Vaccines are designed to trigger the immune system into fighting off diseases. In rare instances, they can cause it to go into hyperdrive, resulting in severe allergic reactions and even paralysis. With potentially hundreds of millions of people getting vaccinated against one disease, even a very small percentage can translate into a lot of injured people.
The potential volume of people affected “will be too much for some unfunded compensation program,” said Topping, currently chief legal officer of CareSource Management Group Inc., a Dayton, Ohio-based non-profit that’s one of the nation’s largest Medicaid-managed health care plans.
Having compensation handled through the countermeasures program “would be terrible,” said Anne Carrión Toale of Maglio Christopher & Toale, former president of the Vaccine Injured Petitioner’s Bar Association.
Patient advocates say compensation requests should instead go through a decades-old program called the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, also known as the “vaccine court.” It has a dedicated source of funding -- an excise tax on every vaccine administered -- but is limited to ones routinely recommended for children and pregnant women and the seasonal flu vaccine.
The court was created in the 1980s when drug manufacturers were threatening to stop making vaccinesdue to lawsuits over side effects from the diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus, or DPT, vaccine.
The drugmakers made a safer vaccine -- the DTaP -- and Congress set up a system of no liability for manufacturers in exchange for setting aside 75 cents from every vaccine antigen to compensate those who had adverse reactions to childhood immunizations.
But in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Congress created the countermeasures program to speed compensation to people injured from drugs, vaccines, and devices developed in response to pandemics and national security events. Those included biological warfare and radiation poisoning. One of the vaccines in that category is for anthrax.
“We want people vaccinated and we don’t want to expose pharmaceutical companies to the kind of liability that they would otherwise have,” said Brent Johnson, a partner with Holland & Hart, who defends corporate clients. “That’s the price we’re willing to pay to get rid of this horrible coronavirus problem.”
39 Claims
The countermeasures program hasn’t been used much -- it’s paid out 39 claims totaling $5.7 million since it began in 2009.
In contrast, the vaccine court has paid out tens of millions of dollars in single cases to cover lifetime medical costs. Overall, the court, lying within the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, has paid out 7,423 claims since it was established in 1988, totaling $4.3 billion, according to the Health Resources & Services Administration, which monitors both programs.