Talk:National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program

Offit citation
This change by the IP address 69.244.89.196 did two things. First, it watered down the language used by the source: the source says "most extreme" of the cases, but the watered-down language says merely says "extreme". Second, it undercuts the claim by identifying its source as an inventor of a vaccine. This kind of poisoning the well should be resisted in this article: it would be like (to take the other side for a bit) adding remarks in the text next to the claims that autism is caused by vaccines, reminding readers that these claims are supported by lawyers who stand to benefit financially if the claims are upheld.

For this particular bit of information, we have a reliable source saying that this case was the most extreme, and we have no reliable sources disputing this. No reason has been supplied to preface this particular expert opinion by identifying the opinion-holder in the text. That being said, it is reasonable to wikilink to Paul Offit in the citation, so that readers curious about the citation can easily find out more about the author. I made this further change to do that, along with fixing the other problems mentioned above.

The previous change by the same IP address similarly attempted to water down the "most extreme" wording, with the comment "Cite to cases, not secondary sources." But Wikipedia is a general-purpose encyclopedia, not a law review; this article is about a topic that is of interest not only to the legal world, but also to the medical and scientific world. It should cite reliable sources from both worlds, not just from the legal world. In the medical/scientific arena, reliable secondary sources are generally preferred to reliable primary sources; see WP:MEDRS.

Eubulides (talk) 18:34, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Worse and worse
This further change by the same IP address IP address 68.163.72.2, which was logged "Offitt is a political figure that is generally opposes the Ct", makes matters even worse. It creates a new section header Substantive Law which is not about all of substantive law (for example, it is not about the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act or about the Homeland Security Act); it is merely about previous rulings, which is a subset of substantive law. It creates a new subhead "Criticism" for a paragraph that describes several previous cases in an accurate way, thus attempting to poison the well. It is clear that the holder of the IP address opposes Paul Offit's viewpoints, but it is an enormous stretch to call him a "political figure". He is a well-respected researcher whose expert opinions are often-cited and who represents mainstream scientific and medical opinion. Offit's opinions obviously are on one side of this dispute, and should be balanced by opinions on the other side; but they should not be dispargaged by being put into a Criticism ghetto. On the contrary, as per WP:NPOV, since they represent the mainstream viewpoint they should be given prominence. Eubulides (talk) 00:05, 2 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Poison the well? That is exactly what vaccines are intended to do, insofar as well children are deliberately subjected to dozens of 'attenuated' pathogens and inert neurotoxins (ethylmercury, formaldehyde, aluminium, etc.) in the name of the greater good.  Vaccine overloads simulating current vax schedules have finally been tested on primates, and surprise, surprise, a slew of severe neurological injuries and behavioral problems (notably heightened aggression) clearly and irrefutably ensued.  As for Offit, he has evidently been reprimanded by no less a political entity than the US Congress, due to his political machinations on behalf of vax producers.  So it is misrepresentative to infer that Offit is something short of being a political figure, since he is widely seen as perhaps the most ardent lobbyist and quote machine for vaccine propagandists.  His claim that children with already compromised immune systems are most in need of vaccines is purely ludicrous, and hardly worthy of someone who might be considered 'well respected'.  Ombudsman (talk) 05:58, 2 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Offit was not "reprimanded". He voted on a vaccine made by Wyeth-Lederle under the assumption that this was not a conflict, as he had no financial ties to Wyeth-Lederle. He was correct under the rules in place at the time (as were several other voters, who used the same rules). The House committee staff report cited by the Age of Autism post you cite did suggest changing the conflict rules, so that if someone had financial ties to any vaccine maker, they would have a conflict on voting about any vaccine made by any other maker. That is a suggestion to make the conflict rules stricter; it is not a "reprimand" of Offit or of any of the other voters. The report did not at all suggest that Offit's decisions were made corruptly. Offit is certainly an outspoken figure who takes the mainstream view about vaccination benefits and safety, but that does not mean he is a "political figure" or that his work should be disparaged or diminished in Wikipedia. On the contrary, as per the usual Wikipedia policies, mainstream opinion should be emphasized compared to non-mainstream.
 * You are defending changes made by the IP addresses 69.244.89.196 and 68.163.72.2. Was either IP address really you (e.g., you merely forgot to log in), or related to you?
 * For more about this edit please see below.
 * Eubulides (talk) 06:40, 2 June 2008 (UTC)


 * On another note, this talk page is not a platform to expound on one's personal views. It's even less a forum to disparage a living individual. Further problems in this direction may result in a block or in sanctions under the terms of Ombudsman's ArbCom remedy. MastCell Talk 18:16, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Sugarman citation
This change added text that is not supported by the cited source (Sugarman 2008, ). Sugarman does not mention any "vaccine injuries"; it talks only about a "scare". Sugarman does not say that the claims were "refuted" by "vaccine proponents and producers"; it says that the claims were "generally discredited" (which is not the same thing as being "refuted") and does not say who did the discrediting. Sugarman does not say "a less dangerous version" of the DTP vaccine "was subsequently introduced".

