President-elect Trump’s alternative of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services. could significantly impact vaccine perception and implementation. Regardless of whether he or any of Trump’s other vaccine-skeptical nominees receive Senate confirmation, all indications are that the incoming administration may try to change long-established U.S. vaccine policy
This webinar will discuss the ins and outs of vaccine approval and suggestion, vaccine injury adjudication and compensation, and the HHS Secretary’s authority over these procedures. We’ll discuss what the Secretary can revoke, what checks and balances exist on these powers, and what the potential consequences of those actions could be.
Hosted by AHCJ Health Beat infectious disease leader Tara Haelle, the webinar will prepare reporters to anticipate possible policy moves in the brand new administration.
Tara Haelle
Health Beat Leader in Infectious Diseases, AHCJ
Tara Haelle is AHCJ’s Infectious Diseases and Medical Studies Leader. She is a contract science/health journalist, writer, speaker and photographer. Her work has appeared in National Geographic, Scientific American, Texas Monthly, Science News, Medscape/WebMD, The New York Times, Wired, and O Magazine, amongst others. He makes a speciality of public health and medical research, particularly vaccines, infectious diseases, maternal and child health, mental health, health care disparities, and misinformation. He also covers medical research conferences and edits the Long COVID Connection on Medium. Haelle earned a master’s degree in photojournalism from the University of Texas at Austin, and her photography has appeared in Texas Monthly, NPR, the Chicago Sun-Times and elsewhere.
Paul A. Offit, MD
Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of vaccinology at the University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Paul A. Offit is director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology and Professor of Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Offit currently serves as a voting member of the FDA’s Vaccine Advisory Committee and previously served on the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. He can also be the co-inventor of the RotaTeq rotavirus vaccine, really useful for general use in infants by the CDC in 2006 and by the WHO in 2013. It was recently estimated that this vaccine saves the lives of roughly 165,000 people per 12 months. He can also be the writer of 11 books written for the general public on science, medicine and vaccines.
Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, Ph.D., LLB
James Edgar Hervey Chair of Litigation, Law, University of California, San Francisco
Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, LLB, Ph.D., is Professor of Law and James Edgar Hervey Chair in Litigation at the University of California, San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings). He makes a speciality of vaccine law and policy, including exemption provisions and tort liability related to failure to vaccinate. He also teaches administrative law and public health law. She has published in law reviews, peer-reviewed journals and blogs on vaccine legal and policy issues and co-authored a book on vaccine law and policy with Professor Y. Tony Yang.
