Partial list of 2012 flu shot deaths and injuries - Page 2

[Taximom5]

Originally Posted by Rrrrrachel 

You do not need to prove that your gbs was caused by the flu shot and not one of the other things that causes gbs. You automatically get compensated. This is the case for anything on the list of known and verified side effects.

That is not true. If the Vaccine Court can show any other possibility of causation, your case gets thrown out. The court does not have to prove causation.

It's an extremely adversarial process, and horrifically stressful.  Everyone who has been through it and talks about, even those who won their cases, says the same thing: they were made to feel that they were on trial, and the Vaccine Court attorneys and medical experts treated them as though they were the scum of the earth.

Those who have won were warned that that they were not to talk of their award, or the funds paying for their children's medical bills would be yanked.

Some of them talked anyway.

Many cases of admitted and compensated vaccine-induced brain damage have included autism.

[Rrrrrachel]

Information on the vaccine injury compensation program.

http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/index.html

The process is easier if your injury is on the list of recognized vaccine injuries for a particular vaccine. If its not, a greater burden of proof must be met, but it's still much lower than a court of law. Which is why not many people take advantage of the option to opt out and go to civil courts.

[Rrrrrachel]

From their booklet on what you need to know about vicp:

What is the Vaccine Injury Table?
The Table makes it easier for some people to get compensation. The Table lists and explains injuries/conditions that are presumed to be caused by vaccines. It also lists time periods in which the first symptom of these injuries/conditions must occur after receiving the vaccine. If the first symptom of these injuries/conditions occur within the listed time periods, it is presumed that the vaccine was the cause of the injury or condition unless another cause is found. For example, if you received the tetanus vaccine and had a severe allergic reaction (anaphylaxis) within 4 hours after receiving the vaccine, then it is presumed that the tetanus vaccine caused the injury if no other cause is found.

ftp://ftp.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/84521_Booklet.pdf

This is particularly relevant to gbs, since the cause is mostly unknown. Cause unknown means no other cause found means vicp concludes vaccine caused it.

[Rrrrrachel]

You can see all kinds of decisions the vicp has made here.

http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/opinions_decisions_vaccine/Published

They're not a secret.

[kathymuggle]

Originally Posted by pers 

. It's far better here in Canada than it is for many in the US, but still serious illness comes with many expenses that are not covered by provincial insurance and may not be covered by supplemental insurance either. These are shocking ideas and worthy of a "wow, just wow" I know.  

The "wow, just wow" was over the idea  that getting money from vaccine court somehow made getting GBS from a vaccine more acceptable.  To quote you  - " but at least there is some compensation."  As if that makes up for anything!

ETA:  I understand people suing if they have been injured by a vaccine, but it does not compensate for ill health. 

Edited by kathymuggle - 12/4/12 at 4:07pm

[Taximom5]

Originally Posted by kathymuggle 

The "wow, just wow" was over the idea the idea that getting money from vaccine court somehow made getting GBS from a vaccine more acceptable  To quote you  - " but at least there is some compensation."  As if that makes up for anything!

Actually, for the people who have died from vaccine-induced GBS, it makes up for nothing.

[Rrrrrachel]

One in a million doses of flu shot result in gbs. A fraction of those end in death.
Edited by Rrrrrachel - 12/4/12 at 4:10pm

[pers]

Originally Posted by kathymuggle 

The "wow, just wow" was over the idea the idea that getting money from vaccine court somehow made getting GBS from a vaccine more acceptable  To quote you  - " but at least there is some compensation."  As if that makes up for anything!

ETA:  I understand people suing if they have been injured by a vaccine, but it does not compensate for ill health. 

If I remember correctly, aren't medical bills one of the leading causes of bankruptcy (or maybe even the leading cause) in the US?  

Of course monetary compensation doesn't undo the illness. But going through the illness is bad enough without leaving the hospital with a mountain of debt due to medical bills and a prolonged period away from work, maybe even losing your home and having to declare bankruptcy as a result of your illness.  

GBS is a rare condition, but in the huge population of the US there are still a few thousand cases every year.  Since there are a lot of people who get flu shots in the US, you would expect by sheer chance to have a number of GBS cases following the flu shot (in fact, if you couldn't find cases, that would be very surprising and indicate a possibility that the flu shot was somehow preventing GBS, or why else would people stop getting it).   As I wrote above, most studies have found no links between flu shots and GBS since the swine flu shots in the 1970's, but a couple studies indicate a slight increase in rate.  So it is not clear if the flu shot causes GBS or not, but if it does, it is very rare. 

So if a person gets a flu shot and then starts showing symptoms of GBS later, is it one of these coincidences, or was it caused by the flu shot?  There is absolutely no way to know.  Most likely, it is a coincidence, and even if he/she had skipped the flu shot he/she would have come down with GBS with no identified cause at the same time anyway. But because a case can be made that the flu shot may have caused it, he/she can file with the vaccine court and, after a lot of hassle and bother, be awarded a settlement. Meanwhile the other guy who started showing symptoms of GBS the same week but had not had a vaccine in many years has no such recourse and has now lost his house and is facing bankruptcy due to medical bills and lost wages. 

So I am not saying that it is okay if a vaccine injures you because you will get compensation. What I am saying is that there are people who were not injured by vaccines who are getting compensation because of the possibility that a vaccine could have injured them. Statistics tell us that there will be cases of GBS after flu vaccine that are not related to it, and we have absolutely no way of knowing which cases are these coincidences and in which cases (if any) were actually caused by the flu shot.  

