National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program
[1] Compensation covers medical and legal expenses, loss of future earning capacity, and up to $250,000 for pain and suffering; a death benefit of up to $250,000 is available.
In each of the cases, the panel found that the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate a causal effect between the MMR vaccine and autism.
Several claimants have attempted to bypass the VICP process with claims that thimerosal in vaccines had caused autism, but these were ultimately not successful.
They have demanded medical monitoring for vaccinated children who do not show signs of autism and have filed class-action suits on behalf of parents.
[16][17][13][18] Major scientific and medical bodies such as the Institute of Medicine[18] and World Health Organization,[19][20] as well as governmental agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration[21] and the CDC[22] reject any role for thimerosal in autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders.
* This covers the vaccinations known by the abbreviations DT, DTaP, DTaP-HIB, DTaP-IPV, DTap-IPV-HIB, Td, Tdap Self representation is permitted, although the NVICP also pays attorneys fees out of the fund, separate from any compensation given to the petitioner.
If smallpox vaccine were to be widely administered by public health authorities in response to a terrorist or other biological warfare attack, persons administering or producing the vaccine would be deemed federal employees and claims would be subject to the Federal Tort Claims Act, in which case claimants would sue the U.S. Government in the U.S. district courts, and would have the burden of proving the defendants' negligence, a much more difficult standard.
[2] Of the remaining cases, in the vaccine court, as in civil tort cases, the burden of proof is a preponderance of evidence, but while in tort cases this is met by expert testimony based on epidemiology or rigorous scientific studies showing both general and specific causation, in the vaccine court, the burden is met with a three prong test established in Althen,[27] a 2005 United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruling.
[28] Althen held that an award should be granted if a petitioner either establishes a "Tabled Injury" or proves "causation in fact" by proving three prongs: This ruling held that tetanus vaccine caused a particular case of optic neuritis, even though no scientific evidence supported the petitioner's claim.
A panel of three special masters began hearing the first cases of the historic Omnibus Autism Proceedings in June 2007.
Theresa and Michael Cedillo contended that thimerosal seriously weakened Michelle's immune system and prevented her body from clearing the measles virus after her vaccination at the age of fifteen months.
At the outset Special Master George Hastings, Jr. said "Clearly the story of Michelle's life is a tragic one,"[36] while pledging to listen carefully to the evidence.
Hastings concluded in his decision, "Unfortunately, the Cedillos have been misled by physicians who are guilty, in my view, of gross medical misjudgment.
Special Master Hastings concluded, "The overall weight of the evidence is overwhelmingly contrary to the petitioners' causation theories.
