Legal Review: Improper Administration of Vaccinations Leads to Injury

By personal injury attorney Jeff Shiver, co-founder of Shiver Hamilton.

It has become common in the last few years for individuals to claim that vaccinations administered to children early in life lead to certain intellectual disabilities, among other issues.

These claims are based on debunked research that has since been retracted. However, there has been an increase in provable injury claims related to vaccines — all from improper location of the injection.

Shoulder injuries resulting from vaccine administration or “SIRVA” has become a much more commonplace claim due to the increase in the number of vaccinations administered to individuals later in life.

More and more individuals receive the flu vaccine each year. Indeed, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends that individuals be vaccinated for the seasonal flu every year.

With a push for lower-cost health care delivery, treatments such as vaccinations are being performed by individuals with less training than doctors or nurses. With less training and less experience, the risk of a mistake increases. SIRVA instances are generally caused by administering the vaccine to high on the arm.

This leads to excruciating pain in the arm and shoulder that often results in increased limitations in usage.

“Based on the increase in the number of SIRVA claims that have been filed in Federal court, these mistakes are, in fact, becoming more common,” said Jeff Shiver, a personal injury attorney with the law firm of Shiver Hamilton in Savannah.

All claims for vaccination related injuries have, since 1986, been decided in Federal court. A special court was established to adjudicate all vaccination-related claims after several multimillion dollar vaccination injury awards resulted in all but one of the manufacturers of the Diphtheria, Pertussis, and Tetanus vaccination halting production.

In order to encourage the continued production of vaccines, the Federal government agreed to shoulder the liability related to vaccination injuries, hence the establishment of what is commonly known as the “vaccine court”.

The majority of cases that result in payment of claims come from settlement agreements, avoiding an actual finding of fault related to the vaccine or its administration. Currently, the fund from which claims are paid is maintained by a $0.75 cent tax on each dose of covered vaccine administered.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the number of SIRVA claims in vaccine court has doubled in the last year, and now make up half of the claims facing the court. This has led to a backlog of cases and a delay in resolution.

Though claims are designed to be non-adversarial, it is wise for individuals to retain experienced legal counsel. As the court is very willing to grant payment of attorney fees from the fund, even with unsuccessful claims, there is very little reason for a plaintiff to seek restitution or for an attorney to decline to assist a client with no upfront money.