For two years SARS-CoV-2 has been circulating around the world resulting in what is known as the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, many different public and private companies worked together with governmental actors and health care providers to make vaccines available to the public for Covid-19. Because of the ongoing pandemic, the Covid Vaccines were developed more quickly than the typical process. The CDC has stated the Covid Vaccines are safe and effective and that the CDC and FDA continue to monitor safety. The original authorization for the Covid Vaccines applied to three vaccines that met the FDA’s safety standards and granted the vaccines Emergency Use Authorization to include Pfizer-BioNTech (Comirnaty), Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson. The vaccines are broken down into mRNA Vaccines and viral vector Vaccines.
As the vaccines have been administered nationwide with millions of doses, there have been reports of adverse side effects. One of the tools used to monitor these side effects is the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). VAERS is a national vaccine safety surveillance program that helps to detect unusual or unexpected reporting patterns of adverse events for vaccines. Through VAERS, some people have reported serious injuries and death resulting from Covid Vaccines, Covid shots, or booster shots. Aeton’s personal injury attorneys are currently investigating several claims of injury from vaccines including from viral vector and mRNA vaccines.
What are some of the known side effects of Covid vaccines?
Some of the more serious side effects reported include anaphylaxis, vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia, death, myopericarditis or heart inflammation, cardiac arrest, Guillain-Barré syndrome, myocardial infarction, bell’s palsy, blood clotting, heart attack, seizure, neurologic disorders, taste disorders, and loss of speech. The question many people have is can you get compensation if you are injured from the vaccine or suffer a bad side effect? The answer is, you can potentially receive compensation from an established government fund for Covid vaccine-related side effects and injuries. It is important to note, however, VAERS is not designed to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event. Thus, a report to VAERS does not mean the vaccine caused the event and you can get compensated. The claims must first be established before compensation can be recovered.
How do I recover compensation for Covid Vaccine side effects and injuries?
The Vaccine manufacturers and government rules have made it difficult to recover for Covid vaccine side effects. Many people are surprised to learn that the recovery options are limited even for serious injury and death. One of the issues to overcome is that Covid vaccines are not covered as a Vaccine by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation program. This is the program that traditionally compensates families and individuals suffering rare side effects from vaccines. For Covid-19 vaccines, however, the National Institute of Health refers injured parties to the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) for “certain individuals or estates of individuals who sustain a serious physical injury as the direct result of the administration or use of covered countermeasures” which includes antivirals or “any vaccine manufactured, used, designed, developed, modified, licensed, or procured….to prevent, mitigate, or treat Covid 19” under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act). These countermeasures include emergency use authorization products such as the shots or vaccines offered by Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson. For more information, you can read about the policies here.
The CICP is managed through an administrative process, and there is limited to no right to appeal. There is a 1-year deadline to file a claim so you must act quickly to preserve a claim. As of October of 2021, the HHS has published that the CICP has not compensated any Covid-19 countermeasures claims. This means very few, if any, people suffering death or serious injury have yet to win a recovery. However, that may change as these cases are filed. Despite the odds, Aeton is prepared to handle these Covid vaccine cases on a full contingency basis—meaning, we advance all expenses and costs. We don’t get paid any attorney’s fee unless you get compensation from the program.
The PREP Act empowered the Department of Health and Human Services to provide broad-based immunity for manufacturers of the Covid Vaccines. If a case is not filed and pursued under the CICP, a claim may only be brought against manufacturers in the case of death or serious injury caused by “willful misconduct.”
Attorneys for Estates of Individuals Suffering Serious Side Effects and Death from the Covid Vaccine
Aeton Law Partners is currently investigating cases meeting certain criteria for novel legal issues surrounding serious side effects caused by Covid-19 Vaccines. For these Vaccine related claims, Aeton is currently evaluating only serious side effects and deaths. Aeton considers serious adverse events as medical occurrences that resulted in death, life-threatening, required inpatient hospitalization or prolongation of existing hospitalization, or resulted in persistent disability/incapacity.
For more information, contact our case coordinator at 860-724-2160. For all cases, be prepared with your Covid-19 vaccine history, the dates of the vaccination, the manufacturer, the date of onset of the side effects, and the existing documentation of the side effects and any medical treatment providers involved in the treatment of the side effects.