National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Circa 2012
By Wayne Rohde
This October 1st will mark the 24th Anniversary of the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP), or the Vaccine Court as many refer to the program. It was established in 1988 by Congress passing the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 (Public Law 99-660) to provide quick, non-adversarial, no-fault resolution and compensation to those injured or who have died as a result of a childhood vaccine. Doesn’t that sound reasonable? Doesn’t that sound fair and just?
But it is not. The NVICP has become a nightmare for many families and individuals, though it is the only recourse for people who have suffered from side effects of many vaccines. For most, having to deal with injured children and the complicated medical conditions is difficult at best. And finally, they are asked to relive that nightmare by filing a petition with the Vaccine Court.
During the course of my investigation of the NVICP and ongoing research for my book, I have been a witness to many of the finest human beings that anyone could ever meet. Like parents from a classic John Steinbeck novel determined to provide better for their offspring , parents of vaccine injured children continue to fight for their children, determined to resolve their children’s ailments, and to insure that others do not suffer the same fate.
Reading hundreds of case decisions and court dockets, listening to many families and individuals share their experiences with filing petitions and their own research of vaccine injury, securing an attorney to best represent their interests, trying to understand the legal procedure, dealing with the emotional rollercoaster of the court proceedings, enduring the intimidation of Department of Justice attorneys and their medical experts, all trained and dedicated to making your life as miserable as possible, to bring you to a breaking point, to force you to give up, would break the common man. But not here. Not parents of special needs children. Not these parents.
The majority of current petitions filed in 2011 and 2012 with the NVICP are made of HPV injuries and HPV deaths, most from the Gardasil vaccine. It has been said the Gardasil victims are the voice of all the autism cases. Our children cannot speak for themselves as they regressed into autism. It is the hope of many, that the girls affected by this vaccine, do what our own children with autism cannot do, speak about their injuries. It is unfortunate for so many young girls to be injured or worse, all because one of the worst and most unnecessary vaccines every created for young children.
What is most troubling about all the HPV cases is the Court dismissing a majority of petitions in a very quick and deliberate manner. After talking with the parents of several of the dismissed cases, an ugly and deceitful pattern is emerging. The Gardasil vaccine is a relatively new vaccine. Thus we really do not know the extent of all the side effects that can be caused by it, nor do we know all the underlying medical conditions that might create serious interactions with other medications – such as birth control medication, or reactions to underlying medical conditions – such as diabetes, depression, conflicts with menstrual cycles, and so much more.
The Vaccine Court is promptly dismissing many of these cases if these underlying medical conditions are determined. I would suggest to the attorneys that are representing the petitioners that they seek a stay in the proceedings until the science and research catches up.
As a matter of procedure in the Vaccine Court, there are only two ways to receive compensation: (1) your medical condition must be exactly as is defined in the Vaccine Injury Table, or (2) you must prove that your medical condition was directly caused by a vaccine. Proving causation is nearly impossible in today’s Vaccine Court. Just think about the injustice and similarity of the 5,000-plus autism cases that were dismissed recently.
I hope to share more in the future with you regarding my research of thousands of vaccine injury cases – some won compensation, many who had their petitions dismissed, and some who did not file a petition due to not knowing about the program or just did not want to put their family through any more emotional or mental anguish and pain.
I promise you one thing. Through all this pain and heartache, I will present to you a new generation of emerging advocates, strong and unwavering, born from the misery of either losing a child or understanding the Vaccine Court was not set up for the protection of citizens, by allowing them to receive quick and fair compensation for injuries. Rather, these advocates understand the NVICP court is protecting the vaccine industry… and as my friend Mark Blaxill has stated, the major medical industrial complex.
Wayne Rohde lives in Woodbury, MN. Father of Nick Rohde, a 14 year old vaccine injured boy who later was diagnosed with severe regressive autism.
Taxi Mom thanks for directing me to Whale.to
I went to it and hit Halocaust Hoax. Nothing came up.
Do you think it has been removed?
Or
It is just my slow computer?
Posted by: Benedetta | July 02, 2012 at 07:22 PM
I have kicked around court rooms for 28+ years - Family Courts, Criminal Courts, Drug Courts, Mental Health Courts, Domestic Violence Courts and even a Sex Offense Court. All of them preserved the due process rights of everyone involved.
The VICP does not.
I have never seen anything like this.
Petitioner expert wirnesses are abused, families are tormented for years even after they have been told that they will be compensated. There is no discovery and no precedent, which is why all the previous decisions about autism were kept out of the OAP.
It is an outrage.
Posted by: Louis Conte | June 30, 2012 at 11:30 AM
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court decision that denies parents their Constitutional Right to seek justice in State or Federal Courts should their claim be denied by the Vaccine Court .. is the latest victory in a raging battle between parents .. and .. in the words of Dr. Wakefield .. those .. "WAGING WAR AGAINST THE AUTISTIC CHILD".
