Crony-Capitalism: Vaccine Edition
Jeffrey I. Barke, M.D.
In 1986, the United States Congress authorized the national Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) to respond to adverse reactions to vaccinations. The program was designed as a no-fault alternative to settling disputes in place of a traditional tort process.
The program was part of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. The VICP was established after lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers threatened to clog the pipeline for new vaccines as well as reduce vaccination rates against traditional childhood diseases. The vaccine companies may have had good intentions in supporting this program, but they were wrong on many levels.
Imagine a business model where the government mandates that customers must use a service or product, but then exempts the producing company from any liability connected to those services or products.
Doesn’t this sound like a license for companies to make money under an umbrella of government protection? To me, it is a classic form of crony-capitalism. Yet this is exactly the model used by vaccine manufacturers today: mandatory sales to captive customers and no liability if anything goes wrong. Look at just one of the consequences of this policy: No child can attend a public or private school in California without being fully vaccinated; no religious or personal exemptions are accepted. Period. Can you spell a-u-t-h-o-r-i-t-a-r-i-a-n?
And about the money involved, note this: In 1986 the vaccine schedule recommended 12 shots for each kid. This produced 25 antigens against 8 diseases. By 2019, the State of California was mandating 54 shots with 70 antigens against 16 diseases! Did anyone ask what are the long-term effects of pumping all these chemicals into kids to prevent diseases they may never have? Not likely, since none of the decision makers will be around in 2085 when the kids of today may be doing battle with the possible effects of these shots as their age advances.
But do you smell extra profit in the expanded program? I bet you got a whiff of what well-financed lobbyists can engineer for their big pharma clients in the corridors of any legislature. Think democracy is working just as the Founding Fathers intended? Certainly not, but surely protecting against 16 diseases is enough to protect any child against childhood ills? Wrong again. Expect to see disease number 17 added before you can say Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson — COVID-19 is sure to be added as No. 17.
Just imagine if we offered the same level of liability immunity in other industries: Remember when the Ford Pinto cars exploded after rear-end collisions? The lawsuits resulted in millions of dollars in damages once it was discovered that a fuel tank flaw was at fault. There are numerous other memorable tort cases: Dow Chemical and Silicone breast implants; Owens Corning asbestos material; and, of course, there is Phillip Morris and cigarettes that have led to severe warnings on all tobacco products.
Should physicians and lawyers be immune from liability? Although it would certainly make my life easier as a family physician, I personally would never vote or advocate such a policy.
But we are now mandating a medical procedure that injects synthetic elements into the human body and at the same time exempting the manufacturers of this concoction from all liability for any consequences suffered from it. As of October 2019, $4.2 billion in compensation (not including attorneys fees and related costs) have been awarded under the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Most significantly, unlike other personal injury cases, these large monetary awards never result in mandated changes to the vaccines or the policies governing them.
My point here is not to argue whether or not any particular vaccine is safe or effective. Rather, it is to bring to light what I consider to be a serious flaw in our medical system. Nothing motivates the effort to achieve a goal more than knowing the consequences of failure. That which gets rewarded gets repeated.
As injuries reported in the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) climb and compensation from the VICP system rises, we continue to repeat the process over-and-over again. Why? Because there are no consequences for flaws in the end product; the products and their distribution process remain unchanged — mandated by the government and immune from liability.
So what is the solution?
I would recommend that we eliminate the blanket immunity from liability for vaccine manufacturers and remove all vaccine mandates for school attendance. Instead, we should use a system not unlike the one for medical malpractice insurance in California known as MICRA (Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act). MICRA provides a pain and suffering reward cap with a mechanism for exceptions to these caps. It has worked in reasonable fairness for those who have been injured since 1975.
In addition, if vaccines are as safe and as effective as advertised by the manufacturers and endorsed by the federal government’s review agencies, then let’s educate the public and parents to these facts, not just mandate the use of these vaccines. Where in the Constitution is it written that the government can dictate any medical procedure or treatment? The point is that crony-capitalism removes free and informed choice and has to be banned?