By Erin K. Costello
CLAIM: Vaccine Manufacturers Can't be Sued or Held Liable. This claim is false. Though there are times when a case must go through the NVICP (National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program), or vaccine court, many cases can also be sued in state civil court. According to Professor Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, a law professor at UC Hastings College who specialized in tort litigation and public health law, “Under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act from 1986, as interpreted by the Supreme Court in 2011, the liability of vaccines manufacturers is limited, but not removed. For most claims, claimants need to go through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program first, but then can sue in court. That includes two types of product defects, negligence claims, and intentional torts. The exception is design defect claims: under the Supreme Court's decision in Bruesewitz v. Wyeth from 2011, for design defect, NVICP is the only recourse. You cannot go to state courts. On the other hand, if you are unhappy with the program's decision you can appeal to federal courts, all the way to the Supreme Court." For more information regarding incorrect claims about the NVICP, and claims regarding NVICP rulings, I highly recommend an article by Professor Rubinstein Reiss in the Minnesota Journal of Law. CLAIM: The NVICP Paid Out Over $4 Billion in Claims. This claim is actually true, though when presented by itself with no other data it is often highly misleading. The vaccine court has paid out over $4 billion in claims since its creation in 1986. However, this bit of data on its own does not provide much information. According to the CDC, from 2006 to 2018 3,454,269,356 covered vaccines have been administered. During this time frame, 7,104 petitions were adjudicated by the Court. Of those adjudicated, 4,943 were awarded compensation. Which means out of all those covered vaccines administered during this time frame, 0.00021% of them resulted in claims that were heard in vaccine court, and about 0,00014% of them resulted in compensation. In other words, for every 1 million doses of vaccine that were distributed, one individual was compensated. Since 1988, 21,757 petitions have been filed with the NVICP. Over that 30 year time period (1988 - 2018), 18,682 petitions were adjudicated, with 7,211 of those deemed compensable, while 11,461 were dismissed. The total amount awarded from FY (fiscal year) 1989 to FY 2020 is $4,355,741,676, which also includes attorney fees. Attorneys receive a fee on both awarded cases as well as dismissed cases. It is also important to note that nearly 70% of all compensation awarded by the NVICP comes as a result of a negotiated settlement between the parties in which the HHS (Health and Human Services) has not concluded that the alleged vaccine(s) caused the alleged injury. In other words, the case was settled out of court before the court could rule on the matter. Of the $4,355,741,676 paid out by the NVICP, $4,012,562,656 was awarded to petitioners minus attorney fees. If 70% of total compensation was awarded as a result of negotiated settlements, then only about $1,203,768,796 was awarded due to a ruling by the vaccine court. Even still, vaccine court has a very low burden of proof for those petitioning the court, so a ruling in favor of the petitioner is not a determination that the vaccine was the cause of injury. A legal judgement does not equal medical causation. CLAIM: Physicians Are Paid Bonuses For Reaching Quotas. This is one claim that has been around for years, regardless of how many times it has been debunked. We debunked this claim on this website about two years ago. We broke down the various different ways this claim is false (there were many), but what it mostly comes down to is that there was an incentive program for participating doctors in the state of Michigan by Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS), and only in the state of Michigan for participating doctors by BCBS. BCBS also offered incentive programs for participating doctors who had a percentage of diabetic patients with adequate A1C levels as well as a percentage of patients with a BMI index within a specific range. In other words, participating doctors in the state of Michigan were offered bonuses for being good doctors and helping their patients. Also, keep in mind that BCBS is a health insurance company in the U.S., which means they are also a profit driven business. If vaccines did in fact cause injury and did so at the rate anti-vaxxers claim, then supporting vaccinations would end up costing insurance companies. If these injuries actually occurred as a result of vaccination, then they would result in additional medical claims by the client, which would result in additional medical claims being paid by the insurance company. In addition to these extra medical claims, the insurance company would also be paying for the vaccination, as well as the alleged bonuses that incentivized the physicians to maintain a high vaccination rate among their patients . The fact remains is that for-profit health insurance companies support the use of vaccinations because it costs insurance companies