The US health agency is reviving a task force on childhood vaccine safety after pressure from anti-vaccine activists to re-establish the panel.

In a statement, Health and Human Services (HHS) said it was reinstating the Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines – which was disbanded in 1998 – “to improve the safety, quality, and oversight of vaccines administered to American children”.

The task force will provide recommendations on childhood vaccines “that result in fewer and less serious adverse reactions than those vaccines currently on the market”, the agency said.

It is the latest move from Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr to scrutinize the US childhood vaccine schedule.

The reinstatement of the panel comes after the Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group that Kennedy founded, funded a lawsuit against his administration in May for failing to re-establish the task force.

The leader of the Children’s Health Defense, which has spread misinformation about vaccines, lauded the news of the panel.

“It took nearly 50 years for HHS to do this, but at last the Secretary is following the law on this critical issue,” wrote CEO Mary Holland. “We are grateful.”

The Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines was created in 1986 through the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, to provide compensation to children who had adverse reactions to certain vaccines.

The task force will include members of the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, HHS said.

Since taking office, Kennedy has made a number of changes to the agency’s vaccine policies.

In June, he removed all members of a federal committee of independent experts who make recommendations to the CDC on who receives immunizations and when. He replaced the panel with new members, many of whom are vaccine sceptics and have criticised Covid-19 shots.

Soon after his new panel convened, they announced they would review the health effects of the childhood vaccination schedule.

In May, Kennedy also removed the CDC’s recommendation of the Covid-19 vaccine for pregnant women and healthy children.