While unrest and new vaccine restrictions have kept US health agencies in headlines, there’s one vaccine program in particular that Robert F Kennedy Jr, secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), recently vowed to “fix”, which experts say could further upend the vaccine industry and prevent people experiencing rare side effects from vaccines from getting financial help.

While some changes to the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), which compensates people who suffer very rare side effects from vaccination, must come from Congress, Kennedy could take several actions to reshape or affect the program’s operations.

Kennedy “seems to be pursuing two opposite theories” on changing VICP, said Anna Kirkland, a professor at the University of Michigan and author of Vaccine Court.

"Make it easier and compensate more, versus blow it all up. And then maybe there’s a third way of, foment skepticism, undercut recommendations,” she said.