Database Designed To Compensate People Injured By Vaccines Shows Negative Reactions Are Extraordinarily Rare
Fear over vaccine safety has been in large part driving the measles outbreak that's been the country's worst in decades -- but a look at federal numbers reveals that only a very tiny percentage of people who get vaccines file an injury claim. Over the past three decades, when billions of doses of vaccines have been given to hundreds of millions of Americans, the program compensated about 6,600 people for harm they said was caused by a vaccination. About 70 percent of the awards were settlements in cases in which program officials did not find sufficient evidence that vaccines were at fault.
The New York Times:
Vaccine Injury Claims Are Few And Far Between
At a time when the failure to immunize children is driving the biggest measles outbreak in decades, a little-known database offers one way to gauge the safety of vaccines. Over roughly the past dozen years in the United States, people have received about 126 million doses of vaccines against measles, a disease that once infected millions of American children and killed 400 to 500 people each year. During that period, 284 people filed claims of harm from those immunizations through a federal program created to compensate people injured by vaccines. Of those claims, about half were dismissed, while 143 were compensated. (Belluck and Abelson, 6/18)
The New York Times:
By The Numbers: Vaccines Are Safe
Vaccines have saved hundreds of thousands of American lives in recent years. According to estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, vaccines have prevented more than 21 million hospitalizations and 732,000 deaths among children in a 20-year period. (Belluck and Abelson, 6/18)
And in other news on vaccinations —
PBS NewsHour:
Why Some People Don’t Respond To Childhood Vaccines—And How Our DNA Could Fix It
By scanning the DNA of 3,600 children from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, the team narrowed down the genetic profiles that help establish long-lasting immunity after vaccinations for two major bacterial diseases: tetanus and meningitis-causing MenC. In the future, they can use those profiles to tailor vaccines to an individual’s needs — reducing potential side-effects and predicting in advance how many doses a person might need before they take a shot. (Akpan, 6/17)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Calif. Doctor Ordered To Turn Over Records Of Kids He Exempted From Vaccinations
A state appeals court says a Bay Area physician under investigation by the Medical Board of California must turn over medical records of three youngsters he has exempted from vaccinations, an issue now being heatedly debated in Sacramento. Dr. Ron Kennedy of Santa Rosa works at an “anti-aging” medical clinic and is not the primary-care physician for two of the children he exempted, according to court documents. (Egelko, 6/17)