Indeed, as I understand it .. that Supreme Court's decision would deny parents their right to seek justice for a child was the victim of CRIMINAL FRAUD .. such as .. the allegation that Merck KNEW their mumps vaccine fails to meet the required standards of efficiency .. and .. received millions of dollars by FRAUDULENTLY LYING ABOUT IT FOR AT LEAST A DECADE.
Posted by: Bob Moffitt | June 30, 2012 at 06:56 AM
Thank you Taximom5. I didn't know about the position of whaleto regarding the Holocaust. Thanks for doing this investigation. I never would have suspected. It just shows how vigilant we must be on everything. What we don't know can come back and bite us.
Posted by: michael | June 30, 2012 at 02:21 AM
Thank you Wayne for this excellent piece. Will your book be ready for the 25th Anniversary? No doubt it will hold much valuable information. And thanks, too, for all your advocacy for our cause.
maurine
Posted by: Maurine meleck | June 30, 2012 at 12:29 AM
Benedetta (sorry, I mis-spelled your name before), I totally understand.
I used to google for vaccine information, and all kinds of studies and stories came up from whale.to. I would post the links to those studies and stories on forums and blogs, etc. to show people that it wasn't just me, there really were studies showing a vaccine-autism link.
Until someone pointed out to me that whale.to is a Hate site I had no idea that whale.to had anything but vaccine information. So I googled whale.to and started looking on the non-vaccine portions of that site, and found anti-Semitic and Holocaust denial garbage (and some other loony stuff as well).
Yes, whale.to does have a lot of studies and data concerning pharmaceuticals, allopathic medicine, even the evils of Monsanto. Jan DeGrandchamp's story is on whale.to. But we can't direct people there to read her story without supporting the evil that whale.to also posts, even though it's on a different page. Every click on whale.to supports hatred.
So yes, post Jan DeG's story, by all means, BUT FIND IT ON ANOTHER SITE.
Don't send anyone to whale.to. And don't refer to whale.to as a source for vaccine/autism studies or personal histories of vaccine victims. If you find a study there that looks legitimate, google the title and author, and find it again in a more respectable place.
Otherwise, we (those who question/criticize vaccine safety) become associated with a site that insists that Auschwitz was a myth, the Holocaust never happens, and that Jews are trying to take over the world. And that weakens our position.
It's hard enough trying to counteract Big Pharma's propaganda--we can't afford to weaken our position. And on a purely ethical basis, we can't afford to align ourselves with racists and hate-mongers.
Posted by: Taximom | June 29, 2012 at 10:27 PM
Taximom5- Thankyou very much for your information about Whale. It is extremely important that we stay away from this kind of website. This is how people who want science and truth in vaccines, end up being called crazy and are accused of getting their information "from the internet", which somehow is very different from getting information from reliable sources such as the AAP and WHO, (who care so much about children in the third world, that they want them injected with mercury)
Posted by: Cherry Sperlin Misra | June 29, 2012 at 08:51 PM
Taximom; I have never read anything from Whale. I just googled tetanus vaccine court and to this woman's story came up.
Posted by: Benedetta | June 29, 2012 at 06:59 PM
Benedetto, I would request--no, I BEG--please do not cite whale.to. It is a site that supports Holocaust denial.n I don't care how many pages from vaccine-injured people they put up, or how many valid studies showing vaccine damage, Every click on that site supports Holocaust denial.
It's like getting vaccine information from a Ku Klux Klan site. And when you think about it, quoting or citing a Hate site like that just makes us look like fools.
For those of us who are descendants of Holocaust survivors, that's just horrifying.. It's bad enough that our children have been victimized by vaccines. Do we have to get our information from a site that says that the Holocaust never happened? Isn't that kinda similar to the pharrmaceutical industry saying that vaccines never caused autism?
Please hunt around until you can find the same information on a more valid website, and cite that instead.
Thanks.
Posted by: Taximom5 | June 29, 2012 at 05:25 PM
Thanks, Wayne, for your thoughtful overview of the twisted, useless wreck the NVICP has become. Strange how HHS, manufacturers and medical trade unions give lip service to protecting taxpaying consumers from disease, but when we point out program flaws and failures we then are treated like disease carriers.
The biggest threats to public safety are people willing to sacrifice the health and lives of so many children, just to support bureaucrats' illusion that corporate profits have not been allowed to subvert honest science.
Posted by: nhokkanen | June 29, 2012 at 05:24 PM
Today in Calgary Herald there was an editorial about how the archbishop is misguidedly preventing Catholic girls from getting the HPV shots in the school board. Sadly, the editorial focused only on the moralistic standpoint that the Bishop took and of course the vaccine got a complete pass on safety, like it's not even a question. That Bishop may have helped many girls dodge a bullet as far as I'm concerned.
