New bill aims to compensate COVID vaccine victims

When 14-year-old Aiden Ekanayake developed myocarditis after the second shot of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine, he was admitted to the acute cardiac unit. After four days, he was discharged, but now any activity that raises his heart rate gives him chest pain.

Aiden’s parents are receiving medical bills, but no compensation, reports National Geographic.  

“We did everything we were told to do, and we shouldn’t be paying the price in more than one way,” Aiden’s mother said. “It’s adding insult to injury.”  

Jessica McFadden got the Johnson & Johnson shot last year, and a week later developed a pulmonary embolism. The cardiologist said she had 12 hours to live and told her to say her goodbyes.  

The doctors were ultimately able to remove the clots lodged in her brain, leg, lungs and near her heart and McFadden lived to tell the story, but it came at a cost of $7,000 after insurance for her five-day stay in the ICU.  

Kam Giovanni was a high school athlete who got the Pfizer jab last year and developed myocarditis shortly after. He spent six days in the cardiac ICU. He was able to return to some light duties a month later but was still not cleared for sports as of mid-March. Giovanni had to sit on the sidelines for the basketball and baseball seasons.  

“This vaccine has screwed up any chance he had of getting a sports scholarship,” said Kam’s mother, Chelsea.   

The Giovannis still owe about $15,000 in medical bills. The insurance company won’t pay more because the injury was from a vaccine, leaving Chelsea to rely on donations.  

Stuntman Cody Robinson found himself losing out on gigs for not being vaccinated. So he got the jab, feeling “strongarmed” by the industry. But after developing blood clots from the vaccine and having to remain on blood thinners, he can’t work at all.  

These vaccine victims are not receiving compensation for their injuries.  

The Countermeasure Injury Compensation Program (CICP) is meant to compensate injuries and deaths that were caused by medical devices and drugs delivered during certain public health emergencies, including COVID-19.  

As of March 1, 2022, there were 7,547 CICP claims filed. Of those, only 30 were compensated.  

Furthermore, about 93% of all those CICP claims were injuries resulting specifically from the COVID-19 vaccine. None of those claims have been compensated.  

According to the Health Resources and Services Administration, the injuries claimed for the COVID-19 vaccine are diverse, including 62 claims of anaphylaxis, 38 claims of Bell’s Palsy, 99 claims of blood clots, 36 claims involving chest pain, 135 claims of death, 26 claims of deep vein thrombosis, 15 claims of difficulty breathing, 58 claims of fainting including head injuries, 67 claims of GBS, 16 claims of heart attacks, 69 claims of myocarditis, 14 claims of paralysis, 31 claims of pericarditis, 29 claims of pulmonary embolism, 55 claims of stroke, and many others. 

“We call the CICP program a black hole,” says Greg Rogers, a lawyer with Rogers Hofrichter & Karrah LLC in Atlanta.  

But new legislation introduced earlier this month aims to change that. 

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) aims to succeed where the current bureaucracy fails. That’s why he introduced the Countermeasure Injury Compensation Amendment Act, co-sponsored by Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN), Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), and Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS).   

Among its various goals, the Act would “improve responsiveness, create a commission to examine the injuries directly caused as a result of COVID-19 countermeasures, and allow those whose claims have been previously rejected to resubmit claims for new consideration.” 

U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) had also introduced two bills in 2021 to help vaccine victims get compensated. These are the Vaccine Injury Compensation Modernization Act of 2021 (HR 3655) and the Vaccine Access Improvement Act of 2021 (HR 3656).  

Together, those bills would reform the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), which currently is only for children and pregnant women and offers a larger payout than CICP. Under this legislation, vaccine victims would be included in VICP and would get a bigger payout.  

In its report, National Geographic, a long-time devotee of the vaccine, did attempt to defend the vaccine even while describing its harmful effects. But in doing so, it raised questions about the current vaccine narrative: 

“Like any drug, vaccines have side effects. But they’re required to have a far better safety record than other pharmaceutical products because they’re given to prevent disease.” 

However, the COVID-19 vaccine, which was marketed as “100% safe and effective”, does not prevent disease, a fact admitted by all vaccine advocates.