Understanding the Vaccine Injury Table

The Vaccine Injury Table was created by the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.

“The Table makes it easier for some people to get compensation. The Table lists and explains injuries/conditions that are presumed to be caused by vaccines. It also lists time periods in which the first symptom of these injuries/conditions must occur after receiving the vaccine. If the first symptom of these injuries/conditions occurs within the listed time periods, it is presumed that the vaccine was the cause of the injury or condition unless another cause is found.”

What You Need to Know about the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program

A table injury is an illness, disability, injury or condition covered by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

“For example, if you received the tetanus vaccine and had a severe allergic reaction (anaphylaxis) within 4 hours after receiving the vaccine, then it is presumed that the tetanus vaccine caused the injury if no other cause is found.”

What You Need to Know about the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program

To quality as a table injury, the illness, disability, injury or condition has to occur within a specific “time period for first symptom or manifestation of onset or of significant aggravation after vaccine administration.”

Understanding the Vaccine Injury Table

So if there is a Vaccine Injury Table, then that proves that vaccine injuries are real, right?

Wait, does anyone dispute that vaccine injuries are real?

No one says that vaccines are 100% safe, so yes, of course, it is known that they have risks and cause adverse effects. While most of these adverse effects are usually mild, they can rarely be severe or even life threatening.

The idea the vaccine injuries are common is what is misunderstood and misrepresented by anti-vaccine folks.

Consider the above post by Bob Sears…

Yes chronic arthritis after a rubella containing vaccine is a table injury, but it is very rare. Arthritis after the rubella vaccine is typically mild and temporary, lasting just a few days.

While rubella containing vaccines can cause arthritis, they do not cause lifelong rheumatoid arthritis. So even if you were to be one of the very rare people who developed chronic arthritis after a rubella containing vaccine, a table injury, it would still not be the same thing as rheumatoid arthritis.

“The association between rubella vaccination and chronic arthritis is less clear. Most recently published research, has shown no increased risk of chronic arthropathies among women receiving RA27/3 rubella vaccine and do not support the conclusion of the IOM (Slater et al., 1995; Frenkel et al., 1996; Ray et al., 1997). These studies have included a large retrospective cohort analysis which showed no evidence of any increased risk of new onset chronic arthropathies and a double-blind historical cohort study. One randomised placebo-controlled, double-blind study of rubella vaccination in sero-negative women demonstrated that the frequency of chronic (recurrent) arthralgia or arthritis was marginally increased (1.58 [1.01-2.45], p = 0.042) (Tingle et al., 1997). In 2011, the United States Institute of Medicine (IOM) reviewed available research and concluded that the evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship between MMR vaccine and chronic arthralgia in women.”

Information Sheet Observed Rate of Vaccine Reactions Measles, Mumps and Rubella Vaccines

And it wouldn’t even be clear if your chronic arthritis was caused by the vaccine!

“The Table lists and explains injuries and/or conditions that are presumed to be caused by vaccines unless another cause is proven.”

What You Need to Know about the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program

To be added to the Vaccine Injury Table, there only has to be scientific evidence that a condition could be caused by a vaccine.

“Where there is credible scientific and medical evidence both to support and to reject a proposed change (addition or deletion) to the Table, the change should, whenever possible, be made to the benefit of petitioners.”

Guiding Principles for Recommending Changes to the Vaccine Injury Table

That makes sense, as the NVICP is a “is a no-fault alternative to the traditional legal system for resolving vaccine injury petitions” for VICP-covered vaccines.

Vaccines Covered by the Vaccine Injury Table

Most routinely used vaccines are covered by the Vaccine Injury Table, including vaccines that protect against:

• diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis – DTaP, Tdap, Td
• measles, mumps, and rubella – MMR, ProQuad
• chickenpox – Varivax, ProQuad
• polio – IPV, OPV
• hepatitis B
• hepatitis A
• Hib
• rotavirus
• pneumococcal disease – Prevnar
• influenza – seasonal flu vaccines
• meningococcal disease – MCV4, MenB
• human papillomavirus – HPV4, HPV9

In fact, “any new vaccine recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for routine administration to children, after publication by the Secretary of a notice of coverage” is automatically included, at least for Shoulder Injury Related to Vaccine Administration and vasovagal syncope.

New vaccines are also covered if they are already “under a category of vaccines covered by the VICP.”

Immunizations given to pregnant women are also covered.

A few others, including vaccines that protect against pandemic flu, smallpox, and anthrax are covered by the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP).

Vaccines Not Covered by the Vaccine Injury Table

What about vaccines that aren’t routine?

Other vaccines that are used in special situations, including vaccines that protect against rabies, yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis, cholera, and typhoid aren’t listed in the Vaccine Injury Table and aren’t covered by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

Shingles vaccines and the older pneumococcal vaccine, Pneumovax, aren’t covered either.

And since they are not covered by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, there are no restrictions on lawsuits against the manufacturers of these vaccines or the health providers who administer them.

So much for the idea that you can’t sue a vaccine manufacturer or that vaccine manufacturers have no liability for vaccines…

Why weren’t these vaccines covered?

Remember, the NVICP and Vaccine Injury Table were created by the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. The vaccines that aren’t covered are not on the routine childhood immunization schedule.

“There are no age restrictions on who may receive compensation in the VICP. Petitions may be filed on behalf of infants, children and adolescents, or by adults receiving VICP-covered vaccines.”

National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Frequently Asked Questions

Still, since many of the covered vaccines can be given to adults, they are included, even if some of the vaccines adults routinely get aren’t covered.

Will they ever be covered?

“They found a low liability burden for these vaccines, that serious adverse events were rare, and that no consensus existed among stakeholders. After considering the staff report, NVAC chose, in 1996, not to advise the Department of Health and Human Services to include adult vaccines in VICP.”

Loyd-Puryear et al on Should the vaccine injury compensation program be expanded to cover adults?

Adding more adult vaccines to the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) is something that has been looked at in the past, but it wasn’t thought to be necessary.

What to Know About the Vaccine Injury Table

The Vaccine Injury Table is a list of conditions set up to make it easier for people to get compensated from the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

More on Understanding the Vaccine Injury Table

• About Those Lawsuits That Almost Put Vaccine Manufacturers out of Business
• A Shot at the Dark – DPT vs DTaP
• Alleged Fraud in the Vaccine Court Omnibus Autism Proceedings
• Has the Vaccine Court Compensated over 70 Families for Autism?
• Unavoidably Unsafe Vaccines
• Which Countries Have a Vaccine Injury Compensation Program?
• Answers To Frequently Asked Questions About Immunizations
• Anti-Vaccine Points Refuted A Thousand Times
• What You Need to Know about the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program
• National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Frequently Asked Questions
• Guiding Principles for Recommending Changes to the Vaccine Injury Table
• Vaccines Covered by the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP)
• Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP)
• Update on the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP)
• Should the vaccine injury compensation program be expanded to cover adults?
• An idea whose time has come.
• AAP – National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act: Revision of the Vaccine Injury Table
• WHO – Information Sheet Observed Rate of Vaccine Reactions Measles, Mumps and Rubella Vaccines
• Vaccines and the Law
• National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Facts
• Vaccine court myths – instead, here are facts about the NVICP
• Vaccines and “Unavoidably Unsafe Products”
• On “Vaccine Injury”: Real, but Exceedingly Rare
• Debunking anti-vaccine arguments: VAERS, package inserts, and the VICP do not prove that vaccines are dangerous