Latest news with #NationalVaccineInjuryCompensationProgram
Daily Mail
30-07-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
RFK Jr blasts 'broken' vaccine injury program and pledges 'fix' as public health overhaul continues
US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr has announced a major vaccine policy overhaul. In a post on X, Kennedy, a long-time vaccine skeptic and former vaccine injury plaintiff lawyer, said he will work to 'fix' the program that compensates victims of vaccine injuries, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP). The VICP is a no-fault federal program designed to compensate individuals who are found to have been injured by vaccines. Kennedy said that to date, the program has paid out $5.4 billion in government funds to 12,000 people who have filed claims, alleging they suffered from various injuries after receiving a vaccine dating back to 1986. As of June 1, 2025, the VICP has compensated 12,019 claims that were deemed compensable from the 25,026 petitions that have been ruled on since its formation. The VICP was created in the 1980s, after lawsuits against vaccine companies and health care providers threatened to cause vaccine shortages and reduce US vaccination rates, which could have caused a resurgence of vaccine preventable diseases. Any individual, of any age, who received a covered vaccine and believes he or she was injured as a result can file a petition. Parents, legal guardians and legal representatives also can file on behalf of children, disabled adults, and individuals who are deceased. But Kennedy complained that the VICP 'routinely dismisses meritorious cases outright or drags them out for years'. As a longtime outspoken critic of the VICP, Kennedy went on to slam it and its 'Vaccine Court' for being corrupt and inefficient, referring to the nine voting members who make executive decisions on compensation cases. '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 wrote, adding he was working with Attorney General Pam Bondi on the matter. 'Together, we will steer the Vaccine Court back to its original congressional intent.' He continued: 'Instead of 'quickly and fairly' awarding compensation, Special Masters dismiss over half of the cases. 'Most of those that proceed typically take five-plus years to resolve, with many languishing for more than 10 years as parents struggle to care for children suffering with often extreme disabilities.' He added, alleging: 'Expert witnesses for injured children complain that they suffer intimidation and even threats that they will lose professional status or NIH funding if they testify for injured children. 'The government pays its own medical expert witnesses promptly while simultaneously slow-walking payments for petitioners' experts—sometimes for years.' RFK Jr said the VICP's structure works against claimants because the Department of Health and Human Services - which he now leads - stands as the accused, as opposed to makers of the vaccines at the center of the accusation. And because of this, Kennedy claims that the VICP decisionmakers prioritize the financial health of the HHS Trust Fund, 'over their duty to compensate victims'. He added: 'The structure itself hobbles claimants. The defendant is HHS, not the vaccine makers; and claimants are therefore facing the monumental power and bottomless pockets of the U.S. government represented by the Department of Justice. 'Furthermore, most of the Special Masters [judging panel] come from government, legal, or political posts, and typically display an extreme bias that favors the government side.' Kennedy did not give specific details on how he would change the VICP. His X post concluded: 'The VICP is broken, and I intend to fix it. I will not allow the VICP to continue to ignore its mandate and fail its mission of quickly and fairly compensating vaccine-injured individuals. 'I am grateful to be working with @AGPamBondi and HHS staff to fix the VISP. Together, we will steer the Vaccine Court back to its original Congressional intent.' Changing the VICP would be the latest in a series of actions by Kennedy to reshape US regulation of vaccines, food and medicine. In June, he fired all 17 members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a panel of vaccine experts, replacing them with seven handpicked members, including known vaccine skeptics. One of them earned thousands of dollars as an expert witness in litigation against Merck's, Gardasil vaccine, court records show. Kennedy himself played an instrumental role in organizing mass litigation over the vaccine. He also is planning to remove all the members of another advisory panel that determines what preventive health measures insurers must cover, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. An HHS spokesperson said Kennedy had not yet made a decision regarding the 16-member US Preventive Services Task Force. RFK Jr has for years sown doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines, despite research determining the shots are safe. He has a history of clashing with the medical establishment and spreading misinformation about vaccines, including promoting a debunked link between vaccines and autism despite scientific evidence to the contrary. Recently it emerged that a major 20-year study of over 1million children found no association between aluminum in vaccines and conditions like autism and ADHD. Findings in the sweeping investigation provide a rebuttal to oft-debunked claims about the use of aluminum salts in vaccines, which bolster the body's immune response, and purported ties to asthma, autoimmune diseases, and autism. Danish researchers looked at 50 potential health effects in children taking a vaccine containing aluminum salts, including 36 immune system disorders like diabetes and celiac disease, nine allergy-related conditions, such as asthma and eczema, and five neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism and ADHD. They found no increased risk of autism, ADHD, asthma, or autoimmune disorders from the small amounts of aluminum in vaccines. In fact, vaccinated children showed slightly lower rates of neurodevelopmental conditions – a seven percent lower autism risk and a 10 percent lower ADHD risk – with no connection to allergic or immune problems. Aluminum adjuvants are safely used in several common childhood vaccines, including those protecting against diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTaP/Tdap), hepatitis A and B, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), and pneumococcal disease.
