NIH Hospital Board Chair Leslie Warns Kennedy Clinic Risks Institution's Standing

Jack Leslie, chair of the board overseeing the National Institutes of Health's Clinical Center Research Hospital, opened a regularly scheduled meeting with introductions before setting aside the agenda to address Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s vaccine injury clinic.

For about six minutes, Leslie cautioned that Kennedy's activities around vaccines could tarnish the hospital's standing among patients with rare conditions and others who have exhausted other options. The hospital is often called the "house of hope." Kennedy attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the hospital to open the clinic, which featured a panel of people who say vaccines injured them seated behind placards reading "vaccine injured," alongside other Trump administration officials.

"But I think that that would be a failing as an advisory board if we were silent," Leslie said. He added that serious reactions to vaccines are rare but real, and that people who believe they were injured should be taken seriously.

The clinic carries no additional funding and no extra clinic space. The NIH already operates a center that studies vaccine injuries. Jonathan Green, the hospital's CEO, said from his seat beside Leslie that the NIH has researched vaccine safety and efficacy for decades and that the work continues. Green described the new clinic as one more individual "protocol" at the hospital.

The clinic's ribbon-cutting took place at the hospital. No date for further board meetings or clinic operations was disclosed at the session.