Thursday, April 20, 2023
US Compensates People Injured by COVID-19 Vaccines for First Time
The United States has for the first time paid people who were injured by COVID-19 vaccines.
Three people received compensation for their injuries through the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP), run by an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, officials said in a new update.
One person who suffered severe allergic shock received $2,019, according to the agency, the Health Resources and Services Administration. One person who suffered heart inflammation, or myocarditis, received $1,582. Another who suffered myocarditis received $1,032.
The manufacturer of the vaccines was not made public. Information about the people who received the payments has also not been made public.
The payouts mark the first time the U.S. government has paid people who were injured by the COVID-19 vaccines, which can cause serious problems as well as death and were first introduced in late 2020.
Under the CICP, people who survive their vaccine-induced injury can receive money for unreimbursed medical expenses and lost employment income.
The newly granted compensation appears to only be for medical expenses, Wayne Rohde, author of The Vaccine Court, told The Epoch Times.
“These amounts are so low that you can credibly assume that this was just only for unreimbursed medical expenses, and that’s it,” Rohde said. “It’s unconscionable what they’re doing, but that’s this program.”
Most previous payments were for people injured by an H1N1 vaccine, including for Guillain-Barre syndrome. Some received hundreds or thousands of dollars. Eight received at least $106,723. The highest payment on record is $2.2 million.
The Health Resources and Services Administration, which runs the program, did not respond to requests for comment.
CICP
The CICP is the only venue people can get compensation from the federal government because of the COVID-19 emergency declaration first issued during the Trump administration. Most vaccines administered in the United States are covered by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. People who receive compensation through the latter are eligible for more money, in part because more categories are covered, have longer to file, and can have attorney fees covered.
To get compensation from the CICP, a person must prove a “causal connection” between the vaccine taken and a serious physical injury or death, with the connection being supported by “compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence.” The person must also show unreimbursed medical expenses or that they lost income because they were unable to work due to the injury.
Relatives of people who died can ask for survivor death benefits.
The cap for CICP on death benefits is $423,000 and the cap on lost wages is $50,000 but key questions remain, including whether survivors automatically get a full payout if their claim is approved and whether future medical care for the injured could be covered, Rohde said.
Program administrators have largely declined to share details about the program’s payments and claims that have been rejected.
While the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program payments come from a pool formed through a tax on each vaccine, CICP payments are made from appropriations from Congress.
Still Waiting
The first COVID-19 vaccines were authorized in December 2020. A third was cleared in the spring of 2021. They were promoted widely by U.S. health officials and taken by hundreds of millions of Americans.
Historic numbers of adverse events following vaccination have been reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, helping authorities determine that events like severe allergic shock, or anaphylaxis, and myocarditis are caused by the vaccines.
While anyone can enter a report into the reporting system, the CICP only accepts applications filed within one year of an event. The program also only covers a small number of events at present, though what it covers exactly has not been made public.
As of April 1, 8,133 applications to CICP allege injuries and/or deaths from COVID-19 vaccines. Hundreds have been denied because of a lack of sufficient medical records or other problems, authorities say. Thousands more are pending review or are being reviewed.
Just 23 have been determined to meet the standard for compensation, including the three that were compensated.
One person suffered myocarditis from a COVID-19 vaccine but did not have “eligible reported losses or expenses,” according to CICP administrators.
Of the remaining 19 applicants waiting for compensation, 18 suffered from myocarditis, a related condition called pericarditis, or a combination of myocarditis and pericarditis. The other approved claim was for angioedema, a skin condition.
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One Moment He Was in Command of a 150,000-Pound Plane, Next He Was Technically Dead
On a clear spring day in 2022, Capt. Bob Snow steered an Airbus A321 toward its destination gate, as he had done thousands of times during his 31-year career with American Airlines.
But Snow almost didn’t live to talk about Flight 1067 from Denver to Dallas. Shortly after arriving safely in Texas, Snow collapsed in the cockpit. He was in cardiac arrest.
