4 ms·

You're speaking really about the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund. If someone is harmed by a vaccine the maker is immune from suit, but they can apply

You're speaking really about the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund. If someone is harmed by a vaccine the maker is immune from suit, but they can apply to the NVIC, which has paid out to some. However the difference is that the NVIC uses tax dollars to pay those claims. The drug companies themselves are immune. In business terms it's a win, but not very much for the public.

gjsman-1000 4y ago
Right. I'm not trying to make an anti-vaccine point or anything like that here. I'm simply saying that 29 payouts in a decade, even with ridiculously low odds of injury, is still way, way, way too low and it lacks justice. Showing it really isn't about patients - if you get hurt, you'll never be compensated, too bad. Just like Theranos. You got hurt - too bad.
- shagmin 4y ago
  This seems like apples and oranges to me. Theranos was lying about having a working product and I don't think there were many patients actually hurt, since they still used other products that were already available to have the appearance of something working, but I digress. In the case of vaccines, there is a product that thousands or millions of people take, and some small minority of people have some anomalous reactions. If you are one person that has a serious reaction to a vaccine that millions of people have had just fine, should you be compensated? I can see if it affected a large percentage of people, but where to draw that line I don't know, but then it shouldn't have made it past enough red tape with the FDA to be so widely available.
dahdum 4y ago
I believe it’s a win for the public, government mandates many of these vaccines and while they have extremely low risk, it’s still non-zero. The last thing we need is a bunch of spurious lawsuits finding sympathetic and uninformed jurors driving up the costs for everyone and scaring the public into refusing them. In the US we have plenty of that already.
vkou 4y ago
> In business terms it's a win, but not very much for the public. It's a win for the public, because the public cost in medical bills, insurance claims, medicare, suffering, and death from vaccine hesitancy far outweighs the cost of highly infrequent payouts.

gjsman-1000 4y ago

Right. I'm not trying to make an anti-vaccine point or anything like that here. I'm simply saying that 29 payouts in a decade, even with ridiculously low odds of injury, is still way, way, way too low and it lacks justice. Showing it really isn't about patients - if you get hurt, you'll never be compensated, too bad. Just like Theranos. You got hurt - too bad.

shagmin 4y ago
This seems like apples and oranges to me. Theranos was lying about having a working product and I don't think there were many patients actually hurt, since they still used other products that were already available to have the appearance of something working, but I digress. In the case of vaccines, there is a product that thousands or millions of people take, and some small minority of people have some anomalous reactions. If you are one person that has a serious reaction to a vaccine that millions of people have had just fine, should you be compensated? I can see if it affected a large percentage of people, but where to draw that line I don't know, but then it shouldn't have made it past enough red tape with the FDA to be so widely available.

dahdum 4y ago

I believe it’s a win for the public, government mandates many of these vaccines and while they have extremely low risk, it’s still non-zero. The last thing we need is a bunch of spurious lawsuits finding sympathetic and uninformed jurors driving up the costs for everyone and scaring the public into refusing them. In the US we have plenty of that already.

vkou 4y ago

> In business terms it's a win, but not very much for the public. It's a win for the public, because the public cost in medical bills, insurance claims, medicare, suffering, and death from vaccine hesitancy far outweighs the cost of highly infrequent payouts.