Overall, vaccines benefit human society. They help eradicate diseases, curb the spread of infectious illnesses, and prevent death. Most vaccine administrations don’t trigger significant complications, allowing individuals and society to function smoothly. And although rare, adverse reactions do occur, sparking debates and opposition regarding vaccine safety.
Those voices don’t go unheard. The government provides various platforms for the public to report post-vaccination health issues, contributing to ongoing analyses and investigations to refine vaccines. The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is one such vaccine safety monitoring system.
In this post, we explain what vaccine injuries and the VAERS are, and what your next steps should be.
What Is Vaccine Injury?
Vaccine injury, also known as adverse event, refers to serious health effects resulting from the administration of vaccines. Unlike mild and more common vaccine side effects (e.g., redness, swelling in the injection site, muscles soreness, fever, etc.), vaccine injuries involve more severe health issues that may result in lasting complications or even pose life-threatening risks.
Reporting such incidents to vaccine safety monitoring systems, like the VAERS, is crucial for ongoing assessment and improvement of vaccine safety.
Understanding VAERS
The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is a transparent, publicly accessible database, allowing individuals to voluntarily report post-vaccination health incidents (for instance, allergic reactions, blood clots, intestinal conditions, paralysis, etc). Its establishment aimed to act as an early warning system, signaling potential unforeseen health issues/vaccine injuries resulting from approved vaccinations that might be worth investigating scientifically.
In contrast to other vaccine safety monitoring systems, VAERS operates as a passive surveillance system, meaning it relies on people submitting reports of their post-vaccination experiences. Then, as reports keep being fed into the system, they are being learned by healthcare professionals and researchers from the CDC and FDA, sometimes revealing genuine vaccine safety concerns.
Information Collected
When submitting a report, contributors provide essential details to allow health authorities to conduct thorough analyses and draw meaningful conclusions:
- Personal information (date of birth, age, sex)
- The type and dosage of vaccine received
- The vaccination date and location
- The adverse event’s onset time and symptoms
- Medical history, including past test results and previous adverse events following vaccinations
- Physician contact information
Despite being a public and transparent reporting system, VAERS maintains confidentiality around patient information submitted in reports.
VAERS’s Strengths & Limitations
As was just mentioned, VAERS is open to anyone to report vaccine injuries, be it individuals suffering from adverse events, their families, vaccine manufacturers, or healthcare professionals. But this is a mixed blessing.
On the one hand, this inclusivity fosters a collective effort, building up a comprehensive database with diverse experiences and enhancing the overall understanding of vaccine-related incidents. On the other hand, the fact that the CDC and FDA don’t restrict who and what people report floods the database with pre-screened, unverified data. This unfiltered nature of VAERS, where reports can lack details or contain errors, could potentially provoke confusion and misinterpretation. Thus, the system is not designed to confirm the causal links between the vaccine and the adverse event, and it’s advised not to jump to conclusions before the official authorities have thoroughly analyzed the information.
Vaccine Injury: Legal Options & Expert Consultation
Your participation in reporting vaccine-related adverse events to VAERS contributes to the ongoing improvement of vaccine safety. However, for those who have experienced vaccine injury, it’s crucial to recognize that reporting to VAERS doesn’t have to be a substitute for pursuing legal avenues. While VAERS plays a vital role in surveillance and early detection, individuals facing vaccine-related challenges could still explore legal options to seek vaccine injury compensation.
Bluestein Attorneys, with its strong team of personal injury lawyers, offers a free consultation for individuals suffering from vaccine injuries. We’re happy to meet with you to discuss the specifics of your situation, your current diagnoses, medical treatment, and the anticipated medical and financial requirements arising from your vaccine injury.
To request your free consultation for vaccine injuries in South Carolina, call Bluestein Attorneys at (803) 779-7599 or contact us online at any time.
