WASHINGTON (AP) — Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is vowing to “fix” the federal program for compensating Americans injured by vaccines, opening the door to sweeping changes for a system long targeted by anti-vaccine activists .

Health experts and lawyers say updates are needed to help clear a backlog of cases in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, created by Congress in 1986 as a no-fault payment system for presumed vaccine injuries.

But they also worry Kennedy’s changes will reflect his history as a leader in the anti-vaccine movement , which has alternately called for abolishing the program or expanding it to cover unproven injuries and illnesses that aren't connected to vaccines .

Kennedy and other critics believe the program is “too miserly in what it consid

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