ABSTRACT
Australia’s vaccination program was critical to the government’s response to the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Thousands of lives were saved. Ironically, however, the ranks of vaccine hesitants have swollen dramatically, not just for the covid vaccines, but for formerly routine vaccinations against, for example, measles. Vaccines can never be entirely risk-free, and it is often claimed that we need a no-fault compensation scheme for those hopefully rare instances in which a risk materialises. One might debate whether such schemes are necessary for moral, political or strategic reasons, but they are needed, and there are lessons to be learned from the government’s short lived no-fault compensation scheme covering the covid vaccines. This article examines the history and rationales of no-fault compensation schemes for vaccine damage, and suggests improvements modelled on the recently reformed Veterans’ Entitlements legislation. In particular, the requirements for establishing a causality linkage between a clinical condition and an antecedent vaccination need to be reduced.
Aronson, Mark I, Compensating for Vaccine Damage: Lessons from Covid-19 (February 27, 2026).
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