Several years after the COVID-19 vaccine’s rollout, the only federal program that provides compensation for COVID vaccine injuries continues to process claims at a snail’s pace while rejecting most of those claims that it does decide.
As of June 1, only 39 people have received compensation from the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) for a COVID-19 vaccine injury. It has rejected another 4,338 claims. Some 9,423 people are still waiting for the federal government to even review their case.
The long wait times and high rejection rates have prompted some lawmakers to propose repealing the liability protections created by the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act, which prevents people from suing COVID vaccine makers in state courts and leaves them dependent on the CICP as the only possible source of compensation.
That includes Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.), who introduced a bill last week to repeal the liability shields in the PREP Act.
“The PREP Act is medical malpractice martial law,” said Massie in a press release. “Americans deserve the right to seek justice when injured by government-mandated products.”
Passed as part of a defense spending bill in 2005, the PREP Act was intended to shore up companies’ willingness to produce novel “countermeasures” in the wake of a public health emergency like a pandemic or bioterror attack by shielding them from civil suits.
The law allows the Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) to issue blanket liability waivers to countermeasures produced in response to a public health emergency. People injured from a covered countermeasure can pursue compensation through the CICP, but they can’t sue in state court.
In February 2020, then-HHS Secretary Alex Azar invoked the PREP Act’s liability shield for COVID-19 countermeasures, which covered then-yet-to-be-invented vaccines, masks, tests, and more.
Massie’s PREP Repeal Act would end those liability protections, thus opening up vaccine makers to personal injury lawsuits in state courts.
Advocates for the vaccine injured say any attention to their plight is welcome.
Hellbound and Down 