Declining Compensation Awards in the Vaccine Court

What your government does not want the public to know

There’s been a surge of commentary—both from legacy media and Fifth Estate blogs—regarding RFK Jr.’s proposal to reform the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP). Much of it is alarmist, focused on the hypothetical costs of adding autism to the Vaccine Injury Table. That narrative is not only misleading—it’s a deliberate distraction.

What’s missing from the conversation is a critical look at how the NVICP is currently functioning: the erosion of damage awards and the sharp decline in overall compensation. Each month, Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA), a division of Health & Human Services (HHS) releases basic statistics on petitions filed, compensated, or dismissed, along with figures for payouts, attorney fees, and expert costs. But what they don’t publish is equally telling—there’s no longitudinal comparison, no archived reports, and no transparency around trends over time.

I’ve been tracking these reports monthly for the past 15 years. The patterns are striking, and the story they tell is one the public isn’t hearing.

Let’s not forget: when Congress created the NVICP in 1986, the intent was clear—a compensation program that would be fair, efficient, and generous to children injured or killed by vaccines.

Below is an abbreviated chart showing annual outlays (compensation, legal fees, and expert costs), average damage awards, and revenue received by the Vaccine Injury Trust Fund (VIT).

Over the past 15 years, damage awards issued through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP) have declined significantly. The short answer? The program is now dominated by influenza vaccine claims, particularly those involving Shoulder Injury Related to Vaccine Administration (SIRVA).

But deeper questions must be asked—especially about why the average compensation for SIRVA has dropped nearly 65% since it was formally added to the Vaccine Injury Table in 2017. SIRVA claims were compensated as off-table injuries beginning in 2013, with peak award values in 2015. Once the injury was codified, the downward trend in payouts became both measurable and concerning. The same pattern applies to Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS).

HRSA does not report these declines. But I do.

At the 2019 Judicial Conference in Washington, D.C., several petitioner attorneys raised concerns with Chief Special Master Brian Corcoran about the noticeable drop in GBS awards. His response? He didn’t believe there had been a decline. I had the data—and shared it with counsel to demonstrate the reduction over just the prior two years.

Another troubling trend: adult petitioners now receive 95% of all compensation, leaving only 5% for children. The NVICP has effectively shifted into an adult-focused program, sidelining the very population Congress intended to protect when it created the program in 1986.

This type of analysis is not published by HRSA. But I have it.

And here’s another question worth asking: why do total annual outlays—compensation, legal fees, and expert costs—rarely approach the revenue collected by the Vaccine Injury Trust Fund? It’s as if an artificial ceiling has been imposed on the program. HRSA and DOJ don’t want that questioned. But we must question it. And we must do so now.

As the newly appointed Legal Issues Research Fellow at IPAK-Edu.Org, I am committed to investigating these trends, analyzing case decisions, and publishing the data that federal agencies won’t. The public deserves transparency. Families deserve justice. And children deserve protection.

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Wayne Rohde, author of 2 books on the NVICP (The Vaccine Court & The Vaccine Court 2.0) and Legal Issues Research Fellow at IPAK-Edu.org