Update on the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, as amended, established the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP). The VICP went into effect on October 1, 1988 and is a Federal "no-fault" system designed to compensate individuals, or families of individuals, who have been injured by covered vaccines. From 1988 until July 2006, a total of 2531 non-autism/thimerosal and 5030 autism/thimerosal claims were made to the VICP.

An innovative advance to increase the use of the vaccine information statement.

Because many physicians do not use the Vaccine Information Statement (VIS), we created a revised statement that would alert the physician to the need to use the VIS. Even though the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) coordinated this evaluation, both the CDC and most of the State Board of Medical Examiners did not support this revision of the VIS. Despite the disinterest of the vast majority of the State Board of Medical Examiners, we would recommend that this updated VIS be implemented immediately to educate our society on the information in the VIS.