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The U.S. government-run COVID-19 vaccine injury compensation program in March paid out benefits for seven injuries, including one death.
Overall, as of April 1, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has compensated just 51 of 6,944 claims decided with the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP). The program has denied 6,847 claims.
The death benefit paid in March was only the second death benefit CICP has paid out since the start of the pandemic, researcher Wayne Rohde, author of two books on the federal vaccine injury compensation program, reported on Substack.
The program has “a staggering denial rate exceeding 98%,” Dr. Joel Wallskog, React19 co-chair and a Wisconsin orthopedic surgeon injured by the COVID-19 vaccine, told The Defender.
“These are not isolated administrative issues,” Wallskog said. “They are evidence of a system designed to fail the very people it was created to help.”
The CICP was established under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) of 2005.
Under a PREP Act declaration, issued during an official public health emergency such as the COVID-19 pandemic, manufacturers of vaccines and other countermeasures associated with a health emergency are exempt from liability for serious injuries or death caused by their products — except in cases of willful misconduct.
That means people who believe they were injured by one of these products can’t sue the manufacturer in a regular court. Instead, they can apply to the CICP for compensation — but they must file the claim within 12 months of being injured.
Compensation limited to ‘serious injuries or deaths’
Additionally, the CICP program limits coverage to “serious injuries or deaths.”
The federal government defines “serious physical injury” as injuries that are “life-threatening,” result in “permanent impairment of a body function or permanent damage to a body structure,” or require “medical or surgical intervention to preclude permanent impairment of a body function or permanent damage to a body structure.”
Attorney Ray Flores said the program’s definition of “serious physical injury” is “arbitrary.” Flores represents two women injured by COVID-19 vaccines who, in December 2025, sued HRSA for denying their injury claims.
Their lawsuit, supported by Children’s Health Defense (CHD), alleges the CICP violated their constitutional rights by setting eligibility criteria so restrictive that neither woman qualifies for compensation.
For those who meet the deadline, clear the “serious” injury bar and are awarded compensation, CICP compensation is limited. By law, the program can reimburse only those medical expenses not compensated by insurance or other programs.
It can also reimburse for lost employment income (capped at $50,000 per year) and a one-time benefit of $370,000 for deaths, according to TrialSite News.
The program does not reimburse legal fees or provide compensation for pain and suffering.
CICP ‘an adequate alternative remedy’ for COVID vaccine injuries, HHS says
In a lawsuit filed Feb. 2 against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Jeanne Materese accused HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of violating federal law by failing to add COVID-19 vaccines to the Vaccine Injury Table after the CDC recommended them for routine use in children.
Because the vaccines aren’t listed on the table, they aren’t covered under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) — though they are covered under the CICP.
Although it’s also challenging to obtain compensation through the VICP, that program has longer timelines for filing, different standards for recognizing injuries and more generous compensation for injured people.
Materese argued that the failure to move the COVID-19 vaccines to the VICP is preventing her from seeking compensation.
HHS moved to dismiss the case. The agency recognized that the plaintiff wouldn’t be able to file a claim with CICP because she missed the 12-month deadline, but maintained that the CICP provided a good solution for those injured by COVID-19 vaccines.
“Although Plaintiff may be unable to pursue a CICP claim based on the relevant limitations period, the CICP is an adequate alternative remedy for pursuing compensation for injuries attributed to COVID-19 vaccination,” HHS wrote.
COVID countermeasure claims account for 96% of total CICP claims
According to the latest CICP data, COVID-19 countermeasures account for approximately 96% of the 14,756 total claims filed with CICP since 2010.
Although the Biden administration declared the COVID-19 public health emergency over in May 2023, President Joe Biden extended the liability shield for COVID-19 countermeasures through the end of 2029.
The term of that liability shield has not changed under Kennedy.
“Token payments to a select few prove the government’s complete disregard for the participants in its mass human experiment,” said Flores, who, in addition to representing vaccine injury victims in their suit against HRSA, also represents plaintiffs in another CHD-funded lawsuit — one that challenges the PREP Act.
