The Broken Vaccine Injury Compensation System By Chris Knight (Florida)
According to Dr Robert Malone, the Vaccine Injury Compensation System for Covid has failed, as yet has not paid out a single claim! So, this raises the very good issue of why people should take an experimental vaccine, actually for the mRNA vaccines, a gene therapy, when thee is no safety net?
“As reported by Maryanne Demasi, PhD in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), the national system for compensating the COVID-19 vaccine injured has not paid out a single claim.
The Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) was set up to address vaccine injuries associated with vaccines and other countermeasures during a pandemic or bio-threat event. A person cannot sue a manufacturer for an injury caused by a vaccine or other product listed as a countermeasure, they can only seek compensation from CICP by filing a claim. Shockingly, the US government through CICP has only approved one claim and has yet to pay out a single dollar to anyone vaccine injured or for death benefits to those who have died.
The table below [see site] from the VAERS Summary for COVID-19 Vaccines through 4/8/2022 . It shows the extensive vaccine injuries and deaths reported. The government is quick to point out that these are reported injuries and deaths to the US government, which will not be fully investigated by the CDC and so therefore cannot be verified…
When a public health emergency was declared in 2020, the 2005 Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act went into effect. That meant any injuries or deaths arising from the vaccines would have to be filed with the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP), as opposed to the usual route with the US’s national Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP).
The BMJ article reports that since then, there have been 1000s of claims filed by people injured/death from the vaccines, but not a single person has collected any compensation. Whereas, under the national vaccine program (VICP), compensation has been awarded in 36% of the 24 ,909 claims filed with around $4.7bn paid out since 1988.
The CICP payouts are limited to only the most serious injuries and death. The claims have to be made within a year after vaccination, and the program has a much higher burden of proof than the VICP. Loss of income under the CICP is limited to $50 000 a year, and no compensation is included for pain or emotional distress (or for attorney fees). Under the traditional vaccine injury program, payouts for lost wages are not capped, and compensation for pain and suffering is much higher.
Of concern is that the filing of a case must be completed within a year, but there is at least one person who has documented the electronic filing of her case, only to find on follow up, that the CICP had no record of her case. Concerns arise that such dropped cases will then be unable to be refiled, due to the time limits for filing. The backlog of cases now appears so large, the processes so opaque, that the CICP system seems irrevocably broken
The CICP is a “horrible program,” says Peter Meyers, emeritus professor at George Washington University Law School in Washington, DC. “You basically submit your application for compensation, it’s then dealt with secretly, and you don’t have a right to have a lawyer paid for by the program. You don’t have a right to a hearing. We have no idea how these cases are being processed . . . There is such a lack of transparency in this program that it’s frightening.” (BMJ)
Furthermore, the CICP program resolves claims through an administrative process, not a judicial one (unlike the VICP). In order for a claim to be won through the CICP program, the legal burden of proof has to be BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT. That is a virtually unattainable demand. Particularly for an experimental vaccine for which the adverse events are not completely known and for which the government has stymied research efforts to determine just what those adverse events are. The CDC has also hidden the large portions of the data it is collecting for these vaccines. This means that the administrators judicating the injury claims would also not have the information that the CDC knows on the adverse events from these vaccines, making it virtually impossible to win many of the CICP vaccine injury cases.
Currently, a small group of Senators including Senators Ron Johnson, Mike Lee, Mike Braun, and Cindy Hyde-Smith have introduced the Countermeasure Injury Compensation Amendment Bill to reform the CICP to make its processes and payouts comparable to the VICP program. The bill also proposes the creation of a commission to identify injuries caused by a covid vaccines and it would also allow claims to be resubmitted.
This harkens back to the issues of the mRNA, the lipid nano-particles, as well as the spike protein issues with these vaccines.
We now know that the “mRNA” from the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines which incorporates the synthetic nucleotide pseudouridine can persist in lymph nodes for at least 60 days after injection. This is not natural, and this is not really mRNA. These molecules have genetic elements similar to those of natural mRNA, but they are clearly far more resistant to the enzymes which normally degrade natural mRNA, seem to be capable of producing high levels of protein for extended periods, and seem to evade normal immunologic mechanisms for eliminating cells which produce foreign proteins which are not normally observed in the body.
