while trial lawyers position themselves to sue manufacturers under new state liability theories, is a dangerous collision of public health and profit motive.”
Based in Washington, D.C., ATRA was founded in 1986 and advocates for changes to civil justice laws at the state and federal levels. The group says its mission is to promote “fair and effective civil justice systems” and regularly publishes research, policy reports, and its annual “Judicial Hellholes” ranking, which highlights jurisdictions it argues have plaintiff-friendly legal climates.
