Charge
vaccine damaged children

 

Courtesy of Express Newspapers

 

ANTHONY BEVINS POLITICAL EDITOR

Betrayal of the child victims of vaccination

Treachery is an everyday part of politics. But the betrayal of children who suffer brain damage following vaccination, reported in today's Daily Express, beggars belief. It is a standing disgrace to a civilised society that experts can pretend to measure a child's disability to a percentage point. Yet one brain-damaged victim of vaccination can be awarded a payment of £40,000, while another child is deemed to fall short of the necessary damage, as if you can go into WH Smith's and buy a rule to calculate such things. But the true treachery is that the 1979 Vaccine Damage Payments Act, under which the £40,000 is paid - or not - was initially introduced as a device to puncture pressure for proper compensation. The scheme was announced and then enacted by Labour Social Services Secretary David Ennals following publication of a Royal Commission report into civil liability and compensation for personal injury, chaired by Lord Pearson, a judge. The Pearson report said: "There is a special case for paying compensation for vaccine damage where vaccination is recommended by a public authority and is undertaken to protect the community." The report said that the payments scheme was fine - as far as it went. But it then went on to make the crucial distinction between such a payment and compensation. The payment, according to Mr Ennals, is designed "to provide a measure of financial support to people severely disabled as a result of vaccination, and to their families and others involved in looking after them." Compensation is different. It is designed to compensate for the loss of a full life, as well as to provide the necessary help the damaged child will require for the rest of his or her life. It would involve far larger sums than the paltry £40,000 maximum payment. The Pearson Report said: "Vaccination is recommended by the State for the benefit of the community, and where it causes injury, the State ought to provide compensation as part of the cost of providing protection for the community as a whole." Jack Ashley, the doughty campaigner for the disabled, put it another way in the Second Reading debate on the Payments Bill, in February, 1979. He said that vaccine-damaged children were a special case because, like the war disabled, their injuries were suffered for the community. "It is because they are wounded in the war against disease, a battle fought on behalf of the whole community, that this small group of children should be compensated," he told the Commons. He went on to underline the distinction made by Lord Pearson, who had recommended a change in the law, to enable parents to sue for compensation. Pearson accepted then, as it is accepted now, that there can be no proof that brain damage is a direct result of a vaccination. But he wanted the law changed so that parents could sue for damages, on a "balance of probabilities" that the damage was linked to the vaccination. That was the point of betrayal. Mr Ennals said such a matter would need "detailed consideration", which would take time. What he did not explain was that giving parents the ability to sue the Government would cost the Exchequer money. No one said it, but the Treasury does not issue blank cheques. "In view of the urgent need to assist vaccine-damaged children and those who cared for them, we decided on a scheme to provide the payment of a lump sum," Mr Ennals said. What he did not say was that the payments scheme was cheap at the price. Replying to the debate on the payments Bill, Alf Morris, Minister for the Disabled, told MPs there was still a good deal of work to do on the question of compensation: "The Bill is a particularly valuable measure because it provides a means of bringing help now." That interim measure is still in place more than 20 years later. And what happened to the concept of compensation, and the change in the law recommended by Pearson? What happened to the pursuit of justice? In a word, nothing. The general election took place three months later and Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister. At the end of June, two months after she took office, Mrs Thatcher was asked by Mr Morris what consideration she had given to the recommendations of the Pearson Commission. She said nothing specific about vaccine damage, but added: "My colleagues will be examining those aspects of this wide-ranging report for which they are responsible." The Conservative Cabinet minister responsible for questions of vaccine damage was Patrick Jenkin, Secretary of State for Social Services. In answer to the same question, on the same day, he told Mr Morris: "With regard to vaccine damage, the special scheme introduced under the Vaccine Damage Payments Act 1979 is now in full operation." At a stroke, the immediate became permanent; the interim was for ever.


© Express Group Newspapers
Published in The Daily Express, May 16th 2000