Politico
29-07-2025
- Health
- Politico
Kennedy's plan to ‘fix' vaccine injury compensation
With help from Carmen Paun Driving the Day WHAT IS VICP? Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took to the social media platform X on Monday — as well as conservative activist Charlie Kirk's show — to promote his plan to 'fix' the system that HHS uses to compensate people injured by vaccines. The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has long been a target of Kennedy's ire, and now, he plans major changes to it. I spoke with POLITICO's Lauren Gardner, who covers the program closely, about how it operates and what we know so far about Kennedy's plans. Here's our conversation, edited for length and clarity. Why was the VICP created and how does it work? Congress created the VICP in 1986 after a series of lawsuits against vaccine makers prompted many of them to pull out of the market. Lawmakers worked with companies, public health advocates and parents who said their children were vaccine-injured to establish a no-fault alternative to the traditional tort system. Under the program, drugmakers' liability is limited, and compensation from an industry-funded tax is available with a lower burden of proof. The intention was to reduce the uncertainty for everyone involved and ensure the stability of the domestic supply of childhood vaccines. To be considered for compensation, a petitioner must file a claim generally within three years of the injury's onset. If the person's injury is listed on a table of injuries presumed to be caused by a given vaccine during a certain timeframe, it's typically easier for them to win compensation; otherwise, they must show their injury was 'more likely than not' caused by the immunization. Kennedy has repeatedly critiqued the program. What does he say is the issue? Some of the secretary's problems with the program are shared by public health experts and, unsurprisingly, vaccine injury lawyers who say the process has become more adversarial in recent years and can take many years to resolve. On the latter point, legal experts point to the law's limit on the number of 'special masters' — essentially judges who consider these cases — at the vaccine court as something Kennedy can't address without Congress. However, Kennedy also made several false or misleading claims Monday, including stating that 'the act has changed' so that the vaccine court is the 'exclusive remedy' for families who might prefer to sue drugmakers in state court. They can do that — as he should know, given his work as an injury lawyer outside of the program — but they have to exhaust their claim at the VICP first. What details do we have about how Kennedy wants to 'fix' VICP? Kennedy didn't say anything new about his plans in Monday's interview. So far, we know he wants to increase the statute of limitations and to somehow compensate people injured by Covid-19 vaccines via the VICP; they currently fall under a separate program that's been widely panned as ineffective. Kennedy specifically referenced a 1995 change to the vaccine injury table's definition of encephalopathy, a broad term for brain dysfunction, that he said 'made it so there's no way you can prove' it was caused by a vaccine. He called the program a 'heartless system that is designed to deny vaccine injury and to deny compensation to people who badly need it, and we are about to fix all that.' He also namechecked Attorney General Pam Bondi as someone who's working with him on this, so since the Justice Department works with HHS to administer the VICP, we could see changes come from that side of Washington, too. WELCOME TO TUESDAY PULSE. Glad to be back in your inbox after taking some time off last week. What are you watching this week before the Senate heads out? Send your tips, scoops and feedback to khooper@ and sgardner@ and follow along @kelhoops and @sophie_gardnerj. AROUND THE AGENCIES PREMIUM RISES — Medicare drug plan premiums are expected to rise next year, according to the 2026 preliminary rate information for Medicare's prescription drug program released by CMS. The agency is projecting the average base premium will be $38.99, a slight increase from 2025's average base premium of $36.78, POLITICO's Robert King reports. CMS said it worked with insurers to blunt larger premium hikes from plans. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the rate release. 