Preserve vital Vaccine Injury Compensation Program safeguards

The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program is a vital safeguard for maintaining public confidence in childhood immunizations and ensuring their continued availability. Overhauling or disrupting this program risks driving vaccine manufacturers from the market, threatening access to lifesaving vaccines that have prevented millions of deaths and hospitalizations among American children. As the evidence clearly shows, vaccines do not cause autism or other chronic conditions Kennedy alleges. Any attempts to compensate such claims or add them to the vaccine injury table would likely bankrupt the program's multi-billion dollar trust fund. This would undermine the system's ability to fairly compensate those harmed by proven, rare side effects and open manufacturers to lawsuits that previously caused them to exit the vaccine business. Preserving this program is crucial for sustaining the nation's robust immunization system and preventing resurgences of deadly diseases that vaccines have conquered. I urge you to carefully consider the severe public health consequences of overhauling the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program based on discredited theories about vaccine risks.