COVID Shot Injury Claims Rarely Being Paid by U.S. Government

A report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) showed that claims made under the Health and Human Services (HHS) Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) during the first few years of the COVID-19 pandemic have risen 27 percent since the program started receiving claims in 2009. However, only three percent of the COVID shot injury claims that have been filed were deemed eligible for compensation by government health officials.¹

There have been 13,333 injury claims filed with the CICP during the early years of the COVID pandemic and only 92 claims (2.6 percent) were eligible for compensation. Fifty-two (57 percent) of these claims eligible for compensation were the result of adverse reactions to the COVID shots while 37 (40 percent) were related to the H1N1 influenza vaccine.²

The majority of the compensated claims, about 6.5 million went to victims of the H1N1 vaccine who suffered serious complications such as Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS). In total, the 52 claimants with Covid-19 shot injuries received approximately $400,000 to help them with expenses associated with COVID shot  reactions such as myocarditis.³

CICP Was Designed to Protect Drug Companies from Liability

The CICP was established by the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act of 2005 in order to limit the liability of drug companies and encourage the development of vaccines and other medical countermeasures during a government declared public health emergency.⁴ As defined by the PREP Act passed by Congress in 2005, vaccines considered to be covered “medical countermeasures, include those biological products and drugs manufactured by companies granted an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the FDA such as COVID-19 shots, as well as the H1N1 vaccine that was designated as a medical countermeasure in 2009.^{5 6 7}

The federal CICP is considered the payor of last resort and, if a claimant receives compensation, it will only cover unreimbursed medical expenses, a limited amount for lost wages and survivor death benefits. The CICP is an administrative process whereby a claimant is not allowed an attorney, is not entitled to a hearing, and may not appeal the decision. Instead, unidentified government officials render their decisions as to whether a claimant in entitled to compensation based on the limited allowable documents submitted on the record.⁸ The decision is final and not reviewable by any court.⁹

The CICP compensation program differs from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) established under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 that applies to covered vaccines and injuries listed on a Vaccine Injury Table.¹⁰ The CICP was established in response to people injured by certain covered medical countermeasures, including vaccines, that are used during government declared public health emergencies.¹¹

Government Acknowledges CICP Needs Updating

Out of the 3,484 vaccine injury claims filed as of July 2024, 486 claimants submitted a request for reconsideration related to COVID countermeasures. 99 percent of those reconsiderations have already been denied by government health officials.¹²

HHS has blamed the slow rate of adjudicated claims on staffing shortages at the CICP, outdated equipment to process the claims and a dearth of medical and scientific evidence to decide claims the shots resulted in injuries and death.¹³

The GAO report set forth…

HRSA officials also told us the lack of medical and scientific evidence was challenging for medical reviewers to quickly determine whether there was causality between COVID-19 countermeasures and injuries and death. “Instead, reviewers carefully considered the facts on a case-by-case basis to determine eligibility for benefits, adding time to the claim adjudication process.¹⁴

HRSA is putting together a countermeasure Vaccine Injury Table, similar to the one used under the VICP, and has reached out to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine for further evidence of potential harms from covered countermeasures.¹⁵

In response to the backlog of claims filed with the CICP, Congress is contemplating a new bill that will extend the time for those injured by COVID shots to file for federal vaccine injury compensation. The bill will also allow certain claimants previously denied compensation to refile their claims.¹⁶

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