Broken and biased: Health Secretary RFK Jr. vows to reform Vaccine Court
The VICP was established in 1986 after Congress granted vaccine manufacturers immunity from direct lawsuits. It was meant to ensure swift and fair compensation for individuals harmed by vaccines. It is funded by a 75-cent surcharge on each vaccine dose and has disbursed over $5.4 billion to more than 12,000 petitioners.However, Kennedy claims the system no longer serves those it was designed to help.'Instead of quickly and fairly awarding compensation,' Kennedy said, 'Special Masters dismiss over half of the cases. Most of those that proceed typically take 5+ years to resolve, with many languishing for more than 10 years.'Kennedy pointed to structural flaws within the programme, noting that claimants face the vast resources of the US Department of Justice not the vaccine manufacturers themselves. He also criticised the court's lack of transparency, saying there is 'no discovery,' and that petitioners' lawyers are denied access to critical CDC data on vaccine injuries.'The structure itself hobbles claimants,' he argued. 'Attorney compensation is in the hands of notoriously biased Special Masters... who can leverage this power to turn petitioner attorneys against their clients' interests.'He further alleged that expert witnesses for injured children are 'intimidated' and risk losing research funding if they testify.'The government pays its own medical expert witnesses promptly while simultaneously slow-walking payments for petitioners' experts sometimes for years,' Kennedy said.Despite the challenges, Kennedy vowed reform. 'The VICP is broken, and I intend to fix it,' he declared, adding that he was working with former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and HHS staff to 'steer the Vaccine Court back to its original Congressional intent.''I will not allow the VICP to continue to ignore its mandate and fail its mission of quickly and fairly compensating vaccine-injured individuals,' he concluded.- EndsMust Watch
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