I made this change to fix these problems and to fix the problems noted above in.

Banks Autism claim
I excised this entire paragraph due to lack of a reference:

"On February 18th, 2009, the parents of 10-year-old Bailey Banks were awarded a lump sum of more than $810,000 (plus an estimated $30-40,000 per year for services and care) in compensation by the Court, which ruled that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine had caused acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) and resulting Pervasive Developmental Delay. Special Master Richard Abell ruled that the plaintiff had successfully demonstrated that "the MMR vaccine at issue actually caused the conditions from which Bailey suffered and continues to suffer". (end of cut)

Now I came to this page looking for some evidence to support this statement, and only found this unverified claim. Currently there is an ad campaign being run in the USA which cites this case as "proof that vaccines cause autism".

What I have not yet been able to find is independent evidence supporting this claim. I found this seemingly biased (but biased in the other direction) article which alleges that the quote saying "MMR caused the autism" is being completely misrepresented. I don't wish to be guilty of bias in either direction, so I'm not going to cite something which seems to have an agenda.

Bottom line: if there is a clear and impartial source for the statement above please reinsert and correctly reference it. It's a court hearing so it seems likely that the entire hearing transcript is available somewhere (although I have not been able to find it). Manning (talk) 02:38, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Debate About Constitutionality Of This Court
There needs to be a section detailing how this system of federal court is illegal under the constitution as it violates the 7th amendment rights of litigants. The Seventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads:"In suits at Common Law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law."

Legal Dictionary expands:"The Seventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to a jury trial in most civil suits that are heard in federal court. ...Lawsuits that seek money damages, conversely, are traditionally treated as legal claims. - that is to say, 7th amendment protections apply." --Michael.suede (talk) 12:02, 10 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Do you have any reliable sources on this? A law-review article would be nice. Eubulides (talk) 16:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

There is no constitutional right to a jury trial in a legislatively created non-Article III court. The vaccine court is an Article I court, which is why the judges/special masters don't have life term appointments and there is no jury trial. I've just completed a book on the Vaccine Court that's coming out from NYU Press in November, and I can try to find another source for this in the meantime. Anna Kirkland (talk) 17:28, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

There has since been further independent ongoing investigations into this court, the pharmaceutical companies and local, national, and international governments involvement, as well as their affiliates, which is contrary to what is purported by Ms. Anna Kirkland in her book.

A sample of the overall investigations, though it must be noted that the following examples are not conclusive, can be found via the following books for further research and reference:- Emily.Greene.1980 (talk) 16:30, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) "The Vaccine Court: The Dark Truth of America's Vaccine Injury Compensation Program" by Wayne Rohde;
 * 2) "Vaccine Epidemic: How Corporate Greed, Biased Science, and Coercive Government Threaten Our Human Rights, Our Health, and Our Children" by Louise Kuo Habakus,‎ Mary Holland,‎ and Kim Mack Rosenberg; and
 * 3) "Vaccine Whistleblower: Exposing Autism Research Fraud at the CDC" by Esq. Kevin Barry,‎ Dr. Boyd E. Haley,‎ Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

thiomersal bypass
Reading the section "The 5th circuit court reached its conclusion by first looking to the statutory intent of the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, and determining that the intent of the statute was to protect the financial stability of vaccine manufacturers. In this case, thiomersal was held to be not a vaccine, but merely a preservative; and, as such, its manufacturers could not use the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act as a defense." I cannot find anywhere that the 5th court said was the statute was to protect the manufacturers financial stability I used this as source: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/data2/circs/5th/0260995cv0p.pdf Can anyone clarify this? Regards Spicey tofu (talk) 14:51, 15 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Since we know of no source for the claim (or for its notability) I that passage to reflect what I found in a reliable news account of the story, and cited that account. Eubulides (talk) 18:09, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Vaccine court. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20150707005552/http://phys.org/news/2008-03-analysis-vaccine-autism-link-unproven.html to http://phys.org/news/2008-03-analysis-vaccine-autism-link-unproven.html

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Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 14:02, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Nearly
I removed "nearly" from the sentence, "...the medical and scientific communities nearly unanimously deny...". If you want to put the "nearly" back into the sentence, then it is incumbent on you to provide a peer-reviewed, publication, in a reliable medical, or scientific, journal linking MMR to autism as a reference, that has not been later retracted, nor come into serious question since publication. Nick Beeson (talk) 18:15, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Yup, the only "scientists" that think that vaccines are linked to autism are not really scientists, and it's published in predatory, extremely low impact factor, junk journals. There is absolutely not one piece of real scientific evidence that describes any causal link anywhere between vaccines and autism. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 19:21, 30 March 2017 (UTC)