By Dr. Mercola
If you or your child were to be seriously injured after receiving a routine government-recommended vaccination, what would you do? You might assume, as many Americans do, that you could choose to hire an attorney and sue the vaccine’s manufacturer.
Or you might sue the doctor if the vaccine was given negligently so you could obtain financial compensation for medical care, pain, and suffering.
But this is not possible. At least, not anymore, because Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court have banned vaccine product liability and vaccine injury malpractice lawsuits in the US. Today, vaccine victims are forced to apply to a federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP).
Vaccine injury claims are awarded or denied by US Department of Health and Human Services officials using US Department of Justice attorneys, with some cases contested and decided by special masters in the US Court of Federal Claims.
The VCIP was created by Congress in 1986 under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act after vaccine manufacturers threatened to stop producing vaccines if they weren’t protected from vaccine injury lawsuits.
The VICP was supposed to be an alternative to a civil court lawsuit and gave partial liability protection to vaccine manufacturers, pediatricians, and other vaccine providers from civil liability for injuries and deaths caused by federally-recommended childhood vaccines.1
Drug companies weren’t satisfied with partial liability protection and, in 2011, convinced the US Supreme Court majority to rule that federally licensed and recommended vaccines are “unavoidably unsafe” and that the VICP should be the “sole remedy” for all vaccine injury claims.2
Now, even if it can be proven that a government-recommended vaccine that injured or killed someone in America was defectively designed and could have been made less reactive – nobody can sue drug companies making big profits from government-recommended and mandated vaccines!3
Though the federal compensation system was originally intended to help vaccine-injured Americans by giving them a non-adversarial, expedited, less expensive administrative alternative to a civil court lawsuit, it has morphed into a program that is anything but that.
Sadly, the VICP process often adds more suffering to vaccine victims, who may be left waiting without support and financial assistance for more than a decade. Some VICP claimants even say they felt “attacked” by the government that was supposed to help them.
Associated Press Investigation Reveals Serious Flaws in Vaccine Court
The Associated Press (AP) analyzed nearly 15,000 vaccine-injury cases and hundreds of decisions. They conducted more than 100 interviews using data on vaccine-court cases through January 2013 (they say the government has refused to release an updated list of cases).4
While the cases are supposed to be resolved in 240 days or less (with an additional 150 days for potential extensions), less than 7 percent of non-autism cases met this requirement. When autism claims were factored in, only 4.5 percent were resolved in less than 240 days. According to the AP:
“Most non-autism cases take at least two and a half years, with the average case length more than three years, not including cases unresolved at the end of 2012. Hundreds have surpassed the decade mark. Several people died before getting any money.”
Taxpayers and Vaccine Users Foot Bill for VICP Awards
The VICP is funded by a 75-cent tax on each dose of vaccine sold by vaccine manufacturers to the federal government, state governments, HMOs, or individual doctors in private practice and that money is placed into a Vaccine Injury Compensation Trust Fund managed by the U.S. Treasury Department.
To date, there is a surplus of $3.5 billion in the Trust Fund that has not yet been awarded to vaccine victims. In other words, taxpayers and everyone who gets vaccinated in the US pay money into the VICP Trust Fund, which could be described as a de facto vaccine injury self-insurance program.
The problem is that, when the risks of vaccination turn out to be 100 percent for some people, they have no guarantee of getting federal vaccine injury compensation. In fact, three out of four vaccine injury victims are turned away empty handed!5
Government Hires Doctors with Ties to the Vaccine Industry
If you apply to the VICP, know that your private attorney likely will be facing well-paid federal health officials and Justice Department attorneys, who have hired high-priced medical experts to discredit your case.
The government, for instance, uses taxpayer money to hire “special experts,” who are often doctors with ties to the pharmaceutical industry, to oppose vaccine injury compensation awards in order to defend vaccine safety in court, according to the AP analysis.
The government is concerned, first and foremost, with maintaining the image of vaccine safety to the American public. They do not want you to know, for instance, that in 2008 they conceded that childhood vaccines contributed to permanent brain damage that included symptoms of autism in 9-year-old Hannah Poling, lest you begin to question vaccine safety.
In vaccine court, the government will fight your claim – even if you have good evidence that your claim is very legitimate -- or they may try to quietly settle it with a lowball offer (which preys on families in urgent need of money).
If the government settles vaccine injury cases outside of the US Court of Claims, they don’t have to admit that the vaccine caused harm, which makes public health officials, medical trade organizations, and drug companies very happy because it preserves the illusion that vaccines are safe for everyone.
According to the AP investigation:6
“Lawmakers designed vaccine court to favor payouts, but the government fights legitimate claims and fails its obligation to publicize the court, worried that if they concede a vaccine caused harm, the public will react by skipping shots.
…If government doctors had their way… 1,600 families would not have gotten more than $1.1 billion in cash and future medical care between the court's opening in 1988 and the end of 2012.
…‘The system is not working,’ said Richard Topping, a former U.S. Department of Justice attorney who handled vaccine injury claims but resigned after concluding his bosses had no desire to fix the major flaws he saw. ‘People who need help aren't getting it.’”
Read more: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/12/02/vaccine-court-cases.aspx?e_cid=20141202Z1_DNL_art_2&utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art2&utm_campaign=20141202Z1&et_cid=DM61553&et_rid=749140869
No comments:
Post a Comment