[dinahx]

I am

Originally Posted by Rrrrrachel 

One in a million doses of flu shot result in gbs. A fraction of those end in death.

I am always suspicious of the statistic '1 in a million' because statistics in round numbers like that are almost always not quantitatively accurate. Can we get a source?

[dinahx]

And let's clear this up: you can't SUE for a vax rx in the US anymore. You can appeal to the Special Masters for a max of 250G from the VICP.

[dinahx]

And it is only a 'lower standard of proof' if you consider going up against the Gov's best lawyers easy. The Special Masters exist because JURIES like to award for Vax injury NOT because Govie likes to lower the standard of proof. In a court of law it is up to a lay jury.

[Rrrrrachel]

No, after you've gone through vicp you can go to the courts if you till want to.

It absolutely is a lower standard of proof than is required in civil court. That has nothing to do with the quality of the lawyers.

[dinahx]

Yes, lawyers don't make any difference in court. LOL

Since a gag order is a condition of mosy VICP awards, how would you then go through court without violating said order?

[dinahx]

Children have the right to have their injury redressed by a jury. So long as that has been taken away, we have some issues.

[dinahx]

And let's note that the VICP is funded as a tax on each vax (ie not by the manufacturers) & is almost tapped out.

[CatsCradle]

Originally Posted by Taximom5 

Well, holy heck, there's a lot of information there.

I find this particularly chilling:  http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/LORD.KENNEDY050812.pdf

"Confusion may occur where, as here, the Secretary’s main response to a petitioner’s case is to suggest an unrelated causative factor. As discussed below in regard to Doe 11, proving alternative causation is only one of the ways the Secretary can defeat a vaccine injury claim. Another way is to challenge the validity of the evidence presented in the petitioner’s case-in-chief. The Secretary hardly undertook the effort of challenging Petitioner’s factual presentation here. The evidence she did present, including evidence of possible alternative causation, was not sufficient to persuade me that viral causation was more likely than vaccine causation.

If the Secretary had identified a specific virus that she alleged caused Petitioner’s ADEM, it might have increased the weight of the evidence in rebuttal of Petitioner’s showing. That would have been a different case. But it was not necessary for the Secretary to present evidence of a specific infectious agent in order to rebut Petitioner’s case. If Petitioner had presented weaker evidence of vaccine causation, or the Secretary had presented stronger evidence of non-vaccine causation, the Secretarymight well have prevailed without identifying any alternative causative factor, and certainly without needing to specify the suspected viral agent."

Well, THAT certainly proves previous claims by the pro-vaxxers that you only need to prove that it was POSSIBLE for vaccines to cause your injury to win your case.  In fact, here the Special Master is giving the Secretary instructions on how they could have avoided losing this cases, and saying all she needed to do was to identify a specific virus that MIGHT have caused the petitioner's ADEM in order to throw the case out.  No need to present evidence that he actually had it, just identify one!

The Special Master clearly believes that the Secretary's job here is to challenge the Petitioner's factual presentation, and to "prevail."  His words.

Yes, "Vaccine Court" is an extremely adversarial process.  And this has been stated time after time after time by petitioners who actually WON their cases.  And here, we can see why.

I'm not here to argue pro or con in relation to vaccines, just to say that I don't see how the the legal standards of proof cited above are are any different than any other case presented in a court of law.  I deal with civil cases every day and these are the standards of proof, whether it is a construction defect claim or a breach of contract claim.  You either rebut the evidence presented or you present evidence which weakens the claimant's position.  If you can't do either, it is highly likely that your opponent will prevail.  I'm not following why the above is out of the ordinary in the legal realm.

Edited to add that "rebut" doesn't mean to prove alternate causation.  Rebut means to cast doubt on your opponent's position.  It's not the defendant's job to prove his/her position, but to show that his/her opponent's position is questionable. 

Edited by CatsCradle - 12/5/12 at 12:02pm

[Rrrrrachel]

Originally Posted by dinahx 

Yes, lawyers don't make any difference in court. LOL
Since a gag order is a condition of mosy VICP awards, how would you then go through court without violating said order?

I'm pretty sure that if you opt out of vicp you don't get an award. So the alleged gag order would be irrelevant. I'm interested in some documentation this gag order even exists, if you have any.

[Rrrrrachel]

Originally Posted by dinahx 

And let's clear this up: you can't SUE for a vax rx in the US anymore. You can appeal to the Special Masters for a max of 250G from the VICP.

This 250k number inaccurate. There is not a limit on total award. There is a limit of 350k for pain and suffering, but present and future costs of medical care aren't included n that.

[dinahx]

Where is your link on that? I am subject to a gag order on discussing the VICP gag orders. LOL. For real tho I am a little bored with discouting all parent testimony & the proVax agenda. I know about the gag order because a BFF accepted less money in order to avoid it. I can put you in touch if you want.
Edited by dinahx - 12/6/12 at 10:26am

[Rrrrrachel]

My information comes from the vicp website. Specifically the PDF about what you should know about filling a claim.

I'm skeptical about the gag order because all of the special masters decisions are available on the web. It would seem strange to do that and then put a gag order on the people involved. It seems extra odd to have the gag order depend on the amount of the award.

I'm tired of people posting inaccurate information and then attacking me personally when I correct or question it.