“But the bigger problem is the PREP Act protection that remains in effect through the end of the decade. When this protection could end tomorrow with the stroke of a pen and doesn’t, leadership is pharma’s pawn, and we’re the dust on the board.”
‘Dramatic increase in the number of dismissals’
Compensation for COVID-19 claims is notoriously low relative to other vaccines. According to Rohde, the swine flu vaccine — the first vaccine compensated by the program, created in 2010 — had 30 payments totaling $6,080,840.98.
In the U.S., about 72 to 81 million people received that shot.
For the COVID-19 shot, taken by hundreds of millions of Americans, the total payout to 51 people has been only $6,940,169.12, and the number of claims made has been orders of magnitude higher.
Rohde said the 2026 trends in the COVID-19 vaccine payout numbers show “a dramatic increase in the number of dismissals.”
The data show that the program dismissed 2,590 of the claims because they weren’t filed before the deadline.
Wallskog said most people don’t even know about the program. “Lack of awareness alone has suppressed applications,” which makes the program “structurally incapable of delivering fair and just compensation.”
He said for those who do discover the program, its “well-documented denial rate serves as a clear warning: do not expect relief here.”
Rohde said the recent data raised a more significant concern — 2,636 claims were dismissed because people didn’t submit the requested medical records.
The missing “medical records” reason was “very problematic,” he said, because many injured people face major challenges getting a proper diagnosis. Symptoms can take time to understand and many medical practitioners don’t know or recognize the link between the vaccine and their patients’ symptoms.
“Patients often spend months — if not years — searching for competent care. Under these conditions, a one-year filing deadline is not just unreasonable, it is exclusionary,” Rohde said.
Because patients often need to consult numerous providers to get a proper diagnosis and treatment, their “medical records become extensive, fragmented and difficult to obtain — particularly for individuals already suffering from cognitive and physical impairments.”
The CICP offers no support for compiling and submitting the records, or for legal assistance, he said. In contrast, the VICP — which compensates injuries from vaccines listed on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s childhood immunization schedule — recognizes the complexity of these cases and provides coverage for attorney fees.
Even though the CICP is explicitly authorized to compensate individuals — or their families for deaths caused by COVID-19 vaccines, the publicly available data don’t clearly identify compensated deaths.
The only indication that a claim may have been tied to a death is the payout amount.
Rohde identified the first CICP death claims compensated in August 2024. The program uses a predetermined death benefit chart to determine the awards. He found that a $370,376 benefit for myocarditis in 2024 was likely compensation for a death.
In the April compensation data, there is one payout for that same amount, for vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia, which Rohde surmised is likely the result of a claim filed on behalf of someone who died.
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‘Let’s be clear: this is a failed program’
Wallskog said the one-year deadline and the documentation requirements that Rohde flagged are “symptoms — not the cause — of the program’s failure.”
He said the program is structured and administered in a way that makes it dysfunctional, with 90% of the CICP budget going to administrative overhead, rather than to injured people.
Among the small number of approved claims, most compensation is minimal — less than $5,000.
“This is not meaningful compensation. It is, at best, token acknowledgment,” he said. “Let’s be clear: this is a failed program.”
Wallskog called on federal health officials under the Trump administration to address the long-known and well-documented failures of the CICP to make good on promises made to COVID-19 vaccine-injured people.
“The time for explanations has passed. The time for action is now.”
Related articles in The Defender
- Nearly 10,000 Claims Pending as COVID Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Faces Possible Budget Cut
- ‘Insult to Kangaroo Courts’: Lawsuit Takes Aim at Federal Program for Compensating COVID Vaccine Injuries
- 1 in 10 Adults Seriously Injured by a COVID Vaccine, New Survey Says
- Over 1.5 Million People Who Reported COVID Vaccine Injuries Shut Out From Applying for Compensation
- Government Pays $2.5 Million to Person Injured by COVID Vaccine — But 98% of Claims Are Denied
