Why do some folks think that taxpayers have paid 4 billion dollars in vaccine injuries and deaths?
Oh, these folks…
About That 4 Billion Dollars Taxpayers Have Paid for Vaccine Injuries…
So, is it true?
Have taxpayers paid 4 billion dollars for vaccine injuries and deaths, like their signs say?
Nope.
For one thing, these anti-vax protestors are mixing together a couple of separate anti-vaccine talking points that are used to scare parents away from vaccinating and protecting their kids.
- While the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 did set up a $0.75 vaccine excise tax to fund the Vaccine Injury Compensation Trust Fund, it is the vaccine manufacturers who pay the tax.
- And billions and billions of doses of vaccines (over 3.5 billion just since 2006) have been given since 1989, the time since the $4,060,857,713.42 has been paid by the Vaccine Court. The payment has been for 6,355 compensated claims over those thirty years, most of which are for vaccine injuries, not deaths. Fewer than 10% of Vaccine Court cases are for vaccine deaths.
Does that matter?
It does if you consider that many more kids would die if we didn’t routinely vaccinate and protect our kids!
“Analyses showed that routine childhood immunization among members of the 2009 US birth cohort will prevent ∼42 000 early deaths and 20 million cases of disease, with net savings of $13.5 billion in direct costs and $68.8 billion in total societal costs, respectively.”
Zhou et al on Economic Evaluation of the Routine Childhood Immunization Program in the United States, 2009
And it would be far more costly if we returned to an era when epidemics of vaccine preventable diseases became routine.
Too bad I can’t fit all of that on a sign…
More on Vaccine Court Payouts
- Diagnosing Vaccine Injuries
- The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Payouts Prove that Vaccines are Dangerous
- Can Parents Still Sue Vaccine Manufacturers?
- Has the Vaccine Court Compensated over 70 Families for Autism?
- Do Flu Vaccines Have More Reported Side Effects Than Other Vaccines?
- Remembering Measles
- 10 Reasons You Aren’t Vaccinating Your Kids
- More Questions to Help You Become a Vaccine Skeptic
- Vaccine Injury Compensation Data
- Study – Economic Evaluation of the Routine Childhood Immunization Program in the United States, 2009
- CDC – Benefits from Immunization During the Vaccines for Children Program Era — United States, 1994–2013
- CDC – Achievements in Public Health, 1900-1999 Impact of Vaccines Universally Recommended for Children — United States, 1990-1998
- Expanding Use of Vaccines Could Save Up to $44 for Every Dollar Spent, Study Suggests
- If vaccines are safe, why has the US gov. paid out $3 BILLION to vaccine-injured families?
- Debunking anti-vaccine arguments: VAERS, package inserts, and the VICP do not prove that vaccines are dangerous
- Vaccine injury payouts – another trope that abuses NVICP statistics
- Vaccine Injury Compensation Programs
- Using and Misusing Legal Decisions: Why Antivaccine Claims About NVICP Cases Are Wrong