Should You Want to Sue Vaccine Manufacturers? Why Repealing the Vaccine Injury Act Would Leave the Injured Without Compensation
If you think suing vaccine manufacturers would get you more money, you’re wrong. In reality, most vaccine lawsuits would be thrown out before they ever reach a jury.
Many people are asking: Can you sue vaccine manufacturers? Does vaccine manufacturer immunity prevent accountability? And would repealing the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act allow vaccine injury lawsuits to finally succeed?
The answer is no. Repealing the Vaccine Injury Act would not help the vaccine injured—it would ensure they never receive meaningful compensation or even a full assessment of their injuries. The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) exists because vaccine lawsuits fail under legal standards like Daubert. Without the VICP and the vaccine injury compensation fund, most vaccine injury claims would be dismissed before reaching a jury, leaving injured individuals without any viable path to recovery.
What the VSRF Actually Is—and What It Is Not
The Vaccine Safety Research Foundation (VSRF) presents itself as an accountability-driven organization focused on vaccine safety. In reality, it does not function as an advocacy group for the vaccine injured. It does not lobby Congress, propose legislation, or work within the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program to improve outcomes.
Instead, VSRF operates as a messaging platform targeting vaccine skeptics and anti-vaccine audiences. Its content reinforces distrust, amplifies perceived injustice, and drives engagement through emotionally charged narratives about vaccine manufacturer immunity and lack of liability. It does not propose workable reforms to the vaccine injury compensation fund or the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act.
Rather than advancing solutions, it generates outrage and converts that outrage into petitions, audience growth, and financial contributions. That is not advocacy for the vaccine injured—it is narrative-driven fundraising.
The Truth About Vaccine Manufacturer Immunity
The claim that vaccine manufacturers are not accountable is one of the most persistent myths in the vaccine debate. In reality, manufacturers fund the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program through an excise tax on every dose administered.
This funding mechanism has created a multi-billion-dollar vaccine injury compensation fund that pays claims to individuals who prove that a vaccine caused their injury. The system ensures that compensation is available without requiring proof of fault, defect, or negligence.
In other words, vaccine manufacturer immunity does not eliminate accountability—it changes how accountability is delivered. Instead of unpredictable jury verdicts, compensation is provided through a structured system that guarantees payment when causation is established.
The real question is not whether manufacturers are accountable. It is whether civil litigation would do a better job.
Why Vaccine Lawsuits Fail Under Daubert
Civil litigation is not an alternative path to compensation. It is, in most cases, a dead end.
Under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., courts require expert testimony to meet strict standards of scientific reliability before it can be presented to a jury. This is known as the Daubert standard, and it is the single biggest barrier to any vaccine lawsuit.
To survive a Daubert challenge, a plaintiff must show that the vaccine increased the risk of harm for the specific injury alleged. The only reliable way to prove that is through epidemiological evidence demonstrating a statistically significant association between the vaccine and injury and vaccines are clinically tested, followed for adverse events and have a positive effect on the human body usually. That’s not to say there are not risks associated with them or that injuries cannot happen from their administration - they can absolutely. But, they are rare and rare adverse events almost never prevail in the civil courts.
That evidence does not exist for most vaccine injuries.
Vaccine injuries are rare. The population sizes required to produce statistically meaningful epidemiology studies are often too small to generate reliable data. Without epidemiological support, expert opinions are routinely excluded under Daubert.
Once the expert is excluded, the case is dismissed. There is no jury. There is no trial. There is no compensation.
This is why the idea of suing vaccine manufacturers for damages is largely theoretical. A vaccine lawsuit cannot succeed if it cannot survive the admissibility stage. The presence of “deep pockets” does not matter if the case never reaches a jury.
Why the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Exists
The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act was enacted because civil litigation failed to compensate vaccine injuries. Congress recognized that traditional tort law imposed evidentiary burdens that could not be met in cases involving rare adverse events.
The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program solves that problem by lowering the burden of proof. Petitioners do not need to show defect, negligence, or increased risk. They only need to establish causation.
Equally important, the VICP does not require epidemiological studies to prove vaccine injury claims. Instead, it allows claims to proceed based on medical records, treating physician opinions, and scientifically plausible mechanisms.
This is why the VICP remains the only viable system for vaccine injury compensation. It is designed to succeed where civil litigation fails.
The Illusion of Vaccine Lawsuits and Jury Trials
Advocates for repealing vaccine manufacturer immunity often argue that individuals deserve their day in court. But a jury trial is only meaningful if a case can reach a jury.
Under the Daubert standard, most vaccine lawsuits cannot the high expert evidence threshold.
The right being invoked is not a practical one—it is theoretical. The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program replaces that illusion with an actual path to recovery. It allows claims to be heard, evaluated, and compensated in a way that civil litigation cannot. There is a specialized vaccine court, attorneys that represent the vaccine injured, and independent adjudicated decision from the court with the right to an appeal of any adverse decisions.
What Happens If the Vaccine Act Is Repealed
If the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act were repealed, the consequences would be immediate. The vaccine injury compensation fund would disappear, and injured individuals would be forced into a civil litigation system that they cannot successfully navigate.
Read more about the analysis between civil court versus the VICP.
Cases would be dismissed at the expert admissibility stage. Years of litigation would produce no recovery.
This is not speculation. The Gardasil litigation and shingles vaccine litigation provide real-world examples of what happens when vaccine injury claims proceed through civil courts. Despite years of litigation and significant expense, those cases have struggled to produce meaningful compensation for plaintiffs.
That is what a vaccine lawsuit looks like in practice.
Repealing vaccine manufacturer immunity would not expand access to compensation. It would eliminate it.
Accountability Already Exists—Through the VICP
The current system holds manufacturers accountable through mandatory financial contributions and ensures that compensation is paid when causation is established. The vaccine injury compensation fund exists for one purpose: to compensate the vaccine injured.
Replacing that system with civil litigation would not improve accountability. It would remove the only system that consistently provides compensation.
Where Real Reform Should Happen
If the goal is to improve outcomes for vaccine injury claims, the focus should be on strengthening the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The Secretary of Health and Human Services has the authority to expand the Vaccine Injury Table, add injuries, and clarify compensation standards.
That authority also extends to COVID-19 vaccines. HHS has the power to move COVID-19 vaccines into the VICP and allow individuals injured since 2020 to access the vaccine injury compensation fund. Yet that has not happened. RFK Jr., despite having the authority to act, has failed to take meaningful steps in that direction. As a result, individuals with COVID vaccine injury claims remain without a viable path to compensation—not because of vaccine manufacturer immunity, but because HHS has failed to act.
Do you have a COVID-19 vaccine injury and want to push for compensation?
The Bottom Line
The push to eliminate vaccine manufacturer immunity is not a path to accountability—it is a path to fewer successful claims, more dismissed cases, and no compensation for the vaccine injured.
The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program is not perfect, but it is the only system that works. It allows vaccine injury claims to succeed in cases where civil litigation would fail under Daubert.
Abolishing that system would not empower the injured. It would leave them without recourse.