Thanks in part to the lobbying of the National Vaccine Information Center,

[pnwmom]

Last edited Mon Mar 2, 2015, 01:01 AM - Edit history (2)

which resulted in the passage of the Vaccine Injury Act, parents can get their babies fully immunized, knowing that in the extremely unlikely event that there are serious consequences, their family will be compensated by the government. Nothing, of course, can compensate a family for a disabled child, but the Vaccine Court established by the Act means that families like Hannah Poling's can receive awards to pay for the costs of their care.

Also thanks to the Vaccine Injury Act, pharmaceutical companies, which had been leaving the relatively-low-profit vaccine business, returned to producing vaccines because they no longer had to worry about the costs of liability.

And also thanks to the lobbying of the National Vaccine Information Center, there is now a formal way of reporting vaccine injuries . When one of my children had a week of seizures after the old "whole cell" version of the DPT vaccine (not febrile seizures), my doctor didn't report the reaction, and there was no mechanism for me to do so.

Now there is (at the link below):

https://vaers.hhs.gov/index

Info about the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System and the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program from the American Academy of Family Physicians:

http://www.aafp.org/afp/2002/1201/p2113.html

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) established the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) as a passive surveillance system for clinical events that occur after immunization. VAERS reports are submitted by manufacturers, health care professionals, state health coordinators, and parents of vaccinated children.4

VAERS reports may be incomplete or inconsistent, and a reported adverse event may be only temporally related to a vaccine.4 However, the effectiveness of VAERS as an early warning system was demonstrated by reports of an increased incidence of intussusception after immunization with rotavirus vaccine.5 This vaccine was subsequently withdrawn from the market.

The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 established the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) as a federal no-fault system to compensate persons (or families of persons) who are injured by covered childhood vaccines. This act also requires physicians and other health care providers who administer VICP-covered vaccines or vaccines purchased under CDC contract to record the date of administration, the vaccine manufacturer, the lot number, and their name, business address, and title in the patient's permanent medical record.
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Health care providers must also give the vaccine recipient or the recipient's legal guardian the corresponding and most up-to-date Vaccine Information Statement (VIS) each time a VICP-covered vaccine is administered. The VIS for a non–VICP-covered vaccine must also be given if the vaccine is purchased through a CDC contract. The CDC requires that the VIS version date and the date the VIS is provided be documented in the patient's medical record.46

About Hannah Poling:

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2010/09/family-win-15-million-in-autis.html

She began showing signs of autism, with accompanying screaming fits, after she'd been vaccinated against nine diseases in July 2000, aged 18 months.

The sum agreed reaffirms the government's initial promise to compensate the family in 2008. Back then, it concluded that the vaccinations may have aggravated an underlying inherited condition in Hannah's mitochondria, the powerhouses of cells that supply energy.

As New Scientist reported in 2008, it's possible that Hannah's mitochondria may not have been working properly anyway, with potential underlying damage to her most energy-hungry tissues in the brain and muscles.

Officials at the US Department of Health and Human Services investigating Hannah's medical history said that vaccines had "significantly aggravated an underlying mitochondrial disorder, which predisposed her to deficits in energy metabolism", causing damage "with features of autism spectrum disorder". The officials said that the vaccine didn't "cause" her autism, but "resulted" in it.

From the World Health Organization:

http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/5/10-081901/en/

The public health benefits of vaccination are clear. The World Health Organization estimates that, in 2008, more than 2.5 million deaths were prevented by vaccination.1 Immunization programmes have led to the eradication of smallpox, the elimination of measles and poliomyelitis in many regions, and substantial reductions in morbidity and mortality from Haemophilus influenzae type b, diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus. However vaccines are not without risks and it is commonly accepted that, regardless of proper design, manufacture and delivery, adverse events occur following vaccination although serious adverse events are rare.2

At a population level, it is considered that these small risks are balanced by the benefits of widespread population immunization. However this means that an individual occasionally bears a significant burden for the benefit provided to the rest of the population. Although these vaccine-related adverse events occur occasionally due to negligence, more often there is no clearly attributable fault.

Without evidence of clear negligence, it is difficult to obtain compensation through traditional legal mechanisms. Recognizing this, several countries have implemented vaccine-injury compensation programmes.3 These programmes reflect a belief that it is fair and reasonable that a community that is protected by a vaccination programme accepts responsibility for and provides compensation to those who are injured by it. In 1999, Evans conducted a thorough review of 13 compensation programmes.3 We aimed to update this review examining similar programme elements to those described both by Evans and by Mariner in her 1985–6 study.4

In the USA, before 1987, those injured by vaccines had no choice but to take their chances in the court system and seek recovery for their injuries directly from the manufacturer.34 Without a compensation system, it became difficult for vaccine manufacturers to predict their exposure to lawsuits. Accordingly, manufacturers and their insurers increased prices based on worst-case estimates.35 This led to exponential price rises, vaccine shortages and a reduction in vaccine research. Furthermore, several small vaccine manufacturers left the market.35

A vaccine-injury compensation scheme removes the uncertainty of tort liability for manufacturers and provides a more fair, efficient and stable approach for injured parties. Litigation is an expensive and restricted avenue that is inaccessible for many vaccine recipients. Furthermore, compensation schemes avoid the polarization of drug companies against vaccine recipients through litigation and the associated negative media coverage.36

[HERVEPA]

1. NVIC is anti-vax wack job purposely misnamed jerks

Last edited Mon Mar 2, 2015, 08:48 PM - Edit history (1)

[SheilaT]

2. There are rare cases where someone is injured by a vaccine.

They should be appropriately compensated.

It's not commonly known, but the reason the smallpox vaccine stopped being administered in this country some years ahead of the eradication of smallpox, was that the small number of adverse reactions greatly outweighed any chance of contracting smallpox. THAT is NOT an anti-vaccination statement, just a statement of the real complexities of vaccines.

[pnwmom]

3. Something similar happened with the live virus polio vaccine.

They switched from the live virus vaccine to the killed virus vaccine because the only cases of polio in the US for a number of years had been as a result of the live vaccine -- the babies themselves weren't getting polio, but a few adults exposed to the babies did come down with the disease.

My 6 month old sister died of complications from encephalitis the day after her third DPT (a half-dose because that's what they did in those days for babies who had had problems with previous injections). That was the old whole-cell DPT vaccine, which -- again, thanks in part to the lobbying of the National Vaccine Injury Center -- was eventually replaced by the safer DPT vaccine that is now in use.