(Reuters) - A serious injury from the COVID-19 vaccine: “Our law firm has concluded that there is nothing our attorneys can do to significantly assist you,” the firm states.
Maglio told me his Sarasota, Florida-based firm has been “contacted by at least a couple hundred people” about suspected COVID vaccine-related injuries, including blood clots and cardiac inflammation. It’s not that his firm doesn’t want to help. Representing people who’ve had (rare) major adverse reactions to vaccines for tetanus, measles, hepatitis, influenza and a dozen other shots is its bread and butter.
But the current system for handling COVID-related claims is different--and not in a good way. Because if you’ve suffered an injury related to the Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccines, you’re basically out of luck.
Altom Maglio says his law firm in recent years has litigated more vaccine-related injury claims than any other in the United States….
Since 1988 the government has run a special, no-fault tribunal housed within the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (known colloquially as “vaccine court”), to handle injury claims for 16 common vaccines. Payouts (including attorneys’ fees) are funded by a 75-cent tax per vaccine. I’ve written about the court before, and plaintiffs' lawyers in the past have expressed their share of complaints. The $250,000 cap on awards for pain and suffering is too low. The proceedings often turn into drawn out, contentious expert battles. The backlog of cases is substantial.
“We didn’t know how good we had it,” Maglio said. The vaccine court “is not without problems, but it does work, and people do get compensation.”
But that’s not where COVID vaccine claims are being adjudicated. Instead at least for the time being they’ve been relegated to an even more obscure forum, the Countermeasure Injury Compensation Program, or CICP, run by the Health Resources and Services Administration. Both Maglio and Gentry use the same phrase to describe the program: “A black hole.” A public affairs officer for the HRSA, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, did not respond to a request for comment.
The agency’s website outlines the parameters of the program which is authorized by the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (or PREP) Act. In March 2020 then-Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar added COVID claims to it. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/black-hole-covid-vaccine-injury-claims-2021-06-29/
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