Is it True You Can't Sue a Vaccine Manufacturer? We Ask a Vaccine Legal Scholar
02/13/25 • 46 min
A major source of mistrust in public health today is the belief that you can't sue a vaccine manufacturer if you suffer an adverse reaction. Many ask: Why should I trust vaccines if I can't hold vaccine makers accountable? For them, it sounds un-American, heavily biased toward Big Pharma, and proof that the system is rigged. It is something that the incoming health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spoken about often.
But is it true?
In this episode, we sit down with Dorit Reiss, a legal scholar specializing in vaccines and the law, to separate fact from fiction. We dive into why vaccine makers were ever granted any shield from liability to begin with. And we look at where America ultimately landed on this issue, by unpacking the facts and tracing the history. What we found surprised us.
We asked: what recourse do people have if they experience a rare side effect and want accountability from a vaccine maker? What avenues exist today and do they work? Is our understandable desire to have available vaccines -- which have saved hundreds of millions of lives -- allowing room for a fair process to hold vaccine makers accountable for adverse reactions?
Plus, as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. now becomes the new leader of the Department of Health and Human Services, what potential changes could he bring to the vaccine landscape?
Hosts:
Brinda Adhikari
Tom Johnson
Maggie Bartlett
Dr. Mark Abdelmalek
Guest:
Dorit Reiss, Professor of Law, University of California Law San Francisco; vaccine law specialist
Sources:
GAO report 2024 on how Covid vaccine compensation program is fairing
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-107368
New York Times from November 1986 on Reagan
Paul Offit on vaccine compensation history
https://pauloffit.substack.com/p/a-dangerous-time-for-americas-children-3bb
Washington Post 1987
Time Magazine 2015
https://time.com/3995062/vaccine-injury-court-truth/
Newsweek 2023
https://www.newsweek.com/surge-vaccine-lawsuits-forces-biden-admin-hire-more-attorneys-1843385
Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe!
Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]
A major source of mistrust in public health today is the belief that you can't sue a vaccine manufacturer if you suffer an adverse reaction. Many ask: Why should I trust vaccines if I can't hold vaccine makers accountable? For them, it sounds un-American, heavily biased toward Big Pharma, and proof that the system is rigged. It is something that the incoming health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spoken about often.
But is it true?
In this episode, we sit down with Dorit Reiss, a legal scholar specializing in vaccines and the law, to separate fact from fiction. We dive into why vaccine makers were ever granted any shield from liability to begin with. And we look at where America ultimately landed on this issue, by unpacking the facts and tracing the history. What we found surprised us.
We asked: what recourse do people have if they experience a rare side effect and want accountability from a vaccine maker? What avenues exist today and do they work? Is our understandable desire to have available vaccines -- which have saved hundreds of millions of lives -- allowing room for a fair process to hold vaccine makers accountable for adverse reactions?
Plus, as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. now becomes the new leader of the Department of Health and Human Services, what potential changes could he bring to the vaccine landscape?
Hosts:
Brinda Adhikari
Tom Johnson
Maggie Bartlett
Dr. Mark Abdelmalek
Guest:
Dorit Reiss, Professor of Law, University of California Law San Francisco; vaccine law specialist
Sources:
GAO report 2024 on how Covid vaccine compensation program is fairing
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-107368
New York Times from November 1986 on Reagan
Paul Offit on vaccine compensation history
https://pauloffit.substack.com/p/a-dangerous-time-for-americas-children-3bb
Washington Post 1987
Time Magazine 2015
https://time.com/3995062/vaccine-injury-court-truth/
Newsweek 2023
https://www.newsweek.com/surge-vaccine-lawsuits-forces-biden-admin-hire-more-attorneys-1843385
Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe!
Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]
Previous Episode
A CIA Declaration, Subpoenas, & Fauci’s Pardon: Why the Lab Leak Debate is Still Raging On
With the CIA now siding with the "lab leak" theory, President Trump reportedly considering cuts to “risky” virus research, Republican Senator Rand Paul firing off subpoenas, and President Biden’s pre-emptive pardon of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the fierce debate over COVID’s origins is only intensifying. And while many believe we’re no closer to an answer, the fight itself is deepening our national crisis of trust in science.
In this episode, we sit down with David Wallace-Wells, science columnist for The New York Times who has written extensively about the origins of Covid, and Robert F. Garry, a leading virologist who found himself at the center of this storm after publishing a paper on COVID’s origins and being hauled in front of Congress.
We explore how what began as a scientific question spiraled into a full-blown political battle, fueling a growing mistrust in science five years after COVID emerged.
Hosts:
Brinda Adhikari
Tom Johnson
Maggie Bartlett
Dr. Mark Abdelmalek
Guests:
David Wallace Wells, science columnist, New York Times; author, The Uninhabitable Earth
Robert Garry, virologist; professor of microbiology/immunology/assistant dean, Tulane University School of Medicine
Sources:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/12/opinion/covid-lab-leak-theory.html
https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/45389-americans-believe-covid-origin-lab?redirect_from=%2Ftopics%2Fpolitics%2Farticles-reports%2F2023%2F03%2F10%2Famericans-believe-covid-origin-lab
Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe!
Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]
Next Episode
Measles, Pharma and Mistrust: A Conversation with MAHA Moms and Dr. Paul Offit
This week, in his first speech addressing the Department of Health and Human Services as its new chief, RFK Jr. said the path to the country earning back trust was through transparency.
As Kennedy was saying these words to a packed audience, Texas was clocking in more measles cases, in what is turning out to be its worst measles outbreak in 30 years. With rising mistrust in public health and declining vaccination rates, measles - a disease we eradicated over 20 years ago is making a comeback, worrying many in public health.
But two MAHA moms in their fifties we heard from on today's episode ask a question we are increasingly hearing more often these days: what's the big deal about measles? Both these moms got it as children and recovered, missed a few days of school and then had lifelong immunity. Is public health over reacting? They point to a classic Brady Bunch episode where the kids all catch measles, reflecting how the virus was once considered a rite of passage, a harmless childhood illness. If anything, doesn't getting a disease strengthen the immune system?
Before the vaccine, measles claimed the lives of 500 children every year and hospitalized tens of thousands more, and sometimes led to severe complications in kids many years after they got sick.
But now that we have a vaccine, what’s the real risk of measles today? And why is the measles vaccine -- while still popular among the vast majority of this country -- losing the trust of a small but growing group of Americans? In this episode, we welcome back Dr. Paul Offit, a leading expert on childhood vaccines, to explore the questions surrounding measles and dig into the facts about pharmaceutical funding while aiming to model a more constructive conversation.
Hosts:
Brinda Adhikari
Tom Johnson
Maggie Bartlett
Dr. Mark Abdelmalek
Guests:
Yesenia Muhammad, Atlanta, MAHA Mom
Melinda Hicks, Atlanta, MAHA Mom
Dr. Paul Offit, pediatrician, infectious disease and vaccine specialist
Sources:
States looking to create exemptions for public school vaccine mandates:
Public Attitudes on the MMR vaccine:
CDC numbers on risk from Measles
https://www.cdc.gov/measles/signs-symptoms/?CDC_AAref_Val=https://www.cdc.gov/measles/symptoms/complications.html#
Measles compromises immune memory
Measles virus infection diminishes preexisting antibodies that offer protection from other pathogens
Clinical Trial data on MMR:
Clinical evaluation of a new measles-mumps-rubella trivalent vac
Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe!
Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]
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