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proverbialwisdom

(4,959 posts)
Tue Dec 30, 2014, 10:17 PM Dec 2014

ASSOCIATED PRESS (AP IMPACT): 'Vaccine court' keeps claimants waiting

Last edited Tue Dec 30, 2014, 11:23 PM - Edit history (2)

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/637dbaa7b993454981320907b0972cf6/ap-impact-vaccine-court-keeps-claimants-waiting

AP IMPACT: 'Vaccine court' keeps claimants waiting (Part 1)

By MITCH WEISS, JUSTIN PRITCHARD and TROY THIBODEAUX
Nov. 17, 2014 1:37 PM EST


WASHINGTON (AP) — A system Congress established to speed help to Americans harmed by vaccines has instead heaped additional suffering on thousands of families, The Associated Press has found.

The premise was simple: quickly and generously pay for medical care in the rare cases when a shot to prevent a sickness such as flu or measles instead is the likely cause of serious health complications. But the system is not working as intended.

The AP read hundreds of decisions, conducted more than 100 interviews, and analyzed a database of more than 14,500 cases filed in a special vaccine court. That database was current as of January 2013; the government has refused to release an updated version since.

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Caught in the middle are families that need help.

"The system is not working," said Richard Topping, a former U.S. Department of Justice attorney who defended the government against vaccine injury claims but resigned after concluding his bosses had no desire to fix the major flaws he saw. "People who need help aren't getting it."

___

Associated Press Writer Serdar Tumgoren contributed to this report

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/af3ac36a464440858a743ac5c4929bec/ap-impact-vaccine-court-keeps-claimants-waiting

AP IMPACT: 'Vaccine court' keeps claimants waiting (Part 2)

By MITCH WEISS, JUSTIN PRITCHARD and TROY THIBODEAUX
Nov. 18, 2014 12:01 AM EST


WASHINGTON (AP) — All but broken by her son's violent and unexplained seizures, by so many panicked trips from the crib to the emergency room, Jeffrey McCord's mom thought her desperate search for both answers and help was finally over.

A respected neurologist had drawn a connection that a dozen other doctors missed: Jeffrey's convulsions began days after a routine vaccination, the kind given safely to millions of American children.

While Jeffrey's injuries were devastating, his parents were told they might not have to bear the costs alone. The doctor explained that Jeffrey could apply for lifelong care paid for by the federal government. The program's premise is simple: quickly and generously support people in the rare cases when a shot to prevent a sickness such as flu or measles instead is the likely cause of serious health complications.

But 11 years would pass before the McCord family would receive its first check.

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Associated Press Writer Serdar Tumgoren contributed to this report.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/3c4086243dab4322981817ded92cc346/feds-vows-publicize-vaccine-injury-help-program

Feds vows to publicize vaccine injury help program

By JUSTIN PRITCHARD and MITCH WEISS
Nov. 21, 2014 6:36 PM EST


Leaders of the nation's system for helping people hurt by a routine vaccination have vowed to better publicize the little-known program, while the judge who oversees the special vaccine court that handles injury claims worries that if more are filed, they will take even longer to handle than they already do.

The comments were made to government investigators, who released a report Friday about the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program several days after an Associated Press story detailed the program's problems.

Congress created the program to quickly and generously pay for medical care in the rare cases when a shot to prevent one sickness likely caused serious health complications instead. The AP found that the program has heaped additional suffering on thousands of families, including delays that have stretched a decade or more.

The Government Accountability Office's report noted how a program established a generation ago to help children injured by government-recommended vaccinations such as measles and chicken pox is now dominated by claims filed by adults who received a flu shot. Those cases typically claim that the adult suffered from Guillain-Barre Syndrome, in which the immune system attacks the nerves.

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Few suggestions have been implemented to date from a comprehensive publicity plan the program paid $300,000 for several years ago. Less than $20,000 of the program's $6.5 million annual budget is dedicated to public outreach.

One concern about publicizing the program is that the public might interpret a message that vaccines can cause harm, even if rarely, as a reason not to get vaccinated.

The GAO investigator who oversaw the report said program doctors began taking action on publicity only after the watchdog organization's inquiry began.

"They continue to express the concern that they don't want to do things that suppress vaccination rates. I understand that concern and it's a legitimate one, but nevertheless it's important that people who are receiving vaccinations are aware that this program exists," said GAO investigator Marcia Crosse.

