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National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program

U.S. no-fault system for litigating vaccine injury claims

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ7907951 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Office of Special Masters of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, popularly known as "vaccine court", administers a no-fault system for litigating vaccine injury claims. These claims against vaccine manufacturers cannot normally be filed in state or federal civil courts, but instead must be heard in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, sitting without a jury.

The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP or NVICP) was established by the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA), passed by the United States Congress in response to a threat to the vaccine supply due to a 1980s scare over the DPT vaccine. Despite the belief of most public health officials that claims of side effects were unfounded, large jury awards had been given to some plaintiffs, most DPT vaccine makers had ceased production, and officials feared the loss of herd immunity.

Between its inception in 1986 and May 2023, it has awarded a total of $4.6 billion, with the average award amount between 2006 and 2020 being $450,000, and the award rate (which varies by vaccine) being 1.2 awards per million doses administered. The Health Resources and Services Administration reported in July 2022 that "approximately 60 percent of all compensation awarded by the VICP comes as result of a negotiated settlement between the parties in which HHS has not concluded, based upon review of the evidence, that the alleged vaccine(s) caused the alleged injury". Cases are settled to minimize the risk of loss for both parties, to minimize the time and expense of litigation, and to resolve petitions quickly.

National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services set up the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) in 1988 to compensate individuals and families of individuals injured by covered childhood vaccines. The VICP was adopted in response to concerns over the pertussis portion of the DPT vaccine. Several U.S. lawsuits against vaccine makers won substantial awards.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program” as u.S. no-fault system for litigating vaccine injury claims. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1986, 2023, 2006, 2020—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where National, Vaccine and Injury can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as u.S. no-fault system for litigating vaccine injury claims. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7907951. VIAF identifies the subject as 132848148. The Library of Congress control number is no99022637. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1986, 2023, 2006 and 2020.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.