The outgoing Biden Administration has quietly extended a pandemic-era measure that protects Covid vaccine makers from being sued for injuries or deaths.
Officials at the Health and Human Services (HHS) say it’s necessary because there is still ‘a credible risk’ the pandemic spirals out of control in the next four years, even though Covid deaths and hospital admissions are at historic lows.
The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act was initially enacted in 2020, in part to encourage vaccine manufacturers to speed up their research of Covid vaccines without fear of being held legally responsible for things like side effects.
The extension, which had last been renewed in May 2023, also protects healthcare workers and hospitals who provide the shots from being sued.
This move could anger the incoming Trump administration, which has nominated prominent vaccine skeptic Robert F Kennedy Jr to head the HHS.
RFK Jr has long carried the anti-vaccine flag, once claiming that the inoculations caused autism, and now heads up a movement attempting to make vaccine manufacturers more accountable for vaccine injury claims.
This may also anger the small, but growing, number of Americans who say they were injured by the vaccines and claim they are being ignored.
Figures from national programs that exist to compensate the vaccine-injured show that there have been 13,000 claims that the Covid vaccine or other covid treatments has caused injury. 10,000 of those are awaiting review, meaning that since 2020, only about 3000 of those claims have been reviewed.
Brianne Dressen, 42, is suing AstraZeneca after taking part in their Covid vaccine trial. She said their shot left her ‘permanently disabled’
Ms Dressen is pictured above in the hospital following her reaction to the vaccine
Claims about injury from covid vaccines aren’t covered by the HHS’s Vaccine Injury Compensation program (VICP), which exists to pay out people who claim they were injured by standard vaccines while protecting pharmaceutical companies from liability.
People with vaccine injury claims specific to Covid are covered instead by a program called the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP).
Through this program, people who have been injured by the Covid vaccine can apply for financial compensation, without specifically holding the companies who made the vaccine responsible.
Representatives for HHS secretary Xavier Becerra, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, announced the move two days ago. In it, they said the move wouldn’t affect the CICP or VICP.
Dr Michael Hogue, the CEO of the American Pharmacists Association, said this decision: ‘will continue saving lives and lower healthcare costs, particularly in rural and underserved areas where the local pharmacy may be the only healthcare provider for miles.’
The PREP Act was initially enacted by former HHS head Alex Azar II in 2020, in the early days of the Covid pandemic to mobilize against the virus.
It had been created in 2005 to be used in public health emergencies, to cover people acting to prevent the spread of highly infectious diseases from being held legally responsible for things like side effects from experimental treatments.
It covers pharmacists, technicians, doctors, nurses and other individuals who are authorized to prescribe or administer vaccines or other ‘countermeasures’ against highly infectious diseases, like antiviral drugs or vaccines.
There are exceptions to the rule when a person acts with ‘willful misconduct’, which includes knowingly disregarding medical advice or acting recklessly.
The PREP act of 2020 has been renewed around a dozen times since then to address Covid concerns, but this newest extension appears to be the furthest reaching.
HHS representatives said they issued this extension because they: ‘have determined there is a credible risk that COVID-19 may in the future constitute such an emergency and am thus amending this Declaration to prepare for and mitigate that risk’.
Though most current monitoring efforts have slowed, some estimates suggest that Covid 19 has infected 99million Americans since 2020.
According to the CDC, of the 1.2million deaths from the disease in the past four years, roughly 44,400 occurred in 2024.
Army National Guard Specialist Karoline Stancik, 24, said she suffered a ‘debilitating heart condition’ as a result of the COVID vaccine
Dr Niels Riedemann, an intensive care physician and immunology researcher said: ‘The reality is that COVID-19 remains a unique and deadly threat for many people — it is not just another respiratory virus, and should not be treated as such by our leaders.’
Vaccination is the first step in the CDC’s list of items to prevent against Covid, and is considered a frontline defense across the world.
It doesn’t prevent everyone from catching the virus, but makes it much less likely that someone will become severely ill or die if they do catch it.
Covid vaccines are estimated to have prevented more than 3.2million deaths and 18.5million hospital admissions in the United States through 2022, according to research from The Commonwealth Fund.
In the US, citizens can pick between vaccines manufactures by Moderna, Pfizer and Novavax.
According to CDC data, in about one in every 200,000 cases, a person develops an allergic reaction or heart problems called myocarditis or pericarditis in response to a Covid vaccine.
Myocarditis and pericarditis are a swelling and irritation of the tissue of the heart, which can cause damage that leads to scarring of the heart muscle, causing long term problems with heart function.
Army National Guard Specialist Karoline Stancik, 24, came out earlier this year claiming that she developed a heart problem after being vaccinated.
She was diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a condition where a persons heart rate goes haywire when moving between seated and lying positions. This can cause fainting, rapid heartbeat and lightheadedness.
Stancik said she has had three heart attacks, a mini stroke and is now getting a pacemaker
Stancik told NewsNation she’s three mini heart attacks since getting the vaccine, despite having no preexisting heart conditions, and had to get a pacemaker installed to regulate her heart rate.
Stancik was one of many soldiers who got the vaccine when it was mandated. The military reversed this ruling in January 2023.
Dr Paul Offit, Director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, has acknowledged these cases and expressed sympathy for people with vaccine-associated injuries.
Still, he said, the risk of not getting vaccinated is much higher than the risk of vaccination.
Offit said: ‘During 2021, you were 12 times more likely to be hospitalized and die if you didn’t get a vaccine than if you did get one.
‘In 2022, the following year, you were six times more likely to be hospitalized and die.
‘A choice not to get a vaccine is not a risk-free choice. It’s a choice to take a different risk now more seriously.’