CHARLOTTE, N.C. — While a flu shot is the best way to keep you and your family safe, in rare cases, that vaccine and others can cause serious complications.
A Defenders investigation discovered a little-known federal program that will pay for your pain and suffering, medical bills, and lost wages. Public records show the average person who wins a claim receives roughly a half-million dollars.
Every time you get a shot, you pay a tax that funds a program that's paid thousands of people a combined $3.9 billion over the last 30 years. Those people all experienced serious side effects and injuries.
Doug DiNunzio is one of those people. After doctors treated him for pneumonia in 2014, he said his nurse demanded he get a flu shot before the hospital discharged him. DiNunzio said that flu shot nearly killed him.
"The pain was just massive,” he remembered.
He argues the flu shot caused Guillain-Barre syndrome, which is a disorder where his immune system attacked its own tissues, paralyzing him, forcing him to sit in a hospital bed for months, start rehab and then pay a pricey bill.
"There are side effects to vaccines that nobody knows about, and I found out the hard way,” he said. "Thank goodness there is this fund to help patients."
Luckily, his wife discovered the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Created by Congress 30 years ago as an alternative to suing drug makers and health care providers, the program’s paid more than 6,000 people $594,000 apiece on average, with most of the claims linked to flu shots, according to federal records.
Nancy Meyers is a vaccine attorney.
“It's not that the flu vaccine's any riskier than any of the other vaccines, it's just simply a matter of numbers,” she said. “There's just so many people getting the flu vaccine.”
Meyers has represented hundreds of victims at no cost to her clients. Instead, she’s paid by the federal program.
“There's been an uptick in the number of cases that have been filed with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims,” she said.
Dozens of people from North and South Carolina filed claims in recent months, including several from the Charlotte-area. Federal records show the number of successful cases hit a new high last year with more than 700.
There are downsides to this program. For one, it's no fault, meaning if a medical professional makes a mistake giving you a shot and it leads to side effects, he or she may never find out, get in trouble or get the training they need.
The process is also lengthy. It takes two to three years to resolve a case.