'Following these negotiations, CMS approved some revised bids and, for the first time, rejected standalone [prescription drug plan] bids that failed to address concerns regarding significant year-over-year premium increases,' the agency said in a release. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act included several major changes to Part D, chief among them a $2,000 annual cap on out-of-pocket drug costs. CMS was concerned that Medicare Part D plans would raise premiums to compensate for the changes. Key context: Last year, the agency sought to blunt the premium impact through a $5 billion program that's expected to end after 2027. It provided insurers who signed with an additional $15 per member per month. Insurers will still receive extra money, but only $10. It will also increase the limit on a plan's total Part D monthly premium from $35 to $50. CMS said the changes will result in approximately $3.6 billion in additional Medicare payments for 2026, a 42 percent reduction compared to 2025 costs. GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS IN DRUG-USE SURVEY — The percentage of teenagers who seriously considered suicide declined between 2021 and 2024, Carmen reports. That's according to the Annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which reflects 2024 data, that HHS's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA, published Monday. The good news: The percentage of teens who made a suicide plan over the past year dropped from 6.2 percent in 2021 to 4.6 percent in 2024, according to the survey, which relies on self-reported data. And the percentage of teens who attempted suicide decreased from 3.6 percent in 2021 to 2.7 percent in 2024. The use of certain drugs also declined in teenagers and adults, with reported prescription opioid misuse lowering from 3 percent in 2021 to 2.6 percent in 2024. The bad news: The percentage of people ages 12 and older who reported having a drug use disorder in the past year increased from 8.7 percent in 2021 to 9.8 percent in 2024. The use of marijuana increased from 19 percent in 2021 to just over 22 percent last year. So did the use of hallucinogens, also known as psychedelics, with 3.6 percent reporting using them last year compared with 2.7 percent in 2021. Why it matters: In response to the country's mental health and drug use crises that worsened during the pandemic, federal officials and lawmakers have made efforts to regulate social media use and expand access to substance use disorder treatment. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who's in long-term recovery from past opioid use, has promoted the ban of cellphone use in schools and healthier food to improve children and teens' wellbeing. HHS LAUNCHES HEP C PILOT — SAMHSA has put $100 million into a pilot program focusing on hepatitis C in people with a substance use disorder, a serious mental illness or both, Carmen reports. State and community-based organizations are among the entities that can apply for funding from the program, which 'is designed to support communities severely affected by homelessness and to gain insights on effective ways to identify patients, complete treatment, cure infections, and reduce' hepatitis C reinfection, HHS said in a statement Monday. HHS hailed the pilot program as 'a significant accomplishment in President Trump's agenda to Make America Healthy Again … This upfront investment is a common-sense and scientifically driven initiative projected to both save lives and save community health care costs in the long run.' The CDC estimates that between 2.4 million and 4 million people in the U.S. had hepatitis C between 2017 and 2020. The disease is an inflammation of the liver, caused mainly by a viral infection that can progress to severe liver disease or liver cancer if left untreated, according to the World Health Organization. Oral medication can treat and cure the disease if taken for eight to 12 weeks, but greater access to treatment is needed to achieve disease elimination, according to former National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, who has advocated for the cause as former President Joe Biden's science adviser. WHAT WE'RE READING POLITICO's Maya Kaufman reports that the Justice Department has launched an antitrust probe into New York-Presbyterian, one of the nation's largest hospitals. STAT's Anil Oza reports on a new analysis that outlines what the Trump administration's proposed cuts to the NIH could mean long-term.