less money in the short and long run than not vaccinating costs insurance companies. CLAIM: The CDC Owns Vaccine Patents. This claim is only true in which there are patents that benefit the CDC. However, it isn’t exactly the CDC that owns or controls these patents. The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services holds patents. Most of these patents are for vaccine technology, they are not patents on whole vaccines. These technologies were discovered by CDC researchers and are intellectual property. Obtaining a patent protects the intellectual property. If a license is negotiated regarding a patent, based on the terms of the agreement, a percentage of royalties will go to the inventor, while a portion will go to the lab in which the technology originated. This allows for funding to be reinvested into the CDC for the development of additional technologies that can meet public health needs. CLAIM: Vaccines Are Poison. There are dozens of ingredients that are claimed to be involved in making vaccines so I am going to stick to the most popular claims of "poison." Let’s start with what is or was in vaccines. Thimerosal (mercury) is no longer in vaccines and hasn’t been since 1999, with the exception of some flu vaccines, of which have had thimerosal free vaccines available since 2003 Aborted fetal tissue is not a vaccine ingredient, though cells can be used in the making of certain vaccines. There are some vaccine that are made with fetal embryo fibroblast cells from cell lines that are derived from two electively terminated pregnancies from the 1960s. Formaldehyde is used to sterilize vaccines to avoid contamination. Formaldehyde is commonly used for this because it is a substance that is already naturally forming in the human body as a byproduct of digestion and metabolism. Our bodies naturally contain much more formaldehyde than what we receive from any vaccine. Aluminum by itself, or elemental aluminum, is not a vaccine ingredient. Aluminum in various forms is added to vaccines as an adjuvant. Aluminum salts is one form that is commonly used. Aluminum is also the third most abundant element found on Earth. The average person consumes 3-8mgs of aluminum daily, of which less than 1% is absorbed into the blood stream. Vaccines are allowed to contain a maximum of .85mg of aluminum, about what is contained in 33 ounces of infant formula. Hydrochloric acid is in fact used in making vaccines. This sounds worse than it is because if you pour hydrochloric acid on your skin it will burn. It will burn because your skin is pH balanced. If you add the acid to something that is alkaline, the acid brings it back into balance. Some vaccines, once the active ingredients are all added, may be too alkaline. If they were injected like this they would cause adverse reactions. Adding hydrochloric acid brings the vaccine down to match our body’s normal pH level of about 7.4. Hydrochloric acid is also the primary stomach acid used in digestion so it isn’t something our bodies are unfamiliar with. What IS NOT in vaccines in any way is antifreeze, latex rubber, or aspartame. CLAIM: Doctors Only Study Vaccines For Half a Day In Medical School. First of all, we have to establish the fact that there is no “vaccine science” course and why that is; because vaccines are a collaboration of several different fields of science. Biology, immunology, virology, and chemistry just to name a few. Medical school students learn all these sciences throughout their education. First, before they can even begin medical school, they must adequately pass an exam called the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT). The MCAT exam will test each student on their fundamental knowledge regarding related sciences and subjects in science, health, and medicine. The best way a student prepares for this exam is by obtaining at least a 4 year degree from a college where they learned the necessary information. So before a person begins medical school, they already know more about the sciences involved in vaccines than most other people. Then, there is what a person learns while in medical school. A few years ago I came across a post that listed much of what to expect in medical school. I have verified that although different schools may do different orders for the basic sciences, the gist of this post is accurate. The post is as follows, “You start off learning physics chemistry and biology. Physics shows you how individual subatomic particles work and interact. Chemistry shows you how these interactions between particles result in chemical reactions and explains the rules these reactions follow. Biology shows you how these reactions work together to allow a cell to function it also goes into how groups of cells can talk to tech other chemically and form tissues. Next come biochemistry, molecular cell biology, organic chemistry, genetics, microbiology and histology. Biochemistry focuses on those reactions most important to life, while organic chemistry gives you more in depth knowledge of the rules that those reactions are governed by, building on what you learned in physics. Molecular cell biology focuses on all of the interactions within a single cell. Genetics is self explanatory, how DNA and genes work