[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 17]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 25074-25075]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



    THE VACCINE INJURY COMPENSATION PROGRAM IMPROVEMENT ACT OF 2000

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                           HON. JOHN L. MICA

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 26, 2000

  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing the ``Vaccine Injury 
Compensation Program Improvement Act of 2000,'' legislation

[[Page 25075]]

designed to revise and improve the standards applied to petitions for 
compensating injuries associated with vaccines administered to children 
when the claims are deemed not to be covered by the ``Vaccine Table.'' 
The Table is used in the program to create presumptions favoring 
compensation coverage under very limited circumstances and pursuant to 
specific criteria.
  Mr. Speaker, I have chaired oversight hearings of the House 
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources 
devoted to problems and issues in the National Vaccine Injury 
Compensation Program. Our full committee, the House Committee on 
Government Reform, also has been actively engaged in oversight of this 
important program. As a product of our hearings and extensive oversight 
activities, members of the subcommittee and full committee in a 
bipartisan manner and without objection, passed on October 5, 2000, the 
report entitled; ``The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program: Addressing 
the Needs and Improving Practices.''
  Among the recommendations of this report is the need to devise an 
alternative standard for determining compensation for petitioners who 
claim vaccine-related injuries, but whose petitions are not covered by 
the Vaccine Table. As the report correctly explains, Congress 
recognized deficiencies in scientific studies on the topic of vaccine-
related injuries, and intended to provide a fair and reasonable 
opportunity for petitioners to demonstrate vaccine-relatedness. If a 
significant relationship or association could be proven, compensation 
coverage was intended. Regretfully, the current wording of the statute 
has been interpreted and applied in a manner that requires a 
traditional tort ``causation'' legal analysis. If the traditional legal 
approach had been intended, Congress would simply have allowed these 
cases to be resolved through traditional tort liability litigation. 
That was not the desire of Congress when the program was established; 
it is not the desire of Congress today. Accordingly, a revision to the 
petition standards is needed to ensure that reasonable and fair 
determinations of vaccine association and relatedness are provided. 
That is precisely what this legislation does. It does not address 
various other reforms--some favored by the involved federal agencies 
and some not, some needed and some not--that are intended to improve 
the program further. The focus of this bill is simply to revise and 
clarify the standard used in adjudicating certain petitions. This 
reform will foreclose the practice of effectively denying petitions 
when scientific studies do not squarely address the specific 
circumstances presented, and will provide a reasonable, fair and 
appropriately flexible standard for examining evidence and determining 
vaccine injury compensation coverage.
  The revised language of this legislation provides an approach and 
standard for coverage that is similar to that used in determining 
medical treatment benefits to veterans who claim illnesses presumed to 
be related to exposures to Agent Orange.

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