Oxford researcher calls for more clarity and bigger payouts for people harmed by Covid jabs
An Oxford researcher investigating vaccine damage schemes has called for more clarity and for more money from such schemes in the UK and abroad.
Civil justice researcher Sonia Macleod told Research Professional News her team “struggled” to get clear information on Covid-19 vaccine damage schemes for people whose health has been harmed by the jab.
While the benefit of receiving a vaccine in preventing Covid outweighs known side effects, in extremely rare cases the jabs have been linked to severe illness and even deaths.
‘Unusual’ disablement threshold
The UK Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme requires those who make a claim to be assessed as being at least 60 per cent disabled because of vaccination.
But according to Macleod, the disablement threshold in the UK’s Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme is “slightly unusual” in that it is not well defined.
“For a scheme to work well, it needs to be very clear to everyone what it is, how it works and what it provides money for,” Macleod said.
She also said such schemes should consider providing more money to those affected.
Litigation concerns
In the UK, and with some other schemes worldwide, the payment is viewed as a basic one-off payment before people go on to potentially receive more money from taking additional legal action, Macleod explained.
But she is concerned that extra payments only work when litigation works, and that it can be challenging for people to sue for damages with new vaccines, such as the Covid one, as there are difficulties around product liability.
“What I would think would be an even better solution is to have parity between what is offered by a scheme and what you would get [if you were to sue]. Or, at least, a scheme that is sufficient to cover people’s needs,” Macleod said.
When asked whether the £120,000 offered by the UK scheme is sufficient, Macleod said the payment is “certainly not comparable” to what someone would get in a court settlement for a serious injury that impacts on their long-term ability to work or for a death.
In the UK, relatives of those who have died due to a third party breaching their duty of care can receive upwards of £550,000 if they were to take the case to court, according to a legal expert website.
UK covid claims
According to data from the Office for National Statistics, 53 people in England and Wales have died from adverse effect to the Covid-19 vaccine, where it was noted as an underlying cause, and a further eight deaths have involved the Covid jab, meaning it was mentioned on the death certificate.
Several thousand claims for Covid vaccine damage from Covid jabs have been filed in the UK, most of them rejected. Around 100 people have been told that they are entitled to receive money via the UK’s Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme, run by the NHS authority.
The most common medical conditions of the claimants awarded a vaccine damage payment are vaccine-induced immune thrombocytopenia and thrombosis/cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, and Guillain-Barré syndrome.
Differences in coverage
So far, the Oxford study has found the Covid vaccine compensation schemes across the world to be varied in the coverage they provide, Macleod said.
Some of the schemes will only provide a payment for a death or a permanent injury, which is the case with the UK scheme. Other schemes are much more generous as they compensate for temporary injuries, she said.
They are also different in terms of how they are structured and how they judge whether your claim is acceptable, she said.
She added there are a couple of countries where there is an obligation on either healthcare practitioners or clinics when providing vaccines to display information on vaccine compensation schemes.
A recent study of people with verified vaccine-induced thrombosis by authors from universities in Swansea and Oxford published in the British Medical Journal said: “Compensation through the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme has proven difficult to obtain, with most participants still awaiting a decision over a year after initiating a claim even in cases where there has been significant physical damage and critical levels of financial stress… It was also noted that the compensation available would be of limited value to individuals in their 30s who were unlikely to work again and counted against future benefit payments.”
The study concluded that “future mass vaccination programmes need to consider not just the benefits of any programme, but how to respond directly and immediately to individuals directly damaged by it, in a way that ameliorates rather than adds to their problems. Such responses should include meaningful and rapid financial reparation and the provision of relevant support services, both physical and psychological”.
Module four of the ongoing national Covid-19 inquiry will examine, among other vaccine-related issues, “whether any reforms to the UK Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme are necessary”.
The Department of Health and Social Care has been contacted for a comment.