The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act Turns 40!

On November 14, 1986, Ronald Reagan signed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA). With one pen stroke, the game changed—yet not in your favor.

Washington handed vaccine manufacturers a massive, shiny “Get-out-of-jail-free” card. It stripped away your right to sue if a childhood vaccine injures your child. Manufacturer negligence? A poorly designed product? Too bad. You may end up with a harmed child for life, and you’re basically on your own.

Forty years later, it’s time to ask: Why do we still have this law?

Vaccine makers claim they need this immunity—without it, they say, no vaccines. Parents, meanwhile, are stuck in a system that protects pharma shareholders while pushing an ever-expanding list of school-required shots. It forces mass vaccination on our children, but shields the companies from the consequences if things go wrong. That’s not fair, and it’s not safe.

With 40 years of hindsight, let’s look at what this law actually did:

• It killed the incentive for safety. Why bother spending millions to make a safer vaccine when you’re legally bulletproof? When liability disappears, so does the pressure to innovate. In what other industry have we seen improvements in safety when we gave the industry full liability protection? 
• Taxpayers are the ones on the hook. If a vaccine is found to be unsafe, the government—not the pharma giant—pays the damages. Over 40 years, the government has paid out about $5.5 billion, while vaccine makers have raked in over $100 billion in profits.
• Children are treated like pin cushions. Since 1986, the childhood schedule has exploded from three shots to nearly thirty. We give our kids more routine vaccines than any other country on the planet. Why? See the 1986 Act.
• It creates a dangerous “cozy” relationship. Regulators and the companies they are supposed to police are essentially in bed together. This massive conflict of interest stops real safety standards from ever being effectively enforced.
• It tramples on informed consent. If the liability shield vanished, parents would finally have the leverage to demand honest, independent testing. If they found that the needed research simply isn’t there, they could just say no.

The Corporate Spin

Supporters of the NCVIA love to trot out the same excuses to keep the 1986 Act alive. Here is a short reality check:

“It ensures a stable vaccine supply.”

The Reality: The only things being ensured are profits. It does not ensure safety. Because there’s no pressure to innovate, we are still largely in the dark about the full range of adverse effects from these products.

“The no-fault compensation system is more efficient.”

The Reality: Tell that to the families. Ask anyone who has tried to get compensation from a government-run, adversarial, “vaccine court” system. It’s an absolute nightmare. Besides, why should you use your tax dollars to pay for the sins of a major corporation?

“It protects us from life-threatening diseases.”

The Reality: Pure spin. Most major reductions in fatal childhood diseases happened before 1960—long before most of these vaccines existed. Yet the fiction that childhood vaccines are making us live longer and healthier remains. 

“It makes children healthier.”

The Reality: Look around. Rates of chronic health problems in kids—autoimmune disorders, ADHD, neurological issues, allergies—have skyrocketed in the US since 1986. If you refuse to study whether the boatload of vaccines is in any way connected to that stunning explosion of chronic illness, you’ll never find the answer.

The Biggest Scandal of All

The most damning reason this law needs to be tossed in the trash? 

They didn’t hand in their homework.

When Congress passed this law in 1986, they included a requirement: The Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) must report to Congress every two years, detailing what they have done to make childhood vaccines safer.

That was 40 years ago. 

How many reports has the Secretary submitted? 

None. Zero. Zilch.

If a student didn’t hand in their homework for four decades, they’d be expelled. Yet, the agency in charge of vaccine safety for generations of children has simply ignored the law for 40 years. And Congress has let them get away with it.

This legislation is a shell game. It bankrolled the drug industry, flooded our children with shots, failed to properly compensate the injured, and allowed regulators to ignore their one job: ensuring that these products are as safe as they can be. 

It’s time to reject this failed experiment. We need to demand that Congress repeal the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. On this 40^th anniversary, the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation has begun a petition to repeal this law. What a great idea. It’s time to raise our voices, end the liability shield, and get back to real, honest safety standards for our kids.