Search the government’s own vaccine injury website, and come to your own conclusions.

Proponents of the government’s vaccine regime continually point to the sterling safety record of vaccines in an attempt to ensure worried parents that nothing will happen to their children. Those who merely question the safety of the government schedule are marginalized by the mainstream media through any number of pejorative names.

What government health officials do not talk about is the existence of the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. After a string of lawsuits in the 1980s imperiled vaccine profits, vaccine manufacturers threatened to leave the US market. The government responded by relieving vaccine manufacturers of all legal liability when patients suffered an adverse reaction from a vaccine. The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) was set up in 1988 as a substitute to give support to families who were harmed by vaccines.

Information on the number of claims made to the VICP, and the number of those claims that were compensated, through 2013, are available on the government’s website. Although the numbers likely understate the reality, the website is an interesting resource for those seeking information on vaccines.

The government data show that, since 1988, the VICP has awarded almost $3 billion to over 4,000 families who were harmed by vaccines—even though the window to file a claim is so tight that many families miss it, and it is often hard to demonstrate a connection between the shot and the ensuing health issue. In addition, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) receives an average of 30,000 reports each year, 13% of which are considered “serious”—that is, associated with “disability, hospitalization, life-threatening illness, or death.” The government’s Center for Disease Control (CDC) dismisses these reports because they are not “peer reviewed,” but also refuses to provide the peer review needed.