In a recent letter from several attorneys general (AGs) demanding an explanation as to why so few vaccine-injured people have received so little compensation, the AGs asked a curious question:
We have been told by constituents that NIH [National Institutes of Health] is privately helping patients across the country with COVID-19 vaccine–related injuries and is even bringing patients to NIH for study and treatment. Is that correct? Why have these activities not been better publicized? What sorts of studies of these patients is NIH currently conducting? What treatments is NIH administering?
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Most of the letter focused on compensation for COVID-19 vaccine injuries. As you know, vaccine manufacturers in the US have immunity from lawsuits, but people suffering from vaccine injuries can be compensated by the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP). But among the 10,000 COVID vaccine related claims, only 20 claimants have received compensation. "And but for one extreme outlier (a $370,376 award--likely a myocarditis fatality), the average COVID-19 vaccine-related award comes in well below $5,000," says the letter to the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Administrator of Health Resources & Services Administration. The letter gives examples of people suffering devastating vaccine injuries, including one man who ended his life.
The letter continues,
"To start, an individual who is injured by a COVID-19 vaccine has only one year from the date of injury to file a claim with the CICP.7 If this short timeframe lapses, the individual is ineligible for benefits.
"Second, injured individuals are frequently left to navigate the program by themselves with no professional guidance....
"Third, the CICP provides little or no transparency or due process. An individual filing a claim has no knowledge—or ability to find out—who will make a determination about his or her claim, when it will be decided, or how it will be decided. There is also no right to confront or question the government officials who denied a claim, no way to access or respond to any evidence the government may have relied on in denying a claim, no way to confront or question any experts who may have consulted in denying the claim, and no way for a claimant to introduce evidence from his or her own expert.
"Fourth, even in those rare instances when the CICP approves a claim, the injured claimant is entitled to, at most, up to $50,000 in lost wages per year and unreimbursed medical expenses. If the injured person is deceased, his or her estate may receive a limited death benefit."
Read the whole letter here.
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