India Today
28-07-2025
- Health
- India Today
Broken and biased: Health Secretary RFK Jr. vows to reform Vaccine Court
US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. launched a scathing attack on the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) on Monday, calling the federal system 'broken,' 'corrupt,' and 'inefficient.' He pledged to lead a sweeping overhaul to restore its original mission of supporting victims of vaccine a long-time vaccine sceptic and former lawyer for vaccine injury plaintiffs, said the program, along with its adjudication arm, commonly known as the 'Vaccine Court' has strayed far from its founding intent. In a detailed post on X (formerly Twitter), he accused the system of prioritising government finances over children's health and VICP has devolved into a morass of inefficiency, favouritism, and outright corruption,' Kennedy wrote. 'Government lawyers and the Special Masters who serve as Vaccine Court judges prioritize the solvency of the HHS Trust Fund over their duty to compensate victims.' 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 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 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
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Opinion - Chemical liability shields hurt our ability to make agriculture healthy again
What happens when corporations are allowed to cause harm without consequence? Across the country, state legislatures and Congress are considering laws that would give chemical manufacturers just that: liability shields that protect them from lawsuits, even when their products are linked to cancer, infertility or birth defects. This push is not theoretical. Georgia's Legislature recently enacted House Bill 211, limiting liability for PFAS contamination — 'forever chemicals' known to damage human health. Several other states are following suit. In Washington, D.C., the 2024 House Republican farm bill draft included language that would preempt local pesticide protections and deny legal recourse to those harmed by agrichemicals. This provision must not find its way back into the 2025 farm bill. Pressure is mounting. Seventy-nine members of Congress recently wrote to the administration defending the agrochemical lobby, calling pesticides 'essential tools' and warning against 'politically motivated attacks on sound science.' But science is not on their side — and neither is the public. As a long-time advocate for policy reform, I've seen this playbook before. When Congress created the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in 1986, it removed civil liability from pharmaceutical companies. Today, we are watching the same shield being extended to the agrochemical industry except this time it affects every American who eats food, drinks water or breathes air. This is not a question of agricultural efficiency or feeding America. This is a political maneuver to protect profit, not people. And it comes just as science is revealing new links between chemical exposure and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, endocrine disruption, chronic illness and birth defects. The stakes are enormous. Fortunately, we have a chance to act. The Make America Healthy Again Commission, chaired by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was created to address the root causes of chronic disease and environmental contamination. The commission represents a diverse coalition of Americans across party lines who want a food system that heals, not harms. The administration must reject chemical liability shields at all levels of government, strip preemption language from the farm bill and restore funding to the Department of Agriculture's Natural Resource Conservation Service. This program is in charge of national soil health, the National Organic Program and regenerative organic agriculture research. This is not a left-right issue. It is a matter of national well-being and the long-term health of America, her working and wild lands, her air and water, her wildlife and her people. Whether you support or question this administration's broader agenda, protecting public health from corporate harm is something we should all be able to agree on. Elizabeth Kucinich is a policy expert and producer of the films 'GMO OMG,' 'Circle of Poison,' and 'Organic Rising.' She served as director of policy at the Center for Food Safety, chaired the board policy committee of the Rodale Institute, America's oldest organic research institute, is a former director of government affairs for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
09-05-2025
- Health
- The Hill
Chemical liability shields hurt our ability to make agriculture healthy again
What happens when corporations are allowed to cause harm without consequence? Across the country, state legislatures and Congress are considering laws that would give chemical manufacturers just that: liability shields that protect them from lawsuits, even when their products are linked to cancer, infertility or birth defects. This push is not theoretical. Georgia's legislature recently enacted House Bill 211, limiting liability for PFAS contamination — 'forever chemicals,' known to damage human health. Several other states are following suit. In Washington, D.C., the 2024 House Republican farm bill draft included language that would preempt local pesticide protections and deny legal recourse to those harmed by agrichemicals. This provision must not find its way back into the 2025 farm bill. Pressure is mounting. Seventy-nine members of Congress recently wrote to the administration defending the agrochemical lobby, calling pesticides 'essential tools' and warning against 'politically motivated attacks on sound science.' But science is not on their side — and neither is the public. As a long-time advocate for policy reform, I've seen this playbook before. When Congress created the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in 1986, it removed civil liability from pharmaceutical companies. Today, we are watching the same shield being extended to the agrochemical industry except this time it affects every American who eats food, drinks water or breathes air. This is not a question of agricultural efficiency or feeding America. This is a political maneuver to protect profit, not people. And it comes just as science is revealing new links between chemical exposure and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, endocrine disruption, chronic illness and birth defects. The stakes are enormous. Fortunately, we have a chance to act. The Make America Healthy Again Commission, chaired by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was created to address the root causes of chronic disease and environmental contamination. The commission represents a diverse coalition of Americans across party lines who want a food system that heals, not harms. The administration must reject chemical liability shields at all levels of government, strip preemption language from the farm bill and restore funding to the Department of Agriculture's Natural Resource Conservation Service. This program is in charge of national soil health, the National Organic Program and regenerative organic agriculture research. This is not a left-right issue. It is a matter of national wellbeing and the long-term health of America, her working and wild lands, her air and water, her wildlife and her people. Whether you support or question this administration's broader agenda, protecting public health from corporate harm is something we should all be able to agree on. Elizabeth Kucinich is a policy expert and producer of the films 'GMO OMG,' 'Circle of Poison,' and 'Organic Rising.' She served as director of policy at the Center for Food Safety, chaired the board policy committee of the Rodale Institute, America's oldest organic research institute, is a former director of government affairs for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
