Compensating Vaccine Injuries

The United States is facing a vaccine shortage that may threaten public health. This book examines vaccine research and development, production and supply, and utilization and offers recommendations aimed at ensuring vaccine supply and promoting innovation. In addition, this comprehensive volume provides information on the adverse reactions associated with the range of vaccines used in the United States and contains the most thorough analysis ever published on the state of the law regarding vaccine-related injury and compensation for vaccine injury.

The so-called vaccine court is a small special court in the United States Court of Federal Claims that handles controversial claims that a vaccine has harmed someone. While vaccines in general are extremely safe and effective, some people still suffer severe vaccine reactions and bring their claims to vaccine court. In this court, lawyers, activists, judges, doctors, and scientists come together, sometimes arguing bitterly, trying to figure out whether a vaccine really caused a person’s medical problem. In Vaccine Court, Anna Kirkland draws on the trials of the vaccine court to explore how legal institutions resolve complex scientific questions. What are vaccine injuries, and how do we come to recognize them? What does it mean to transform these questions into a legal problem and funnel them through a special national vaccine court, as we do in the U.S.? What does justice require for vaccine injury claims, and how can we deliver it? These are highly contested questions, and the terms in which they have been debated over the last forty years are highly revealing of deeper fissures in our society over motherhood, community, health, harm, and trust in authority. While many scholars argue that it’s foolish to let judges and lawyers decide medical claims about vaccines, Kirkland argues that our political and legal response to vaccine injury claims shows how well legal institutions can handle specialized scientific matters. Vaccine Court is an accessible and thorough account of what the vaccine court is, why we have it, and what it does.

A hard look at the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and the families desperately trying to navigate their way through it. The Vaccine Court looks at the mysterious and often unknown world of the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP), the only recourse for seeking compensation for those who have been injured by a vaccine. The NVICP, better known as the ”Vaccine Court,” however, is not without controversy. Established by Congress as a direct result of the passage of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, the NVICP was supposed to offer a no-fault alternative to the traditional injury claims filed in state or federal courts and was to provide quick, efficient, and fair compensation for those who have been injured by vaccines. The reality, however, is that many cases take several years or longer to complete and require tremendous commitment from families already pushed to the brink of bankruptcy caring for the vaccine-injured family member, only to discover that the end result is manipulated by the government in defense of the US vaccine policy. Mr. Rohde looks into the inner workings of the US Federal Claims Court and the NVICP. He interviews families who have filed petitions and won compensation, families who have been denied compensation, and families still waiting for a decision. By highlighting the journeys of these families—their efforts to find attorneys willing to represent them, the filing of their petitions, and the subsequent mountain of paperwork, medical records, and other documents that span years—Mr. Rohde exposes the bitter truth behind the NVICP. Through his thoughtful interviews and fact-finding research, The Vaccine Court sheds light on how the NVICP has evolved into something far more treacherous than what Congress envisioned with the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act in 1986.

In 1900, for every 1,000 babies born in the United States, 100 would die before their first birthday, often due to infectious diseases. Today, vaccines exist for many viral and bacterial diseases. The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, passed in 1986, was intended to bolster vaccine research and development through the federal coordination of vaccine initiatives and to provide relief to vaccine manufacturers facing financial burdens. The legislation also intended to address concerns about the safety of vaccines by instituting a compensation program, setting up a passive surveillance system for vaccine adverse events, and by providing information to consumers. A key component of the legislation required the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to collaborate with the Institute of Medicine to assess concerns about the safety of vaccines and potential adverse events, especially in children. Adverse Effects of Vaccines reviews the epidemiological, clinical, and biological evidence regarding adverse health events associated with specific vaccines covered by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), including the varicella zoster vaccine, influenza vaccines, the hepatitis B vaccine, and the human papillomavirus vaccine, among others. For each possible adverse event, the report reviews peer-reviewed primary studies, summarizes their findings, and evaluates the epidemiological, clinical, and biological evidence. It finds that while no vaccine is 100 percent safe, very few adverse events are shown to be caused by vaccines. In addition, the evidence shows that vaccines do not cause several conditions. For example, the MMR vaccine is not associated with autism or childhood diabetes. Also, the DTaP vaccine is not associated with diabetes and the influenza vaccine given as a shot does not exacerbate asthma. Adverse Effects of Vaccines will be of special interest to the National Vaccine Program Office, the VICP, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, vaccine safety researchers and manufacturers, parents, caregivers, and health professionals in the private and public sectors.

Reveals the truth behind the controversial issue of vaccine-related injuries. Proponents declare that vaccines have saved millions of lives. Critics claim that the success is overstated and that vaccines may even be dangerous. Many consider mandatory vaccinations a violation of individual rights or religious principles. Many in public health argue that vaccine mandates are critical and justified and that antivaccination sentiment has resulted in outbreaks of preventable childhood illnesses. Vaccine critics point to mainstream medicine’s denial of and underreporting of vaccine injury. Vaccine injuries have happened in the past and continue to happen today, and neither the mainstream medical establishment nor the government has ever fully and transparently addressed the issue of vaccine injury. In the 1980s, the United States addressed individual cases of vaccine injury by establishing the NVICP—the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program—a controversial Department of Health and Human Services program. The NVICP was intended to be “non-adversarial, compassionate, and generous” to vaccine-injury victims. However, many vaccine-injury victims and safety advocates believe that the program is not functioning as intended. There are also concerns that the program is keeping the reality of vaccine injury from public inspection. Vaccine Injuries, a groundbreaking book in the field, reveals cases of vaccine injury from the NVICP—something that has never been offered to the public—and lets readers asses vaccine injuries for themselves.

Vaccines save lives by preventing disease in the people who receive them. In some instances, however, a vaccine can have severe side effects, including death or an injury requiring lifetime medical care. The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) provides compensation for injuries and deaths associated with certain vaccines for medical and other costs. VICP includes an injury table that lists the injuries presumed to be caused by vaccines covered by the program. VICP may also compensate individuals for injuries not on the table; however, in those cases causation is not presumed. Since VICP began in 1988, it has awarded more than $2.8 billion in compensation. This report examined (1) how long it has taken to adjudicate claims and how claims have been adjudicated; (2) the changes to the vaccine injury table; and (3) how the balance of and spending from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Trust Fund have changed. Tables and figures. This is a print on demand report.

Vaccination is a fundamental component of preventive medicine and public health. The use of vaccines to prevent infectious diseases has resulted in dramatic decreases in disease, disability, and death in the United States and around the world. The current political, economic, and social environment presents both opportunities for and challenges to strengthening the U.S. system for developing, manufacturing, regulating, distributing, funding, and administering safe and effective vaccines for all people. Priorities for the National Vaccine Plan examines the extraordinarily complex vaccine enterprise, from research and development of new vaccines to financing and reimbursement of immunization services. Priorities for the National Vaccine Plan examines the extraordinarily complex vaccine enterprise, from research and development of new vaccines to financing and reimbursement of immunization services. The book makes recommendations about priority actions in the update to the National Vaccine Plan that are intended to achieve the objectives of disease prevention and enhancement of vaccine safety. It is centered on the plan's five goals in the areas of vaccine development, safety, communication, supply and use, and global health.