Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is intensifying his attacks on the vaccine system.

High on his list of targets: a federal vaccine compensation program that settles injury claims. His strategy could bankrupt or diminish the fund, some legal scholars and public health leaders say, saddling pharmaceutical companies with liability risks and costs that would compel them to stop making vaccines.

"It's a radical agenda," said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. "He's using a bunch of different mechanisms and there really are no guardrails. People are going to catch on but it's not going to be enough to stop the waves of deaths, and deaths of children."

Kennedy said

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