We also don’t know the full effects of the nano-lipid particles used, although we know that they aggregate in various organs, including ovaries and brain. We also know that they are very inflammatory. We know that the spike protein is cytotoxic. So, adverse events are going to persist for months after vaccination. That includes myocarditis.
So these long-term and unusual adverse events, most of which haven’t even been investigated to the full extent needed or even recognized, will not be included in the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program.
Then there is the government’s “Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System” (VAERS), which does consider vaccine injuries past a certain time. These adverse events, which may not show up for weeks or even months after vaccination, are not getting entered into the VEARS system. Further distorting what is known and knowable about this global “mRNA vaccine” experiment.
Isn’t it time to take a good, hard look at what is happening?
In order to fight corruption, we must first expose it. But when our government is are determined to hide embarrassing data, obfuscate facts and deny culpability, what chance do we have?
The government in the USA has agreed to provide liability for the vaccine injured in this country, relieving the pharmaceutical industry of this burden. It is time they did their job and lived up to their obligations.”
https://www.bmj.com/content/377/bmj.o919.full?ijkey=0rhjZ85IJdCj5fg&keytype=ref
“Patients and lawyers say that America’s system for covid vaccine injury claims is costly, opaque, and yet to issue a single payout. Maryanne Demasi reports
“My toes move constantly, 24 hours a day, uncontrollably back and forth,” says Chris Dreisbach, a 44 year old attorney who was admitted to hospital with debilitating neurological symptoms after a second dose of Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine in March 2021. “I often spend at least four hours a day in my bathtub, because a hot bath is the only way I can turn down this electrical sensation that pulses through me. The cognitive issues are worse. I used to pride myself on being able to get up in a courtroom and think on my feet. Now, I have this brain fog. It’s embarrassing.”
From his hospital bed Dreisbach began researching compensation schemes, only to discover that the US’s national Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) was not available to people injured by covid-19 vaccines. Instead he was forced to lodge a claim with a more costly, opaque, and less generous system that has yet to pay out on a single claim for covid vaccines. Senators, lawyers, doctors, and others such as Dreisbach are questioning why patients injured by vaccines are being routed into a scheme they view as inferior.
Two different schemes
The VICP was established as the result of a federal law known as the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, designed to provide compensation in the rare instances where an injury results from vaccination, while also shielding manufacturers from liability so that they continue to make the products. Funded by a $0.75 excise tax on each dose, this law is thought to have contributed to historically high levels of vaccine uptake in the US.1 It covers the majority of vaccines including routine childhood immunisations, but it is not available to people injured by covid vaccines.
When the US secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services declared a public health emergency in early 20202 this triggered the 2005 Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, meaning that any injuries arising from covid countermeasures—including ventilators, antivirals, and vaccines—would instead have to be filed with the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP).
Critics say that the CICP is inferior to the VICP in terms of its payouts and the way claims are assessed. Only the most serious injuries and death are compensated, claims have to be made within a year after vaccination, and it has a higher burden of proof than the VICP. Loss of income under the CICP is limited to $50 000 (£38 250; €45 900) a year, and no compensation is included for pain or emotional distress. Under the VICP, payouts for lost wages are not capped, and compensation for pain and suffering is awarded up to $250 000.3
Since 1988 compensation has been awarded in 36% of the 24 909 claims filed under the VICP, with around $4.7bn paid out.4 In contrast, compensation has been awarded for just 0.4% of the 7547 claims filed under the CICP, with around $6m paid out.5 The vast majority (93%) of the claims handled by the CICP have been filed during the covid pandemic, of which 4097 relate to injuries or deaths from covid vaccines and 2959 relate to other covid countermeasures.
