Wayne Rohde, author of “The Vaccine Court: The Dark Truth of America’s Vaccine Injury Compensation Program,” said the U.S. is “falling behind” countries that have offered more generous compensation for COVID-19 vaccine injuries. The U.S. has so far approved only four COVID-19 vaccine injury claims — for a total of $8,592.55.
In April, the U.S. government’s Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) approved its first three payments to people injured by COVID-19 vaccines. As of Aug. 1, that number has grown — from three to four.
HRSA data show that its Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) has approved three claims for myocarditis and one for anaphylaxis. The combined payout totaled $8,592.55.
According to HRSA, 12,025 COVID-19 vaccine injury claims so far have been filed. Of these, 1,138 decisions have been made, including 1,109 denials and 29 “found eligible for compensation.” Another 10,887 claims are “pending review or in review.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention a total of 1,591,249 reports of adverse events — including 36,135 reports of deaths — following COVID-19 vaccines have been submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) between Dec. 14, 2020, and Sept. 1, 2023.
VAERS historically has been shown to report only 1% of actual vaccine adverse events.
Since 2010, when it approved its first claim, CICP has compensated a total of 34 claims for vaccine injuries, including the first four awards for COVID-19 vaccines.
Wayne Rohde, author of “The Vaccine Court: The Dark Truth of America’s Vaccine Injury Compensation Program” and “The Vaccine Court 2.0,” said it was “ridiculous” that CICP has paid only four claims, which he said are actually “reimbursements,” not “compensation.”
“They reimbursed people for medical expenses that these people incurred that they couldn’t claim from insurance or whatever, unreimbursed medical expenses,” Rohde told The Defender. “But they don’t compensate so far for COVID-19 injuries, for the actual injury either. There’s no such thing as pain and suffering in this program,” he said.
Writing on Substack, Rohde said the U.S. is “falling behind” countries such as South Korea and Taiwan, which have offered more generous compensation for COVID-19 vaccine injuries.
The South Korean government recently announced it will offer “condolence money” to the families of those who died within 90 days of COVID-19 vaccination. The Taiwanese government has paid NT$153 million (US$4.79 million) in vaccine injury claims, despite having processed less than half of pending claims.
‘You are on your own’ in navigating CICP program
Legal experts told The Defender the CICP program is structured to make it difficult for injury claim applications to be approved.
Kim Mack Rosenberg, acting general counsel for Children’s Health Defense (CHD), said, “CICP is what is known as a ‘payor of last resort.’ That means CICP may pay when other means of compensation, such as health insurance, have paid what they may be obligated to cover.”
Read More: Koreans Whose Family Members Died After COVID Shots Get $22,500 ‘Condolence’ Payments
