National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program
Meg Fisher, MD, FAAP

It has been my honor to be appointed to the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines, a Federal committee charged with advising and making recommendations to the Secretary of Health and Human Services on issues relating to the operation of the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP). The Commission has approved the following paragraph; we want this information to be distributed widely. Please be sure that your partners and staff are aware of this program; consider having the information readily available for all of your patients and families.

Vaccine administrators and other care providers should be mindful of the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, a "no fault" Federal program that can provide significant funding to children and adults seriously injured by covered vaccines.  A "table" of the specific vaccines and the injuries presumed to be compensable can be found at www.hrsa.gov/Vaccinecompensation/table.htm.  

Other vaccine-related injuries may be proved legally under certain circumstances.  Although you do not need an attorney to file a petition for compensation, the program provides for payment of legal expenses at no cost to the injured party.  Basic information on the program can be found at www.hrsa.gov/Vaccinecompensation/.  The Clerk of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ((202) 357-6400) will provide a list of experienced attorneys upon request.  A three year statute of limitations on filing a claim for injury and a more complex statute of limitations on vaccine-related death make it imperative that patients or their parents or representatives be informed promptly of the program by medical care providers whenever the provider believes that the possibility of a vaccine-related injury exists.  Any suspected adverse vaccine event should be reported to VAERS (http://vaers.hhs.gov/).