Steve Cicala is the first person to file a COVID-19 related claim with the Countermeasure Injury Compensation Program (CICP). This relatively new program which operates under the Health and Human Services department is roughly 10 years old. It currently holds roughly $30 billion in compensation for individuals who file successful claims.

At the start of the pandemic, Steve Cicala’s wife, Susan, 60, was admitted to the hospital with a persistent cough, fever, and body aches. At the time, neither Cicala nor his wife knew that she was battling the Coronavirus. After she was admitted to the hospital, she was given the drugs hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin and was later placed on a ventilator. Eleven days after she was admitted to the hospital, Cicala succumbed to the virus as she went into cardiac arrest.

Although CICP is very stringent in rules and processes for approving a claim (since its inception, over 90% of the cases that have been filed have been denied), if Cicala's claim is successful, he could expect to receive roughly $367,000 in compensation. Cicala shares, “There’s nothing that’s going to bring her back, but obviously with our two children and now two grandchildren, if there’s something that we could do to help them out, that would be nice.”

CICP Falls Under Scrutiny for Claim Approval

The program was created in part to help protect vaccine makers and pharmaceutical companies from any liability or lawsuits so that these companies can continue making critical drugs to protect against disease spread. In the era of COVID-19, vaccine makers including Moderna Inc, Pfizer Inc, BioNTech SE, and Johnson & Johnson would be protected from lawsuits due to negative side effects or injury caused by the COVID-19 vaccine.

While consumers can't go after pharmaceutical companies for vaccine-related injuries, the CICP is one avenue that can offer assistance to the few who are successful in their claim pursuits. The Health Resources and Services administration explains that CICP was created to aid individuals who "experience a serious injury from a covered countermeasure." CICP defines a countermeasure as a “vaccination, medication, device, or other item recommended to diagnose, prevent or treat a declared pandemic, epidemic or security threat.“

While the bones of the program are straightforward, the details of who submits a successful claim and how much they get compensated for it are kept secret as the program does not publish the details of claims submitted and claims approved.

According to Peter Meyers, a vaccine specialist and professor at George Washington University Law School, CICP has approved 29 claims totaling $6 million in vaccine-related injuries. Many of these claims center around individuals who developed Guillain-Barre syndrome after receiving the H1N1 flu vaccine. Meyers shares that the fund has seen at least 48 claims related to the coronavirus. Twenty-one are related to the coronavirus vaccine while three claims center around COVID-19 deaths. Since its inception, roughly 500 claims have been submitted, but over 90% of them have been denied.

Jonathan Levitt is the attorney working with Cicala. Levitt shared with Reuters that Cicala’s claim is one of a dozen claims that have been filed with the program. Levitt shares that he has at least 200 other clients who are seeking to file a claim because of failed COVID-19 treatment. The majority of the claims revolve around the controversial COVID-19 treatment drug, hydroxychloroquine. In Cicala's treatment, she was given both hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin which according to echocardiogram records were the culprits behind her irregular heart rhythms that led to cardiac arrest. Levitt explained of the drugs, “those two in combination are known to be deadly now.”

Though the fund was established to be a sort of protection for individuals suffering from vaccine injuries, there has been question regarding the lack of transparency in claim submissions. Claims submitted in the past that revolve around the H1N1 vaccine had the backing of substantial data from years of research.

With the latest claims revolving around coronavirus vaccines, questions arise as to whether or not there is enough information on the vaccine and treatment for claims to be analyzed appropriately. The lack of transparency has also brought up the question of whether there is too much interest in protecting health care providers and pharmaceutical companies. Meyers explains that “It’s important to have openness to gain the trust of the American public and to counter the vaccine hesitancy.”