While the overwhelming majority of vaccinations administered across the United States are safe, a small number of people will always suffer ill effects from them. Side effects and adverse reactions are simply a part of human medicine, and they are unavoidable.
Federal programs to compensate those affected by these reactions have been in place for decades, but an ever-growing list of vaccines designed to eradicate various illnesses now threatens their stability. Designated as the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, the program has chugged along with a minimal staff since its inception. But allegations of negative effects brought on by standard vaccines like those for measles and polio are now pushing waiting times for those claims to be addressed to years.
The Countermeasure Injury Compensation Program; created for those negatively affected by vaccines developed in response to pandemics, is being strained even further. According to news site Politico, the office fielded 500 complaints from 2010 to 2020. The past two years since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has seen over 8,000 claims.
Those demanding compensation have filed claims over alleged injuries as minor as shoulder pain up to and including death. Claimants have also sought compensation over the drugs used to treat them as well as the alleged failure of hospitals to keep them from getting infected while they were being treated.
To date, the Countermeasure Injury Compensation Program hasn’t paid out a single claim. Administrators demand detailed medical records and other documents to support claims that have been put forth. As detailed by a spokesperson, “compensation determinations are made based on individual case reviews, and the statute sets a very high standard that a claimant must meet to be eligible for compensation.”
Officials are quick to note that delays in the programs are being fueled more by the fact that they are now processing claims for over three times as many vaccines as when they were created rather than an influx of claims for one specific type of vaccine. At the same time, resources dedicated to management of the programs have remained stagnant. “The cost of this program failing will be like throwing kerosene on the antivax fire,” says the director of George Washington University’s Vaccine Injury Litigation Clinic. And as anti-vaccine propaganda continues to expand its assault to injections that have eradicated diseases and plagues around the globe, those claims are only going to grow more numerous.
