STAT+: NIH’s new vaccine injury center has broad goals beyond RFK Jr.’s focus on shots

NIH's newly established vaccine injury center will extend its research scope to long-term symptoms after infection, covering groups such as long Covid patients. Earlier this month, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other federal health officials announced the center would focus on patients with vaccine injuries; days later, two NIH leaders said its goals also include post-infection long-term symptoms. A senior NIH official, speaking anonymously, said it is hard to distinguish whether long Covid symptoms stem from the vaccine or the infection because many patients have experienced both, and the immunological response mechanism and treatment are similar.