which is covered in several of these other classes but here you stress every chemical and physical detail. Microbiology teaches you about microorganisms and their role in the environment as well as their internal chemistry. Histology takes what you learned about a single cell in biology and shows you how many cells working together can form a tissue and how tissues can form an organ. From here we move on to: embryology anatomy, neuro-manatomy, physiology, and regulatory physiology. Embryology teaches us how we developed from fertilization onward and sets the stage for Anatomy which teaches you how the structures you learned about in embryology which are formed from the tissues you learned about in biology/histology function together physically and on a macro level. Neuroanatomy is the same thing as anatomy but given the complexity of the nervous system is a whole class in it's own right. Physiology teaches how those organs communicate and interact on a chemical level drawing from all the chemistry knowledge you now have and regulatory physiology specifically focuses on the signaling pathways that are most important. Ok so NOW you start learning actual medicine: pathology, pharmacology, clinical systems: pathology takes what you learned about anatomy and histology and how things work and starts to show you what happens if things in those systems start going wrong. It builds on what you learned in microbiology and genetics as well. This is where you learn about infectious bacteria, virus and prions, autoimmune disease, genetic disorders, metabolic disease and all manner of other ailments. You learn the inner chemical and physical workings of these diseases and how they effect the body function. Pharmacology teaches you how introduction of particular chemicals to the body can either increase or decrease the activity of the pathways you learned about in physiology. You learn that it is impossible to introduce a new chemical pathway to the body, only modify the functions of the ones that are there. Pretty much all pharmaceuticals are based on this notion. Finally in clinical systems you learn how to piece Anatomy, physiology, pathology and pharmacology together with your physical exam (physical exam is another class) to look at a patient and interpret what you see and combine it with the data from lab tests to synthesize a diagnosis and provide the proper treatment. After you have mastered all of that, congratulations you still have two more years of medical school to go, rotating in hospitals to get practical experience before going into a residency for 3-10 years to get further training in a specialty.” CLAIM: A Lawsuit Proved No Vaccines Safety Studies Done in 30 Years. This claim comes from the ICAN lawsuit against the US government regarding the reporting requirements of paragraph (c) of section 2127 of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 which states: Within 2 years after December 22, 1987, and periodically thereafter, the Secretary shall prepare and transmit to the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Labor and Human Resources of the Senate a report describing there actions taken pursuant to subsection (a) of this second during the preceding 2-year period. Subsection (a) calls for the promotion and development of childhood vaccines that result in fewer and less serious adverse reactions, as well as to assure improvements in and respect to licensing, manufacturing, processing, testing, labeling, warning, use instructions, distribution, storage, administration, field surveillance, adverse reaction reporting, and recall on reactogenic lots in order to reduce risks of adverse reactions to vaccines. The claim is NOT TRUE. Robert F Kennedy Jr, (RFK) sued over reporting requirements established in the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. Even if no formal reports were filed, the HHS secretary did report to and appear before Congress and even sent some reports to Congress. Also, the Health and Medicine Division, previously known as the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine has published a number of vaccine safety reviews and reports under commission of HRS, an agency of Health and Human Services (HHS). The National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC), established in 1987, has had regular meetings and published regular reports about vaccine safety. A number of other vaccine safety oversight advisory committees performed vaccine studies including the ACCV (Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines), ACIP (Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices), MIDRAC of NIAID (Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Review Advisory Committee), and the VRBPAC (Vaccines and Related Biology Products Advisory Committee), all of which report to the secretary of HHS. Not only were vaccine safety studies concluded over the past 30 years, but the government did not lose this lawsuit. The lawsuit was first settled, and then dismissed. As I stated earlier, this is not a complete list of anti-vaccine claims regarding vaccinations. If there is a claim you would like to see addressed please feel free to let us know in the comments.
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