just curious

[shanniesue2]

IF your child had a severe vaccine reaction, could you sue someone over it? Who would you sue? The vax provider? The CDC? The Pharma?

[bandgeek]

I don't know about WHO to sue, but I do know someone that sued and won and the money is in a special account to pay for her son's needs and it is controlled by a third party. She has to basically ask for the money for specific things for him. She can't just take out money and use it for whatever.

[shanniesue2]

I just looked up the Vaccine Act, which says that manufacturers CAN'T legally be sued in the U.S. So then would it be the provider (assuming you could prove that the person who gave the shot administered it incorrectly) or the CDC/FDA for approving and promoting the vax's?

[Otto]

Originally Posted by shanniesue2

I just looked up the Vaccine Act, which says that manufacturers CAN'T legally be sued in the U.S. So then would it be the provider (assuming you could prove that the person who gave the shot administered it incorrectly) or the CDC/FDA for approving and promoting the vax's?

If I'm inferring the intent of the question right, one would generally start at the Court of Federal Claims ("vaccine court"). Actual negligence on the part of the person administering the shot is a completely separate thing.

[NaturalBirthGoddes]

Originally Posted by Otto

If I'm inferring the intent of the question right, one would generally start at the Court of Federal Claims ("vaccine court"). Actual negligence on the part of the person administering the shot is a completely separate thing.

^ Yep, exactly.

Although I do think it's total hogwash that no one can directly sue a vaccine company. That's just wrong on so many levels. The vaccine courts pay out of a fund that EVERY SINGLE PERSON who vaxes pay in to. So, out of the cost of each vaccine, a couple dollars goes into this fund to pay for the kids who win a settlement.

[shanniesue2]

the whole reason that I'm asking is that DH and were having a discussion about vaxes yesterday (see my other thread for further details), and his argument was that if vaxes weren't safe, they wouldn't be approved b/c our society is such a litigious society that there would be major lawsuits and it would be too costly for "them" to approve vaxes. It got me wondering who you would sue if you or your child had a bad reaction/injury due to a vax.

[caned & able]

You should know that the SCOTUS is going to hear a case about just that in this session. Judge Roberts sold his drug company stock to guard against a conflict of interest.

There were several lawsuits against vaccine companies in the late 1970s after the last swine flu vaccine fiasco, and a resurgence and of the antivax movement in the early 1980s. In the 1950s there were many lawsuits against drug companies because some of the early polio vaccines caused polio. This was the era in legal litigation in which product liability law was written and the attorney, the King of Torts, Melvin Belli, gained his reputation.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...864181,00.html

There was a time the drug companies could be held liable for the damage their product did to someone. Marge Grant lost her decades long fight against Parke-Davis for the damage the Quadrigen vaccine did to her second son, Scott. Such litigation would not be possible today.

Congress moved forward in the early 1980s lead by Congressman Henry Waxman to immunize the vaccine companies against liability of prosecution and negligence by forming VAERS and the federal vaccine court, a no-fault system that re-imburses parents for the damage done to their child by routine required childhood vaccinations. That way, the drug companies could move forward with more vaccines as the Hepatitis A and B and the chicken pox vaccine.

[Fyrestorm]

Nope - The vaccine manufacturers are completely free from any fear of lawsuits.

[peainthepod]

The pharmaceutical cartel enjoys near total immunity from litigation and liability for injuries and deaths that may result from the use of their vaccine products. That's why you never hear about someone going after Merck or Parke-Davis for compensation for vaccine injury and death. They have to go begging to the HRSA's National Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund, a special trust that's funded by taxes on vaccines, paid for by vaccine consumers themselves.

Tidy, isn't it?

[Fyrestorm]

Think about how many more people would be questioning vaccines if ad after ad on TV was for some lawyer soliciting people injured by vaccines like you do for drug after drug after drug.

I think while watching 1 show this afternoon, I saw ads for 3 separate attys looking for claimaents for three separate drugs - in an hour show....can you imagine seeing that many for vaccines and what the general public would start to think?

BTW - it was Avandia (a diabetes drug), Accutaine (sp?) (an acne drug) and Reglan - ( a heartburn, reflux med).

[FernG]

You can only sue through the vaccine court if your reaction is listed by the manufacturer on a specific table of reactions documented by peer reviewed journals. The reaction must be within a very specific timeline that is different for each shot.

In one of the cases before the supreme court, the child's reaction was listed on those magical tables but was removed 1 month before her reaction, so she got nothing from vaccine court. She is fighting for the right to file outside of vaccine court.

[NaturalBirthGoddes]

Originally Posted by FernG

You can only sue through the vaccine court if your reaction is listed by the manufacturer on a specific table of reactions documented by peer reviewed journals. The reaction must be within a very specific timeline that is different for each shot.

In one of the cases before the supreme court, the child's reaction was listed on those magical tables but was removed 1 month before her reaction, so she got nothing from vaccine court. She is fighting for the right to file outside of vaccine court.

Do you have the link for this? I would love to read more about it!

[caned & able]

Shanniesue, OP, just to let you know, it is we the taxpayers who pay for the awards in vaccine court. There is a tax added to the vaccine for this fund. YOU pay for it.

I would imagine if more people opted out of vaccinating their children, and there fore fewer vaccines were purchased, there would be less $ accruing in this fund.

[caned & able]

Originally Posted by NaturalBirthGoddes

Do you have the link for this? I would love to read more about it!

I the thread - posted the case in another thread here on this forum.

The case - http://www.pharmalot.com/2010/10/sho...-be-preempted/

OK, that does not work...this should...

http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/03/t...y-victims.html


http://autismjabberwocky.blogspot.co...cus-timor.html

and this

http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files...ewitz-v-wyeth/

[shanniesue2]

Originally Posted by caned & able

Shanniesue, OP, just to let you know, it is we the taxpayers who pay for the awards in vaccine court. There is a tax added to the vaccine for this fund. YOU pay for it.

I would imagine if more people opted out of vaccinating their children, and there fore fewer vaccines were purchased, there would be less $ accruing in this fund.

Well I don't pay for it b/c I don't vax... but I guess what you mean is that people who vax pay into a fund just in case they have a reaction... so it's more like insurance, then.

[Fyrestorm]

The situation is explained pretty well here:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10284/1093671-499.stm

At the center of the debate is whether the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 -- created to help shield vaccine makers from costly lawsuits, while at the same time providing compensation to children who suffered severe side effects from vaccines -- precludes civil litigation against vaccine manufacturers.

[Otto]

Originally Posted by FernG

You can only sue through the vaccine court if your reaction is listed by the manufacturer on a specific table of reactions documented by peer reviewed journals.

No, the table injuries are those in which one basically prevails automatically. They are not a bar to entry.

[caned & able]

Thank you, Fyrestorm for that.

It should also be noted here that there were just two vaccine companies left in the U.S. at the time, the rest had either gone out of business or took their business abroad.

[Poogles0213]

Here's some info about the vaccine court:

"Since 1988, the program has been funded by an excise tax of 75 cents on every purchased dose of covered vaccine. To win an award, a claimant must show a causal connection; if medical records show a child has one of several listed adverse effects soon after vaccination, the assumption is that it was caused by the vaccine. The burden of proof is the civil-law preponderance-of-the-evidence standard, in other words a showing that causation was more likely than not. Denied claims can be pursued in civil courts, though this is rare.[1]"

That's from wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_court

[carriebft]

I would go through the channel set up currently in the USA depending on what happened...that would be the Vaccine Court. I agree that an issue with the person giving the vaccine would be a separate issue.