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Pritchard reported from Los Angeles, Weiss from Greenville, South Carolina




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ASSOCIATED PRESS (AP IMPACT): 'Vaccine court' keeps claimants waiting (Original Post) proverbialwisdom Dec 2014 OP
Informed critique of Associated Press articles and more. proverbialwisdom Dec 2014 #1
Somewhere in the middle there is the truth... Chakaconcarne Dec 2014 #2
NYT: Court Heaps Grief on Vaccine Victims, Makes Them Wait Years proverbialwisdom Jan 2015 #3

proverbialwisdom

(4,959 posts)
1. Informed critique of Associated Press articles and more.
Tue Dec 30, 2014, 10:31 PM
Dec 2014

Last edited Tue Dec 30, 2014, 11:10 PM - Edit history (1)

http://www.ageofautism.com/2014/12/autism-by-any-other-name-and-the-national-vaccine-injury-compensation-program.html

Autism by Any Other Name and the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program
By Louis Conte and Wayne Rohde


[center][/center]

This article is the 3rd installment in a series investigating the NVICP:

The Obscure Federal Court: National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program
Manifest Injustice – the End Result of Scientific Fraud

The Associated Press recently released a series of articles about the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP) that focused on the delays in case processing, petitioner’s difficulties in proving claims and concerns that attorneys “churn cases” to increase billing. On 12/22/14 the New York Times ran one of the articles where the authors, Justin Pritchard, Mitch Weiss and Troy Thibodeaux, touched on the curious reasoning in decisions involving autism in children who also suffered encephalopathy, or brain injury. The authors accepted the NVICP narrative that a vaccine injury might cause severe brain damage but never autism.

Despite the use of verbal camouflage regarding autism in the NVICP, there are times when the truth leaks out. The following is from the case record of the US Government’s concession that vaccines triggered autism in the case of Child Doe 77 (aka: Hannah P.):

“Medical personnel at the Division of Vaccine Injury Compensation, Department of Health and Human Services (DVIC) have reviewed the facts of this case, as presented by the petition, medical records, and affidavits. After a thorough review, DVIC has concluded that compensation is appropriate in this case.

In sum, DVIC has concluded that the facts of this case meet the statutory criteria for demonstrating that the vaccinations CHILD received on July 19, 2000, significantly aggravated an underlying mitochondrial disorder, which predisposed her to deficits in cellular energy metabolism, and manifested as a regressive encephalopathy with features of autism spectrum disorder. Therefore, respondent recommends that compensation be awarded to petitioners in accordance with 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-11(c) (1) (C) (ii).”

That doesn’t mean that a government official can’t deny it anyway.

“Let me be very clear that the government has made absolutely no statement indicating that vaccines are a cause of autism,” Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Thursday.” (1)

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Louis Conte was a co-author of Unanswered Questions from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program: A Review of Compensated Cases of Vaccine-Induced Brain Injury, author of a novel, The Autism War and, along with Tony Lyons, author of Vaccine Injuries: Documented Adverse Reactions to Vaccines.

Wayne Rohde is the author of The Vaccine Court: The Dark Truth of America's Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

1. Associated Press journalists Weiss, Pritchard and Thibodeaux miss the point of National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program
2. GAO Report on NVICP – The Lack of Public Awareness

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Posted by Age of Autism at December 30, 2014

AMAZON About the Author
Louis Conte is a law enforcement officer and independent investigator with the Westchester County Department of Probation. As a leading advocate for people with autism, he has championed their cause across the country. He was the lead investigator for and coauthor of a seminal paper on the autism-vaccine controversy, “Unanswered Questions from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program” in the Pace Environmental Law Review, which found that the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program compensated many children with autism for vaccine-induced brain damage while declaring no link between vaccines and autism. Conte lives in Pleasantville, New York, with his wife, Andrea, and their three sons, Thomas, Sam, and Louie.

AMAZON About the Author
Wayne Rohde is the father of Nick Rohde, a vaccine-injured child who regressed into severe autism after receiving his first set of childhood vaccinations. He lives in Woodbury, Minnesota, and is the author of The Vaccine Court: The Dark Truth of America's Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

BTW, http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/blog/2010/07/20/does-an-author-choose-his-title/

Chakaconcarne

(2,387 posts)
2. Somewhere in the middle there is the truth...
Wed Dec 31, 2014, 02:46 PM
Dec 2014

Perhaps we should not always be so critical of those that have a problem with vaccines. Some of these people have real life experiences with the side effects of these meds... is that not real or valid? Or should we only go by what the manufacturer sponsored studies tell us?

proverbialwisdom

(4,959 posts)
3. NYT: Court Heaps Grief on Vaccine Victims, Makes Them Wait Years
Tue Jan 6, 2015, 05:08 PM
Jan 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2014/12/22/us/politics/ap-us-vaccine-court.html

Court Heaps Grief on Vaccine Victims, Makes Them Wait Years
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

DEC. 22, 2014, 3:05 P.M. E.S.T.


Long version: ~2628 words (http://www.wordcounter.net)
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