The money comes from a trust set up in 1988 under a program to shield vaccine manufacturers from liability. It is funded by a small surcharge on vaccines. Since 1988, some $3.2 billion has been paid for a range of injuries related to vaccinations, including arthritis, encephalitis, polio and even death, according to HRSA. The government says victims compensated represent just one of every one million inoculations.
Claims against vaccine manufacturers cannot normally be filed in state or federal civil courts, but are instead heard by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims Office of Special Masters, which has no jury. This way, the government says, drug companies won’t be dissuaded from making vaccines and people won’t be dissuaded from receiving them.
Some people contend that vaccines are linked to autism, a theory that has been scientifically discredited. The vaccine court received thousands of claims seeking compensation for autism and set up an Omnibus Autism Proceeding to hear several test cases. The court dismissed the cases for failure to establish vaccine causation, according to court documents.
Until a few years ago, all compensation payments were related to the contents of the vaccines. Sirva is the first recognized side effect blamed on the way the shot is given. Later this year, the government plans to add the affliction to an official table of side effects that makes it easier for people to get compensated, HRSA says.