Vaccine Injury Compensation Program VICP

In the early 1980s lawsuits over the whooping cough vaccine drove several manufacturers out of the market and raised fears of shortages. Congress responded with the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, signed November 14, 1986. People who believe they were injured by a covered vaccine file a petition in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, where special masters decide cases, and must go through the program before suing a manufacturer. Manufacturers are largely protected from liability for unavoidable side effects.

The program is no-fault: petitioners do not have to prove a company did anything wrong. A Vaccine Injury Table lists certain injuries and time frames that are presumed to be caused by a vaccine, and other claims require medical evidence of causation. It is funded by an excise tax of 75 cents per disease prevented on each dose, and its trust fund holds several billion dollars. Since 1988 it has paid more than 5 billion dollars on roughly 11,000 or more claims, with most awards resulting from negotiated settlements. COVID vaccine injuries are handled by a separate, less generous program.

Critics on several sides say the program is slow, that special masters are too few, and that the table is outdated. The Health and Human Services Secretary has said he wants to overhaul it, and allies petitioned in 2026 to add hundreds of injuries to the table, with some proposals to include autism, which large studies have found is not caused by vaccines. Supporters of the program say it has kept vaccine makers in the market while compensating real injuries, and warn that expanding it without evidence could drain the trust fund and revive lawsuits.