Dorit Reiss, a professor at University of California College of the Law-San Francisco, said on March 27 that a petition filed by an anti-vaccine group's attorney to expand the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program would benefit lawyers rather than patients.
The issue centers on a formal petition submitted by the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) requesting that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services add more than 300 injuries to the Vaccine Injury Table, which currently lists just 47 conditions. The petition included a 60-day notice of intent to file a federal lawsuit if the amendment process is not initiated, according to Reuters.
Aaron Siri, the attorney who filed the petition for ICAN, has 492 active claims pending before the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), government records showed. Expanding the injury table would make it easier for Siri's clients to obtain compensation without proving causation, potentially increasing contingency fee payouts for his firm, according to Reuters.
Reiss said, "The petition argues that simply analyzing potential harms establishes an association, even if the government found no evidence of one. That interpretation stretches the legal definitions," according to Insurance Journal.
Before Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act in 1986, litigation had driven all but one manufacturer out of the childhood vaccine market, the Health Resources and Services Administration reported. Congress created VICP as a no-fault system to stabilize vaccine supply while ensuring fair compensation for individuals with legitimate injuries.
Since its inception in 1988, VICP has distributed more than $5.4 billion in compensation to vaccine-injured individuals, HRSA data showed. Scientific and legal experts warned that adding 300 conditions based on studies that did not establish causation could overwhelm the program and hamper future government research into actual vaccine injuries, according to Reuters.
