Tag: lawsuit

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?

The Vaccine Injury Table is easier to understand if you actually look at the table.
The Vaccine Injury Table is easier to understand if you actually look at the table.

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.

It's no joke, studies have shown fewer side effects after the second dose of MMR!
It’s no joke, studies have shown fewer side effects after the second dose of MMR!

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.

Have you seen any TV ads for lawsuits against the shingles vaccine, which isn't in the vaccine injury table.
Have you seen any TV ads for lawsuits against the first shingles vaccine?

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

Which Countries Have a Vaccine Injury Compensation Program?

Vaccines are safe, effective, have few risks, and are obviously necessary.

They aren’t perfect though, which is why “the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) may provide financial compensation to individuals who file a petition and are found to have been injured by a VICP-covered vaccine.”

But the NVICP is only in the United States.

Which Countries Have a Vaccine Injury Compensation Program?

What do other countries do?

The United States isn't the only country with a vaccine injury compensation program. We weren't even the first to have such a system.

You will likely be surprised to know that many have their own vaccine injury compensation programs, including:

  1. Germany ( year of introduction – 1961)
  2. France (1963)
  3. Japan (1970)
  4. Switzerland (1970)
  5. Denmark (1972)
  6. Austria (1973)
  7. New Zealand (1974)
  8. Sweden (1978)
  9. UK Vaccine Damage Payments Unit (1979)
  10. Finland (1984)
  11. Government of Québec Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (1985)
  12. United States NVICP (1988)
  13. Taiwan (1988)
  14. Italy (1992)
  15. Korea National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (1994)
  16. Norway (1995)
  17. Iceland (2001)
  18. Slovenia (2004)
  19. Hungary (2005)

Does this prove that vaccines are dangerous?

“Vaccines are extremely safe and harm is rare. World-wide, more than 30,000 vaccine doses are delivered per second through routine immunization programs, which,in turn, prevent an estimated 2 million to 3 million deaths annually. The occurrence of serious adverse events, such as those that result in death, threaten life, require inpatient hospitalization, or result in significant disability, are rare (eg, <1 adverse event occurs per 10 million doses for tetanus toxoid vaccines, 1-2 adverse events per 1 million doses for inactivated influenza vaccine, and none for hepatitis A).”

Halabi et al on A Global Vaccine Injury Compensation System

Of course not!

Remember, payouts from these programs, compared to the number of doses of vaccines given, are rare.

Should all countries have a compensation program?

“The most important justification, however, is an ethical argument from justice and equity: introduction of a vaccine injury compensation scheme acknowledges the unique situation that routine childhood immunization is a public health measure, given and accepted in good faith, that may occasionally damage the recipient.”

David Isaacs on Should Australia introduce a vaccine injury compensation scheme?

Sure.

People shouldn’t have to fight for compensation for the rare circumstance for when a true vaccine injury does occur.

More on International Vaccine Injury Compensation Programs

How an Anti-Vaccine Safety Handbook Has Caused the Longest Measles Outbreak in Recent History

Can you believe that there were only 37 measles cases in 2004?

This year, we sometimes get reports of 37 cases in a week.

What happened?

A rise in measles cases all over the world happened. And since folks do travel, that led to outbreaks in any community that doesn’t have high rates of vaccination.

How an Anti-Vaccine Safety Handbook Has Caused the Longest Measles Outbreak in Recent History

And that’s where the PEACH Vaccine Safety Handbook comes into play.

Since at least 2014, the PEACH project folks and have been distributing their magazines filled with misinformation about vaccines in Orthodox Jewish communities.

In addition to Lakewood, the PEACH magazine was sent to “a mailing list that included a comprehensive directory of Pittsburgh families affiliated with various branches of Orthodoxy.”

And it found its way to Brooklyn and other Orthodox communities. Many of the same communities where we are now seeing the largest measles outbreaks in recent history, although there are plenty of outbreaks in other places too.

Surprisingly, PEACH is pure PRATT – anti-vaccine points refuted a thousand times.

Folks really should read the package insert of vaccines and should understand what they say. They don’t say that vaccines are associated with autism.

The cartoons were a nice touch, but should have been a tip-off that none of it was true! There is even a cartoon about the HAZMAT myth.

It all does look very official and sounds scary though, so it is easy to see how parents could be mislead by the magazine, especially when they seem to cite references for all of their “facts.”

