Autism Symptoms Could Be Added to U.S. Vaccine Injury Program

By Amber Baker

On July 28, 2025, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said he planned to overhaul the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP. In September, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) announced it may add certain symptoms of autism to the official list of vaccine side effects eligible for compensation.¹

The VICP was established by Congress under the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) as an alternative to bringing a lawsuit against DPT, MMR and polio vaccine manufacturers to protect the childhood vaccine supply in the U.S. after manufacturers threatened to leave the country with no childhood vaccines unless they were shielded for all vaccine injury lawsuits. Although in 1986 Congress gave the vaccine companies partial liability protection for failure to warn (a legal responsibility taken over by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) through publication of Vaccine Information Statements (VIS), Congress did not give vaccine companies a liability shield for product design defect—failure to make a vaccine less reactive. In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that vaccine manufacturers should not be held liable for product design defect in the manufacture of vaccines licensed by the government.

Since it began operating in 1988, the VICP has paid more $5 billion to children and adults who received vaccine federally recommended for children and then exhibited signs and symptoms of vaccine reactions and permanent injuries listed on the VICP’s Vaccine Injury Table (VIT).

Signs and symptoms of autism following vaccination and autism as a permanent vaceine injury has never been listed on the VIT.¹

While established as a no-fault alternative to traditional lawsuits, Secretary Kennedy and others who want to reform the VICP say the program denies compensation to far too many vaccine victims and has become a highly adversarial nightmare for families, who have to wait years for a compensaton award decision because DHHS using Department of Justice attorneys contest almost every claim. Petitioners for compensation must prove causation without access to discovery, binding precedent, or manufacturers’ internal data, and nearly two out of three vaccine injury claims are rejected.  Cases that are appealed are adjudicated by special masters, who are court-appointed officials in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and review evidence, hear expert testimony, and determine whether contested compensation should be awarded.²

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Read Full Article Here…(thevaccinereaction.org)

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