Nearly 10,000 Claims Pending as COVID Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Faces Possible Budget Cut
The Trump administration’s proposed budget would eliminate funding for the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program, TrialSite News reported last week.
A government-run COVID-19 vaccine injury compensation program with nearly 10,000 pending claims faces the threat of a budget cut for the 2026 fiscal year.
The Trump administration’s proposed budget would eliminate funding for the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP), TrialSite News reported last week. If approved, the program would be forced to operate on “carryover funds” — or unspent funds from previous years.
According to TrialSite News:
“With no civil court recourse under the PREP Act, downgrading CICP funding leaves injured individuals with limited legal avenues and uncertain financial relief. This undermines public trust in vaccine policy, risks fueling hesitancy, and may deter future claim filings altogether.
“The decision to drop new CICP funding was hidden in budget pages — no public announcements or detailed breakdown of carryover metrics. How much carryover exists? How long will it last? What if claim volume increases?”
CICP was established under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) of 2005.
Under a PREP Act declaration, issued during an official public health emergency such as the COVID-19 pandemic, manufacturers of vaccines and other countermeasures associated with a health emergency are exempt from liability for serious injuries or death caused by their products — except in cases of willful misconduct.
That means people who believe they were injured by one of these products can’t sue the manufacturer. Instead, they can apply to the CICP for compensation.
However, even if successful, claimants often receive limited compensation from CICP. By law, the program can reimburse only those medical expenses not compensated by insurance or other programs.
It can also reimburse for lost employment income (capped at $50,000 per year) and a one-time benefit of $370,000 for deaths.
The program does not reimburse legal fees or provide compensation for pain and suffering.
According to the latest CICP data, COVID-19 countermeasures account for 96% of the 14,413 total claims filed with CICP since 2010.
Although the Biden administration declared the COVID-19 public health emergency over in May 2023, Biden extended the liability shield for COVID-19 countermeasures through the end of 2029.
More than 4,000 claims denied
For fiscal year 2025, CICP received $7 million. According to TrialSite News, CICP’s existing carryover funds would allow the program to process an estimated 2,000 claims — about 22% of the current backlog — and pay out roughly $3 million in total compensation during the year.
In May, CICP paid five COVID-19 vaccine injury claims. But the program denied dozens of claims, and thousands more remained pending as of June 1.
According to statistics released last week, the newly approved claims total $68,529.95. They include:
Two myopericarditis claims of $39,043.00 and $6,028.08.
One myocarditis claim of $19,283.54.
One angioedema claim of $2,748.31.
One anaphylaxis claim of $1,427.02.
Of the 13,836 claims related to COVID-19 countermeasures filed to date, 75 were found eligible for compensation. As of June 1, 39 of those have been compensated.
The overwhelming majority of claims were denied (4,338) or are “pending review or in review” (9,423).
COVID compensation claims dropping
CICP’s statistics show a decrease in COVID-19-related compensation claims being filed, according to Wayne Rohde, author of “The Vaccine Court: The Dark Truth of America’s Vaccine Injury Compensation Program” and “The Vaccine Court 2.0.”
Rohde wrote on Substack that 42 claims were filed between May 1 and June 1. Of those, 98.3% were denied.
“Most have given up hope that the CICP will compensate,” he wrote.
Rohde told The Defender that declining public uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine and CICP’s strict one-year statute of limitations also contributed to the decline in new claims.
Rohde said CICP has compensated only one COVID-19-related death benefit and has disbursed only three death benefits since the program was established. Earlier this year, CICP paid over $2.5 million for a COVID-19 vaccine-related injury claim associated with thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, a blood-clotting disorder linked to COVID-19 vaccines.
In May, CICP reimbursed only its second claim involving Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) — an autoimmune condition that occurs when the immune system attacks the peripheral nerves — even though “GBS is a common alleged injury,” Rohde noted.
Not all COVID-19-related claims filed with CICP involve vaccine injuries.
As of June 1, 3,119 petitions alleged injury from COVID-19 countermeasures, involving the use of “ventilators, anti-viral drugs or other medical devices,” Rohde said. “And not one petition has been deemed compensable. They are just sitting in a backlog.”
Lawsuits, proposed legislation attempt to address criticisms
During a February 2024 congressional hearing, Dr. George Reed Grimes claimed vaccine injuries “are rare” but blamed a lack of resources and the “high evidence standard for an individual to be compensated by the CICP” for the program’s backlog. Grimes is director of the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Division of Injury Compensation Programs.
Legislation proposed last year would let the public bypass CICP by allowing Americans “who took vaccines that were misleadingly promoted and forced onto many Americans via federal mandates to pursue civil litigation for their injuries.”
However, the Let Injured Americans Be Legally Empowered (LIABLE Act) bill has languished in the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary.
Earlier this year, District of Columbia-based law firm mctlaw filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), alleging the agency failed to fulfill its legal obligation to adequately compensate COVID-19 vaccine injury victims.
The complaint demands that HHS move COVID-19 vaccine injury claims from CICP to the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), which covers injuries from vaccines routinely administered to children and pregnant women.
Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) removed its COVID-19 vaccine recommendation for healthy children and pregnant women. It’s unclear how this might impact a potential effort to switch COVID-19 vaccines to VICP.
VICP is seen as more generous than CICP. As of June 1, VICP had awarded $5.4 billion in compensation claims since 1988, having approved nearly half of the claims filed during that period. By comparison, CICP has awarded just over $9.2 million in compensation since it was established.
Despite this, Rohde questioned whether COVID-19 injury claims should be moved:
“There have been a lot of studies in the last several months highlighting the dangers of mRNA technology. Very loud voices from science are calling for an outright ban. If this technology is included in the VICP, does this give manufacturers the green light to … move them into the VICP without much resistance from the FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] and the CDC?”
For Flores, a better solution would be to end PREP Act liability protections for COVID-19 vaccines.
“The COVID-19 public health emergency protection extends through the end of this decade. The HHS secretary has the sole discretion to end it. That is the only solution,” Flores said.
The proposed cut to CICP’s funding contrasts with a $5.3 million increase projected for VICP in the new budget.
At the current rate of compensation, Flores said CICP’s carryover funding “could go on indefinitely … provided administrative funds don’t use up the money first.”
“One could be unfailingly optimistic and say that this lack of funding signals the end of CICP, but that would be unrealistic given the warnings of pandemics that lie just over the horizon,” Flores said.
Related articles in The Defender
Government Pays $2.5 Million to Person Injured by COVID Vaccine — But 98% of Claims Are Denied
U.S. Pays $370,376 for COVID Vaccine Injury, as Thousands of Claims Languish
New Law Would Make COVID Vaccine Makers Liable for Injuries, Deaths
White House Lacked Plan to Compensate People Injured by COVID Shots, as FDA Sped Up Approval
Here’s an idea!💡 remove all liability protections from pHARMA, repeal PREP act, let the lawyers sue the REAL PERPETRATORS instead of putting it off on the taxpayers!
The vax injured have been through so much, they deserve Justice.
So they want to cut a program that refuses to actually give that money to the victims it's supposed to represent, and shorthanded them massively when it does pay out, but is used by vax zealots to justify the liability immunity of vax manufacturers constantly as being a totally fair recourse to justice for the vax injured.
Can't get hugely upset. Where to is all that money going, I wonder, since it sure as shit isn't going to vax victims.