Foreign Governments Weigh Compensating COVID Vaccine Injury Claims, While U.S. Protects Big Pharma

In an effort to get COVID vaccines approved in record time and using the “gravest health crisis in history” as a justification, governments indemnified pharmaceutical companies from liability for their experimental vaccines — leaving thousands of people with little recourse for their vaccine-related injuries.

Some countries are finally addressing a growing list of vaccine injury claims, while the U.S. continues to pretend vaccine-injured people do not exist.

The Norwegian System of Patient Injury Compensation Program in Norway (NPE) has agreed to pay out 25 COVID vaccine injury claims as of February. Only three claims stemmed from deaths associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine, with more than 300 claims still being considered.

“The vaccines are new,” said Rolf Gunnar Jørstad, director of NPE. A payout is appropriate if researchers established a link between the adverse event and the vaccine, he added, and “there is no other probable cause or causes to the injury.”

In the UK, more than 720 claims requesting compensation for COVID vaccine injuries have been submitted to the National Health Service, which utilizes a “one-size-fits-all cash payment” of £120,000 or about $163,000. The UK government projects 1,500 to 1,800 new claims this year.

Gareth Eve, the husband of Lisa Shaw, a 44-year-old BBC radio broadcaster who died after her first dose of AstraZeneca from vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT), submitted a claim on behalf of his wife.

VITT is a supposedly rare, and sometimes fatal, blood-clotting condition triggered by COVID vaccines.

“Ultimately these people were just trying to do the right thing,” said Eve.

In the U.S., health officials have only acknowledged nine deaths of 23,990 deaths following COVID vaccines reported to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). VAERS is the primary government-funded system for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S.

All nine deaths occurred in individuals who experienced VITT after receiving the Johnson & Johnson shot.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday released new data showing a total of 1,119,063 reports of adverse events following COVID vaccines were submitted to VAERS between Dec. 14, 2020, and Feb. 11, 2022.

The data included a total of 23,990 reports of deaths and 192,517 reports of serious injuries, including deaths, during the same time period. Historically, VAERS has been shown to report only 1% of actual vaccine adverse events.

U.S. shielded pharmaceutical companies from liability for vaccine injuries

There are only two programs in the U.S. that help people with vaccine reactions, but only one of them accepts claims related to COVID vaccines — the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) — and it almost never awards money.

The program has received more than 3,320 COVID vaccine injury claims as of Feb. 1, yet only one claim — for an anaphylactic reaction — has qualified for payment, which has yet to be paid out.

The agency’s website outlines the parameters of the program, which is authorized by the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (or PREP) Act. The PREP Act went into effect Feb. 4, 2020, and declared COVID-19 to be a public health emergency.

A PREP Act declaration is designed specifically to give pharmaceutical companies immunity from liability, which is why people who are injured by COVID vaccines can’t seek redress in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

The CICP provides compensation for medical expenses, lost employment income and survivor death benefits as “the payer of last resort,” covering only what remains unpaid or unpayable by other third parties such as health insurance. The statute of limitations for the CICP is one year from the time of injury and the claimant is responsible for their own attorney fees.

There is no transparency, no court, no judge and no right to appeal in the CICP. Decisions about compensation are made in a black hole by a nameless administrator.

Since the inception of the CICP in 2010, 7033 claims have been filed and only 29 have been compensated.

In other words, there are no resources for those who suffer adverse reactions to COVID vaccines. Many are left with lifelong, debilitating health conditions and astronomical medical bills as they fight their way through uncharted territory few are researching — as finding a solution for the problem would require acknowledging the cause.