To date, only one of the covid claims has been deemed compensable,5 although no money has been paid yet. In contrast, Thailand’s National Health Security Office reports compensating over 14 000 people around $50m to settle covid vaccine injury claims through a process that promises quick financial assistance.6
Critics also say that the CICP is less transparent. The CICP is a “horrible programme,” says Peter Meyers, emeritus professor at George Washington University Law School in Washington, DC. “You basically submit your application for compensation, it’s then dealt with secretly, and you don’t have a right to have a lawyer paid for by the programme. You don’t have a right to a hearing. We have no idea how these cases are being processed . . . There is such a lack of transparency in this programme that it’s frightening.”
Unlike CICP claims, which are resolved by an administrative process, VICP claims are resolved by a judicial process. Meyers says, “Those are open proceedings: you have a right to a hearing before an independent special master [adjudicator], the court will pay for your lawyer, the court will pay for an expert witness to support you, and if you don’t like the result of that decision you can appeal to a court with judges—none of which you can do in the CICP.”
The CICP also has a higher burden of proof than the VICP. An individual must provide “compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence” to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the vaccine caused the injury, whereas the VICP only requires the claim to be more likely true than not. As an attorney, Dreisbach knows that proof beyond reasonable doubt is virtually unattainable, especially as he has not received a definitive diagnosis. “If we don’t know what my medical condition exactly is, there is no possible way that I can prove that vaccination caused an unknown,” he says.
While Pfizer and Moderna’s covid vaccines are now both fully approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act governing the CICP does not distinguish between the vaccines that are fully approved and those authorised only for emergency use, says Katharine Van Tassel, professor of law at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Covid vaccine injury claims will be considered under the VICP only after the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services declares an end to the public health emergency—and by then it will be too late for many people, she says.
Structural racism is built into the system, Van Tassel adds. “The majority of essential workers, who had to be vaccinated quickly, were individuals with low income, people of colour, your most vulnerable populations—and they are the very people who will not have access to the VICP,” she says.
The BMJ contacted the US Department of Health and Human Services and the Health Resources Administration for a response to these criticisms, but neither has responded.
Campaign for reform
A small group of US senators have been working towards reforming the CICP. On 11 March 2022 Senator Mike Lee introduced the Countermeasure Injury Compensation Amendment Bill co-sponsored by Senators Mike Braun, Ron Johnson, and Cindy Hyde-Smith. It suggests reforming the CICP so that its processes and payouts are comparable to the VICP. It also proposes creating a commission to identify injuries caused directly by a covid countermeasure and to allow previously rejected claims to be resubmitted.7
However, Van Tassel believes that a simpler solution exists: to route all covid vaccine injury claims through the existing VICP system. Meyers agrees, having been calling for a reform of the CICP for over a decade.
“It’s a mess, in my opinion,” he says. “I think the best thing that could happen is to transfer all the covid-19 cases out of the CICP and put them in the vaccine court [VICP], which is far superior, and add to the number of special masters who are deciding these cases to deal with the inevitable backlog of cases.”
Even with a move to the VICP, some argue that it will take considerable time for the system to function smoothly. Cody Meissner, professor of Paediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston and former chair of the federal advisory committee that provides oversight of the VICP, calls it a “wonderful programme” but is concerned that it may become clogged with claims that ultimately are not vaccine related.
“Poorly understood but unrelated adverse events may occur after any vaccine administration,” he explains. “Many post-vaccine events are not related to the vaccine and occur simply by coincidence.”
Usually, when vaccines are added to the VICP it relies on a body of literature about known adverse events to decide on compensation, says Meissner, adding, “I don’t know that we’re there yet with covid-19 vaccines.”
He also worries that lawyers with conflicts of interest are behind the push to move covid vaccine claims to the VICP, for their fees can be paid under the programme even if the claim is denied.
Still, Dreisbach is hoping for change. He is campaigning as chair of React 19, a non-profit organisation creating a network of patients, doctors, and scientists to research the underlying causes of vaccine injury and advocate for legislative changes to achieve fair compensation for vaccine injury.8
“The covid vaccines have been fully approved by the FDA, recommended for children as young as 5 by the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], and mandated by employers across the country,” he says. “It’s past time for our elected lawmakers to support the covid vaccine injured, just as they have those injured by other routine vaccinations covered by the VICP.”
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