The crisis struck without warning; Snow had felt fine that day. He was a healthy, lean 60-year-old with no history of heart trouble.
However, Snow had taken a COVID-19 injection under the threat of being fired from his job; Snow believes the shot put him at greater risk for a sudden cardiac malfunction.
Regardless of what touched off the medical emergency, it rendered Snow unconscious. And if he had blacked out just a few minutes sooner, the plane’s co-pilot (officially called a “first officer”) would have been under extreme pressure to prevent a terrible accident.
Instead, circumstances aligned perfectly to avert tragedy for Snow, his co-pilot, and their planeload of about 175 passengers.
“I count my lucky stars, and I count my blessings,” Snow told The Epoch Times in March as the first anniversary of his near-fatal encounter approached. While grateful for being alive, Snow laments being robbed of his health, which disqualifies him from flying airplanes—a lifelong passion.
In a widely circulated video, shot while he was still hospitalized, Snow became one of the nation’s first pilots to go public with vaccine-related concerns. He remains convinced that more investigation is needed, especially because once-rare reports of pilot incapacitations seem to be happening more frequently. Seven pilot incapacitations made headlines last month.
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California Church Faces $1.2M Fine for Defying COVID-19 Mandates, Says Not 1 Case of Covid Traces Back to Worship Services
A California Superior Court judge ordered a church to pay more than $1 million in fines for refusing to comply with COVID-19 mask mandates during the pandemic.
The church, Calvary Chapel San Jose, slammed the ruling and Santa Clara County’s efforts to defend the fines in court, arguing that not one case of COVID-19 has been traced back to the church’s worship services.
“There hasn’t been a single COVID-19 case traced to the church. To claim that this about public safety is just false,” Bob Tyler, president of Advocates for Faith & Freedom, which represents the church in court, told The Daily Signal in a statement Monday following the ruling Thursday. “In actuality, this is about the right of churchgoers to freely practice their faith without interfere or discrimination.”
“The church just wants to be afforded the same treatment and consideration as liquor stores, strip clubs, and other so-called essential businesses,” Tyler added.
Judge Evette Pennypacker ruled that Santa Clara County’s masking and social distancing orders were lawful and that the church had to pay $1.2 million in fines for violating them.
While the church had pointed out that some other institutions had received conditional and temporary exemptions for mask requirements, the court rejected the claim that these exemptions undermined the county’s authority to impose requirements on the church. A fire chief, for example, legally removed his mask to exercise in close proximity to his colleagues. By contrast, Calvary Chapel worshippers removed their masks for an entire service.
The judge ruled that the Christian church’s leaders “repeatedly announced their refusal to comply with masking requirements, never reported to the county that they had come into compliance with the masking requirement, and to this day maintain that they were never required to comply with that requirement at any time under any circumstances.”
“It should appear clear to all—regardless of religious affiliation—that wearing a mask while worshiping one’s god and communing with other congregants is a simple, unobtrusive, giving way to protect others while still exercising your right to religious freedom,” Pennypacker wrote. “Unfortunately, [church leaders] repeatedly refused to model, much less, enforce this gesture. Instead, they repeatedly flouted their refusal to comply with the public health orders and urged others to do so ‘who cares what the cost,’ including death.”
However, Pennypacker rejected further fines that the county had imposed, ruling that the extra fines amounted to “fining [Calvary Chapel] for the same violation twice.”
“The court was partially correct when it declared almost $2 million of the $3 million in fines to be unlawful,” Tyler told The Daily Signal. “The State Court’s legal analysis is simply flawed as to the remaining fines.”
He said the church plans to appeal the ruling and he expressed hope that “the court of appeal will ultimately correct the error by declaring all of the fines unconstitutional.”
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH) Also here
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH) Also here
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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1 comment:
As many studies have shown the masks really did not help stop the spread of Covid at all the city really should cancel the fines BUT that might mean they also have to REFUND fines that others paid to them so they continue to try to press their bogus claims that the mask mandates were anything other that a false show.
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