The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program will compensate you for injuries sustained from the flu (influenza) vaccine if certain criteria are met.
The easiest way to receive compensation is if your injury is a “Table” injury. A Table injury is nothing more than an injury listed in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program’s “table” of qualifying vaccine injuries, which can be found here. If you have a Table injury, then your injury is presumed to have been caused by the vaccine, and will be compensable, unless proved otherwise.
For seasonal flu vaccines, the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program considers anaphylaxis that starts within 4 hours of administration of the vaccine, shoulder injuries that begin within 48 hours of administration, vasovagal syncope that begins within 1 hour of administration, and Guillain-Barré Syndrome that manifests symptoms within 3-42 days (not before 3 days, and not after 42 days) to be injuries presumptively caused by the vaccine.
Even if your injury is not listed on the table, you may still be entitled to compensation. The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program probably receives more “off-table” petitions than ones that allege a Table injury. To qualify for compensation for an “off table” injury related to the flu vaccine, you must prove your injury was “caused in fact” by the vaccine. Pursuant to Althen v. Sec’y of HHS, 418 F.3d 1274, 1278 (Fed. Cir. 2005), petitioners must establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the vaccine brought about the injury by showing: “(1) a medical theory causally connecting the vaccination and the injury; (2) a logical sequence of cause and effect showing that the vaccination was the reason for the injury; and (3) a showing of a proximate temporal relationship between vaccination and injury.” Due to these requirements, most “off table” injuries require an expert to submit a report on your behalf.
If you have suffered an injury you believe is due to the flu vaccine, whether that injury is on the Table or not, give us a call for a free consultation.