Reviewing the law reviews.

• Author: Youngdale, Elizabeth M.

Law Review Highlights:

In the United States, vaccinations against communicable diseases have changed the face of public health over the last century. But while the general population has benefited greatly from the introduction of mandatory vaccination programs in this country, a number of people each year suffer from the negative consequences that vaccines sometimes cause. Weighing the benefits of vaccines against the ill-effects that result on occasion continues to challenge the government and the court system. Two recent articles address vaccine-related injuries and evaluate the ways in which those who are harmed by vaccinations can and should be compensated.

In Balancing Consumer and Industry Interests in Public Health: The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and Its Influence During the Last Two Decades, the authors consider how the government's attempt to provide a no-fault solution to the question of how those harmed by a vaccination should be remunerated has worked since its inception. (1) The article takes an in-depth look at the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), explaining its operation and funding. It also considers some of the criticisms levied against the program over the years since it was founded. The VICP provides a consistent way to compensate people who have suffered ill-effects from vaccines using a table of vaccinations and expected injuries that have been determined to be caused by those particular inoculations. Although the program has been moderately successful in providing compensation in a timely manner, there have still been criticisms based on the fact that the program's process is often slower than would be optimal. Additionally, changes to the Vaccine Injury Table have often been perceived as ambiguous, which makes using the table effectively to predict outcomes problematic. In spite of this, the article concludes, due to the threat of avian flu and other infectious diseases, plans such as these will continue to be viable ways to redress harms done by vaccines.

A second article, When Science Is Silent: Examining Compensation of Vaccine-Related Injuries When Scientific Evidence of Causation Is Inconclusive, looks at addressing harms done by vaccines not currently included in the VICP. (2) The authors first examine the VICP, comparing causation under the program with the traditional view of causation used in the court system. The article then uses an empirical study of demyelinating disorders and their handling under the program to show how courts deal with causation where there is general uncertainty as to the causal link between the vaccine and the injury. The article concludes with a discussion of the authors' interpretation of the findings from the study and how those findings help predict outcomes for court cases on demyelinating disorders as they are connected to the use of a vaccine.

The following list is a selective bibliography of current law review literature thought to be of interest to civil defense counsel.

U.S. and International

Damages

Linda Allen, A New Theoretically-Grounded Microstructure Trading Model for Calculating Damages in Shareholder Class Action Litigation?, 12 STAN. J.L. BUS. & FIN. 61 (2006).

James. J. Anton & Dennis...