Posted by: Jen | June 29, 2012 at 04:38 PM
This is a great read. I found it several years ago.
http://whale.to/a/tet2.html
The year my son was damaged was 1987. I had an extra year - to go for it - I had four years not just three years. Oh, I feel so guilty!
Back then I was looking at table injuries and my son almost fit except his temperature went way too high -- that is right; the vaccine table said the temp should go no higher than 102 or 103! It also had to be documented by the hospital and the doctors. These guys were up to their neck with the medical industry denying!
Of course the docs at the time said that it was all febrile seizures - gave me a big long study that concluded that 87 percent of those babies out grew them.
Fast forward two decades.
Oh, yeah they do outgrow those febrile seizures - go on to develop absentee seizures - in which the teachers complain about, but the docs claim they don't exist as the hooked my son up to the EEG for a total of 15 minutes. Then about the time puberty sets in we start getting the myclonic jerks, more absentee seizures and then like magic -- brand new grand mal seizures.
So the study should have read these babies outgrow them and then grow right back into them.
Its new; sue now - because they developed something new -- NO Wait! IT reads you have three years to sue from the first "SIGN" of injury.
Got to love the clever lawyers that got that written in!
But this link is a great link, I have read it several times. Do take time to look it over.
Once again;
http://whale.to/a/tet2.html
Posted by: Benedetta | June 29, 2012 at 04:29 PM
Well, Anne, my friend, there is one other industry that enjoys this kind of liability protection that I know of-- the nuclear power industry. Now that is another scary industry, indeed.
Posted by: Not an MD | June 29, 2012 at 04:26 PM
Excellent review Wayne!! I would add that a second motive underlying the failure of the VICP program to carry out its moral and legal duty to compensate those injured by vaccines "for the greater good," in addition to protecting industry from trillions in liability, is to protect the "benefits" of the one-size-fits-all schedule as seen by the public health establishment. They see themselves in a "war" against infection, and indeed many at CDC actualy wear the Navy uniform, and as with many wars their goal is to "win" at all costs, with a willingness to accept possibly a very high level of collateral damage. Problem is, if the truth were known about the REAL extent to vaccine-related injury, e.g. by a vax/unvax study, they fear a rebellion. Since the "risk" of infection has been all but eliminated thanks to de facto herd immunity, the "risk" now is for a totally unknown rate of VAE's including death, and parents simply will not take this risk if the odds are significantly greater than zero. The strategy is thus to "free ride' on the general herd immunity. So, CDC dare not allow a vax/unvax study, and dare not "allow" very much money to be paid in VICP. Following this approach, HHS gutted the injury table designed by Congress in 1996, just as the vaccine-autism cases began to be compensated in the program and appear in vAERS. [See Yazbak, There Goes That Argument, http://www.vaccinationnews.com/20110301ThereGoesThatArgumentYazbakFE] Now, over 90% cases are off-Table, imposing an almost impossible de facto burden of proof despite the easily stated legal standard of generous and family-friendly compensation. Add to this, harasment of petitioners' experts to drive them away, and endless abuse inflicted on the attorneys. Even in the Cedillo test case the message was clear. DOJ's Matanoski made it clear in his closing argument that the Program must protect MMR, not compensate the kids: "Measles virus is a killing disease. That's been made abundantly clear by the testimony you've heard. [The fact that autism is also a serious disease] doesn't give you a pas on having good science to support an accusation that an important weapon by public health eliminating measles virus is still available to do that important work around the world. I've been talking unfortunately for a long time. I know that. Thirty minutes or so of argument back and forth here. In that 30 minutes, 26 children died of measles virus. That's what's at stake as well in this proceeding." A true vision of public health would be this: our job is not done until vaccines and their administration on an individualized basis are as safe as they can be; industry is fully liable to incent this safety; vaccine choice is respected and protected by government and society as a fundamental right; the "vaccine safety system" is truly independent and well-funded; and every child injured by a vaccine receives generous compensation.
Posted by: Jim Moody | June 29, 2012 at 01:34 PM
It's crap and they know it.
I am one of the parents who tried to get a lawyers, was unsuccessful and decided it was not worth pursuing because the court is set up against the individual.
It will never be recalled because the pharma lobby is so entrenched.
Posted by: Kevin | June 29, 2012 at 01:04 PM
What other industry enjoys this kind of protection? What incentive is there for vaccine makers to produce a truly safe product? Parents are clearly at the mercy of an arbitrary system involving government lawyers defending a government program using government money. The fact that the NVICP exists in the first place is proof of the power and influence of the drug industry over our government. The government gave in to the vaccine makers’ demands for protection from being directly sued for the harm that their vaccines were causing to a growing number of children. It's the ideal situation---produce a liability-free product and mandated it on the children of the U.S. as a requirement for school attendance! Given this environment, I can imagine hundreds of vaccines are coming down the pike.
Anne Dachel, Media
Posted by: Anne McElroy Dachel | June 29, 2012 at 11:06 AM