Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is targeting a little-known but crucial program that underpins all childhood vaccinations.

Kennedy took to social media and the show of conservative activist Charlie Kirk this week to rail against the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) and pledge significant changes.

“The VICP is broken, and I intend to fix it,” he wrote on the social platform X. “I will not allow the VICP to continue to ignore its mandate and fail its mission of quickly and fairly compensating vaccine-injured individuals.”

Attorneys and other experts say Kennedy is right that the program, which was created in 1986 in order to give quick payouts to families who can prove a child was injured from a vaccine, is badly in need of modernization.

“There's a lot of low-hanging fruit that [Kennedy] can act on that would immediately alter the course of the vaccine program for the better,” said David Carney, a vaccine injury attorney in Philadelphia and president of the Vaccine Injured Petitioners Bar Association.

Cases could be settled more quickly, rather than going through a trial, Carney said. Kennedy could also press Congress to act on legislation that would increase the court staff, increase the pain and suffering caps, and........

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