The lawsuits could challenge emergency immunity protection for COVID-19 vaccine injuries.
Six people who have sought compensation for injuries related to COVID-19 injections are challenging the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, saying the CICP fails to provide constitutional protections and is inconsistent with Congress’ intent.
The CICP was set up under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act of 2005 (PREPA). There have been 12,233 CICP claims for injuries related to the shots, but only six individuals had been compensated, as of October 1.
Plaintiffs are seeking to stop the government from forcing their claims into the CICP until due process safeguards are added, including the right to an adequate statute of limitations, and the ability to review evidence, obtain discovery, present expert witnesses, and appeal adverse decisions, among other things, according to Elizabeth A. Brehm, a partner at Siri & Glimstad LLP, the firm that filed the Louisiana lawsuit.
“Until that happens, the vaccine manufacturers’ immunity protections cannot stand as these provisions violate procedural and substantive due process,” said Brehm. “Should the plaintiffs prevail, those injured by a COVID-19 vaccine would have the right to a fair and constitutional procedure to seek redress for their injuries.”
Childhood Vaccine Injuries
In a potentially related development, the Torts Branch of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is hiring eight new attorneys to handle vaccine injury cases, according to a job ad it posted.
The ad on the USAJOBS website states, “The office is currently expanding to address workload created by an increase in cases filed under the Vaccine Act.” However, these compensation claims do not include any for injuries from the COVID-19 shots, which are managed by the CICP.
The timing of the government’s announcement is interesting given its justification—the workload for cases filed under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, says Brehm.
“In fact, since 2021 the filings in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) have decreased from 2,057 petitions filed in 2021 to only 1,029 filed in 2022, and 1,167 filed in 2023,” said Brehm. “It would have made more sense for the government to have taken action any time from 2016 through 2021, when the numbers of petitions filed were generally and significantly increasing each year (with the high of 2,057 petitions filed in 2021).”
The new hires might, instead, be in anticipation of COVID-19 vaccine-related claims being moved into the VICP, says Brehm.
“In order for that to occur, Congress would first need to add an excise tax on COVID-19 vaccines, which it has not yet done,” said Brehm. The tax is to support claims.
Political Theatre?
The hiring of additional attorneys by the DOJ reeks of political theater, says Marilyn Singleton, M.D., J.D., an anesthesiologist in California and visiting fellow at Do No Harm.
“When it was clear the injections had serious side effects and did not stop transmission of COVID, the government should have suspended the injections program as in 1976 with the H1N1 vaccine,” said Singleton. “Importantly, mandates to take a drug that was not effective as a vaccine should have been prohibited. …There was no informed consent. There was coercion. These cases deserve to be in a medical malpractice civil court.”
Fraud Cancels Immunity
It is far worse than you think, says John Dale Dunn, M.D., J.D., a policy advisor to The Heartland Institute, which publishes Health Care News.
“I have assiduously followed the news on mRNA shot injuries and deaths, and the problem is not a figment of the imagination, this is an international medical scandal,” said Dunn.
“The U.S. government and the International Public Health officials were culpable for civil and criminal misconduct—I say criminal, not to downplay the civil misconduct, but to emphasize that reckless production of products that are harmful is criminal and civil legal misconduct. … [F]ailure to halt the distribution and administration of the mRNA shot was culpable, failure to restrict the vaccine to only populations that were at risk from the disease when the risks were found is malfeasance of a terrible magnitude—resulting in deaths and harm.”
The pharmaceutical industry is responsible for its conduct, says Dunn.
“Immunity was only available for good faith production and distribution of the mRNA shot, and when the harm was identified and deaths counted, continuing the promotion and not warning the public, covering up the negative reports, is a civil and criminal offense and extinguishes the immunity under the emergency use authorization,” said Dunn.
Inadequate Compensation for Victims
It is telling that the government is hiring lawyers now—instead of funding research to investigate the safety signals that soon began to emerge, or ways to alleviate the effects, or hiring prosecutors to investigate wrongdoing by drug companies, says Jane Orient, M.D., executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.
“Unfortunately, there are probably plenty of unethical lawyers willing to help deny people some compensation for their devastated lives,” said Orient.
The program set up to compensate individuals injured by childhood vaccines is also problematic, says Orient.
“The VICP was set up to compensate people quickly for the inevitable adverse effects of childhood vaccines, financed by a small tax on each dose,” said Orient. “The program has paid out billions but avoided paying for most of the damage. The statute of limitations is very short, many parents do not learn about it in time, and the government fights most claims strenuously except possibly if the injury is clearly on the very limited table of injuries. The only theoretically available compensation for Covid vaccines is even less adequate.”
Kenneth Artz (KApublishing@gmx.com) writes from Tyler, Texas.
