Vaccine expert Professor Finn joins call for major reforms to vaccine damage payment scheme

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Wes Streeting has once again been urged to review the way those who suffer medical complications, or death, as a result of vaccinations receive financial support. 

The issue was the focus of a BBC documentary highlighting the plight of families whose loved ones suffered a severe and life-changing effect of the AstraZeneca UK Limited (AZUK) COVID-19 vaccine.

Professor Adam Finn, a leading expert on vaccines who was a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), told the BBC the VDPS is “clearly not working as it should” and that payments should be index-linked so that they reflect changes in the cost of living.

Last month, three women whose loved ones lost their lives or suffered life-changing injuries after receiving the vaccine met with the Health Secretary to make their case for a reform of the VDPS.

This comes after AZUK formally admitted its COVID-19 vaccine can cause a rare side-effect known as Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome (TTS).

To be eligible for compensation, capped at £120,000, applicants must meet a 60 per cent disability threshold, based on what lawyers have labelled “outdated” concepts of industrial injury and disablement.

Leigh Day is working with the campaign group Vaccine Injured Bereaved UK (VIBUK) and other prominent academics and politicians, including former Attorney General Sir Jeremy Wright MP, to push to reform the scheme.

Speaking in the BBC documentary ‘Covid Vaccine: Fighting for a Payout’, Leigh Day partner Sarah Moore said:

“The scheme offers too little, too late, to too few people. It offers too little because £120,000 is woefully inadequate. Those who have applied are waiting a really long time, and that’s massively stressful – financially but also emotionally. It’s offering money to too few people because there is this bar that you have to meet, to show you’re 60 per cent disabled before you get anything at all.”

The VDPS was set up in 1979 as a temporary measure to provide a one-off payment to children who had become severely disabled due to a vaccination. The scheme was subsequently extended to include adults and individuals who died as a result of vaccination.

It is argued the 60 per cent cut-off point prevents some people who are still severely affected by injuries that can have lifelong consequences from accessing financial support through the scheme.

Between the late 1970s and 2020, there were just below 6,500 claims under the scheme for all vaccines and 944 awards. Since the pandemic there have been more than 15,800 individual applications relating to COVID19 vaccines, the majority of which relate to the AZ vaccine.

Where a main wage earner requires 24-hour care and support as a result of injury, the lump-sum payment of £120,000 is not always enough for applicants to be able to receive the care and/or treatment that they need. Lawyers say if a fair scheme were in place legal action would not be necessary.  

Represented by Leigh Day, 50 claimants are seeking compensation for injuries allegedly caused by the vaccine manufactured by AZUK. Twelve of the claimants are acting on the behalf of a loved one who died following a complication allegedly caused by the vaccine.

All 12 of the bereaved claimants received death certificates or medical evidence confirming that the AZUK vaccine caused the deaths and injuries suffered by their loved ones.

The claimants say that they, or their loved one, suffered Vaccine Induced Immune Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia (VITT) which - a form of TTS - as a direct result of the AZUK vaccine. This is a rare syndrome characterised by blood clotting and insufficiency of platelets.

TTS can have life-threatening consequences including strokes, brain damage, heart attacks, pulmonary embolism (a blockage of an artery in the lungs) and amputation.

Although AstraZeneca has disputed the claims, a legal document submitted to the Court to clarify their defence in February this year stated that its vaccine “can, in very rare cases, cause TTS.”

At present, Leigh Day is not taking on further legal claims.  

Speaking to BBC Medical Editor Fergus Walsh, Sarah Moore said:

“I should say absolutely and clearly that this isn’t an anti-vaccination case. What we are doing here is acting for people who stood up and got vaccinated. So, by definition, they’re all pro-vaccination.  

“Remember this could have been anyone of us. We all stepped up for vaccination, the vast majority of us did the right thing. So, this is an act to support vaccine confidence, it’s an act for the benefit of everybody in society. Because I think one thing we can be certain of, unfortunately, is there will be more pandemic incidents, and we do need to have vaccines that work. But vaccines will only work if they have public confidence. Having a Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme that really works can work hand in hand with that, and can instill vaccine confidence. So, I’d say it’s urgent that we look at it.”