The US Department of Health and Human Services said it is re-establishing the Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines, a panel of US health officials tasked with making recommendations on vaccine development,

A long-shuttered federal task force on childhood vaccine safety is being revived, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is relaunching a task force focused on the safety of childhood vaccines. | The Department of Health and Human Services is relaunching a task force focused on the safety of childhood vaccines.

The move comes after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. received pressure from the Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine non-profit that he co-founded, which last month sued him over his failure to run the “statutorily required Task Force on childhood vaccine,

The Department of Health and Human Services is bringing back a vaccine task force that improves the safety of child vaccines.

The panel’s reinstatement is one of a series of controversial moves made by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to put vaccines under new scrutiny.

The task force was originally created by Congress under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, but was disbanded in 1998. HHS said the group, which will also include representatives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration, will send its first report to Congress within 2 years.

Children's Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group Kennedy founded, had pushed through to bring the task force back.

HHS has reinstated the Safer Childhood Vaccines task force, the agency said in an Aug. 14 news release. Here are six things to know: 1. The task force, created by Congress, was originally disbanded in 1998.

The new panel will consist of experts from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, with NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya serving as chairman.