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ICAN has submitted a formal petition to HHS Secretary Kennedy to expand the list of vaccine injuries that are considered “on table” injuries in the national Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP). The current list of injuries—called the Vaccine Injury Table—has shamefully not been added to since 2017! ICAN calls upon HHS to rectify this violation of federal law and take immediate action to update the Table.
The petition asks the Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to amend the Vaccine Injury Table by adding 300 additional vaccine-injury pairs:
- 62 Influenza vaccine injuries
- 51 MMR vaccine injuries
- 47 Hepatitis B vaccine injuries
- 41 DTaP (tetanus component) vaccine injuries
- 39 DTaP (pertussis component) vaccine injuries
- 24 Hepatitis A vaccine injuries
- 24 HPV vaccine injuries
- 23 Varicella vaccine injuries
- 17 Meningococcal vaccine injuries
- 8 Hib vaccine injuries
- 6 Rotavirus vaccine injuries
- 5 Pneumococcal vaccine injuries
- 4 Polio vaccine injuries
The government’s failure to update the Table constitutes an ongoing violation of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. Congress created the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program to provide “fair, expedited compensation” to individuals injured by vaccines recommended for routine use in children and pregnant women.
The program requires HHS to maintain a Vaccine Injury Table listing injuries “associated with” covered vaccines so that injured individuals meeting the criteria could obtain compensation without having to prove causation. Congress deliberately chose the standard of “associated with,” rather than “caused by,” recognizing that scientific certainty often develops only after scientific inquiry, which nobody has an interest in doing when it comes to vaccine safety.
Federal health authorities have long acknowledged the above 300 vaccine-injury associations. For example, Institute of Medicine or federal government reports from 2012 and 2021 reviewed 158 injuries identified by HHS agencies as being “associated” with certain vaccines. In addition, vaccine manufacturers track and identify injuries that are associated with their vaccines. These injuries are reviewed by FDA and then added to the vaccine package inserts. Yet almost none of them are on the Table.
ICAN’s petition therefore asks the Secretary to refer the matter to the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines, initiate notice-and-comment rulemaking, and amend the Table to include these acknowledged associated injuries.
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