ALERT! Was your child injured by vaccines? Tell Congress by Nov. 27!

[Soroush Ebrahimi]

Dear Colleague

Pls forward to those who may need it.

Rgds

Soroush
From: Autism File [mailto:rshreffler=autismfile.com@mail175.atl21.rsgsv.net] On Behalf Of Autism File
Sent: 19 November 2013 14:51
To: finrod@finrod.co.uk
Subject: ALERT! Was your child injured by vaccines? Tell Congress by Nov. 27!
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The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program:
A Stacked Deck



Help level the playing field by telling Congress your story!

By The SafeMinds Team

Congress established the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) in 1986 to create a standardized national immunization program that indemnifies the medical/pharmaceutical industry from lawsuits, compensates those injured, and promotes safer vaccines. VICP was seen as beneficial to increasing public trust in vaccines and honoring the social compact, much like our society looks after veterans because they fought to defend the collective good. Congress made it fundamentally clear that compensation must be no-fault, swift, generous and awarded in a non-adversarial manner.

However, HHS has turned a basic administrative compensation process into a “highly adversarial, lengthy, expensive, traumatic and unfair imitation of a court trial for vaccine victims and their attorneys,” charges Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center, who was instrumental in drafting the original law. She is not alone. Even the program’s former Chief Special Master, Gary Golkiewicz, said the government, “altered the game so that it’s clearly in their favor. (The government) has a vested interest in vaccines being good. It doesn’t take a mental giant to see the fundamental unfairness in this.”

A hopelessly broken system
The legal deck is stacked against petitioners from the start. Attorneys for HHS work for the Justice Department and have at their disposal all the money, power and access to experts that our Government can command. Special Masters who hear cases serve the Court of Federal Claims for four-year terms. Meanwhile, petitioners are denied access to government data that would be provided under normal discovery rules in civil court. This must stop. And though the VICP is required to cover “reasonable attorney’s fees and costs,” delayed and below-market reimbursements deter many of the most experienced lawyers and medical experts from participating. VICP must increase fees for petitioners’ attorneys and speed up payments.

Tell your story to Congress
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is holding hearings next month on this dysfunctional program. The Canary Party provides two ways to tell Congress your story: a brief questionnaire, or written testimony. “Tell Congress what happened to you or your loved one,” a party statement reads. “In your words, describe the effects of vaccine injury on your family."

If you did go through VICP, tell us your experience. If you didn't, why not? The deadline is November 27 and your words will be submitted to the Committee for entrance into the official record.

To submit your child's story, click here .
See the upcoming issue of Autism File magazine for more from SafeMinds on VICP and what needs to be fixed, available December 4.

Click here for the David Kirby article on acrodynia and autism in the current Autism File.

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