This PEACH timeline was originally posted on several anti-vaccine websites back in 2007…

But let’s look at some of the facts in the above timeline:

  • is there any reason why Germany might have seen a rise in diphtheria cases in 1945?
  • Ghana was not declared measles-free in 1967. Unfortunately, Ghana is still not measles-free…
  • while the SV40 virus did contaminate some polio vaccines, it has not been associated with causing cancer or any other problems
  • whooping cough cases rose in Sweden and the UK because they stopped using the DPT vaccine in the late 1970s and 80s over fears of side effects. Of course, we now know that these fears were unfounded and many kids suffered because those fears were hyped by a few doctors, the media, and players from the start of the modern anti-vaccine movement
  • frivolous lawsuits over DPT side effects is what led to the rise in DPT prices
  • Jonas Salk testified that “mass inoculation against polio was the cause of most polio cases in the USA since 1961” because the Salk and Sabin polio vaccines had already controlled wild polio in the United States!!!
  • What about the idea that “the February 1981 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 90% of obstetricians and 66% of pediatricians refused to take the rubella vaccine?” That’s actually kind of true. But it was just a survey of a small number of employees at Los Angeles County University of Southern California Medical Center, most of whom believed that they actually were immune because they had likely been exposed to rubella so much in the past.

The rest of the magazine continues with the same kind of propaganda, trying to make folks think that vaccines don’t work, vaccines aren’t necessary, and that vaccines are dangerous.

Their experts?

From Russell Blaylock and Mark Geier to Tim O’Shea and Sherri Tenpenny, it is a who’s who of the worst folks in the modern anti-vaccine movement. They are certainly not the kind of folks you should be turning to for advice about vaccines, or anything else.

I wonder what they say about Shaken Baby Syndrome? Is it a vaccine injury too?!?

As we have seen with these growing measles outbreaks, although it makes a catchy slogan, you can’t always vaccinate later. You can wait until it is too late.

“I can only conjecture. But it has to be a combination a propensity towards conspiracy theories and religiosity gone awry based on bad information and in my view a gross misunderstanding of Halacha.”

AntiVaxxers – Religious Views Gone Awry

And that’s how you end up with the longest lasting measles outbreak in the United States in nearly 20 years.

More on How an Anti-Vaccine Safety Handbook Has Caused the Longest Measles Outbreak in Recent History

Why Is a Kentucky Teen Who Refused to Get Vaccinated Suing His School?

One extra consequence of the rise in cases of vaccine-preventable diseases we have been seeing lately, in addition to the fact that more kids are getting sick, is that we are seeing more kids being quarantined and kept out of school.

“The parents of 42 children affected by the ban at the school, the Green Meadow Waldorf School, sued the Rockland County health department, asking a federal judge to issue an injunction to allow the children to return.”

Parents Wanted Their Unvaccinated Children in School, but a Judge Said No.

And in a few cases, we are seeing lawsuits trying to get some of these kids, mostly intentionally unvaccinated kids, back into school.

Why Is a Kentucky Teen Who Refused to Get Vaccinated Suing His School?

While most outbreaks are related to measles, in Kentucky, a large outbreak of chickenpox at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart/Assumption Academy in Walton has led to the quarantine of a number of unvaccinated students.

A chickenpox quarantine sign

One student, a senior and the starting center on the school basketball team, is suing to get him back in school.

“The Kunkels filed their lawsuit Thursday in the Boone County Circuit Court alleging that the Northern Kentucky Health Department had violated Jerome’s First Amendment rights. Accepting the chickenpox vaccine would be “immoral, illegal and sinful,” they said, according to their Catholic beliefs. The lawsuit also alleges that the health department violated due process when officials enacted the extracurricular and school attendance bans without declaring an official emergency, which would have triggered the involvement of the state legislature.”

God, country and chickenpox: How an outbreak entangled one school in a vaccine showdown

So they are actually suing the health department, not his school, to get him back into school…

Wait a minute though?

Is the Catholic Church against vaccines?

“Since there is no Catholic teaching that the use of these vaccines is sinful, schools cannot allow Catholic parents to claim a religious exemption from the requirement of immunization.”

National Catholic Bioethics Center on Vaccines and Exemptions Granted by Schools

Are they against the chickenpox vaccine?

“One is morally free to use the vaccine regardless of its historical association with abortion. The reason is that the risk to public health, if one chooses not to vaccinate, outweighs the legitimate concern about the origins of the vaccine. This is especially important for parents, who have a moral obligation to protect the life and health of their children and those around them.”

National Catholic Bioethics Center

No, they aren’t, which is why most Catholics vaccinate and protect their kids.

“In the event that the county health department or state health department declares an outbreak of a vaccine-preventable disease for which proof of immunity for a child cannot be provided, he or she may not be allowed to attend childcare or school for up to three (3) weeks, or until the risk period ends.”

Kentucky Parent or Guardian Declination on Religious Grounds to Required Immunizaitons

A judge will have to decide the merits of the case, but from a moral standpoint, it seems like they are on shaky ground.

More on Quarantines for Intentionally Unvaccinated Kids