VICP Registry — Statistics

Name: VICP Registry — U.S. Vaccine Injury Compensation Program decisions
Creator: VICP Registry
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

Live · 12,052 cases in database · latest filing 2026-03-05

The VICP Registry compiles every public decision of the U.S. Vaccine Injury Compensation Program from 1988 — the year the program was established under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act — to the present. Source documents are pulled from GovInfo.gov and CourtListener; structured fields are extracted by a Gemini-based pipeline and reviewed in batches.

This page surfaces aggregate cuts of the dataset — settlement amounts, time-to-decision benchmarks, and the compensation rate split between cases that ride the Vaccine Injury Table presumption vs. cases argued under Althen v. HHS. The numbers update on every page load; charts and tables reflect the current state of the database.

Total awarded

$1.19B

paid across 9,306 compensated cases

Median award

$80K

half of awards smaller, half larger

Off-Table win rate

48%

303 of 631 contested-causation cases

Median time to decision

21 mo

filing → final judgment

Why the headline rate is misleading

77% overall VICP compensation rate (9,306 of 12,052 cases)

That headline number is dominated by Table claims — mostly SIRVA after a flu shot, which has been on the Vaccine Injury Table since 2017. Table claims carry a presumption of causation: the petitioner doesn't have to prove the vaccine caused the injury, just that it fits the Table criteria within the prescribed onset window. So the rates split sharply by claim type:

94% Table claims compensated · 48% Off-Table claims · 63% excluding SIRVA

The Off-Table number (48% — 303 of 631) is the most honest signal of program friction. Those are cases where the petitioner had to argue the vaccine caused the injury under the Althen three-prong test (medical theory, logical sequence of cause-and-effect, proximate temporal relationship) and convince a Special Master. That's roughly half the apparent overall success rate. Pending cases not yet ruled on: 432.

Explore the data

By condition

Compensation rates per alleged condition

Timeline

Filings per year, 1988–present

Pediatric

Filings on the well-baby visit calendar

Time to decision

How long cases take

Research findings

Tier system, label arbitrage, cross-program patterns

By vaccine

Compensation rates per vaccine

Awards

Settlement amounts and distribution

Deaths

Death cases breakdown

Frequently asked questions about the VICP

Answers built from public Court of Federal Claims decisions and the live registry data.

What is the VICP?

The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) is a no-fault federal program established by the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. It handles petitions for compensation related to certain vaccine-caused injuries, filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and adjudicated by Special Masters of the Office of Special Masters. Compensation is funded by an excise tax on covered vaccines.

What is the overall VICP compensation rate?

Of 12,052 VICP cases on record, 9,306 were compensated — an overall rate of 77%. That number is dominated by Vaccine Injury Table claims, which carry a presumption of causation. When restricted to Off-Table claims (cases requiring the petitioner to prove causation under the Althen v. HHS three-prong test), the compensation rate is 48% — 303 of 631.

Has the VICP ever compensated for autism?

Per published Special Master decisions in the registry, autism-spectrum petitions have a low compensation rate compared to other alleged conditions. The Office of Special Masters has consistently held since the Omnibus Autism Proceedings (Cedillo, Snyder, and Hazlehurst — 2009-2010) that no general vaccine-autism causal theory has been established. Petitioners have, in isolated cases, been compensated for vaccine-induced encephalopathy with autism-spectrum features (most famously by government concession in the 2008 Poling case, involving aggravation of an underlying mitochondrial disorder); the Special Masters have repeatedly distinguished such concession-based outcomes from a holding that vaccines cause autism.

What is the median VICP award?

Among compensated VICP cases with disclosed amounts, the median award is $80K. The mean is higher because of long-tail awards for severe lifelong injuries, which can exceed $5M when life-care plans and annuities are included. See /stats/awards for the full distribution.

How long does a VICP case take?

The median time from petition filing to final decision is 21 months. Table claims and government-conceded cases resolve faster (often under 12 months); contested Off-Table cases that go to full hearing on causation can take 3-5 years. See /stats/duration for the distribution.

What conditions has the VICP compensated for brain damage from vaccines?

Brain-damage-adjacent injuries appear in the registry under several clinical labels: encephalopathy, encephalitis, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM), seizure disorder, and developmental delay/regression. Encephalopathy is a Vaccine Injury Table-listed injury for DTaP and certain other vaccines, with strict timing criteria. The historical reason VICP exists is the 1980s wave of DPT-encephalopathy lawsuits.

Is this site affiliated with HHS or HRSA?

No. The VICP Registry is an independent public index maintained by Stefan Snell. It is not affiliated with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, the Health Resources and Services Administration, or any government agency. Source documents are public court records compiled from GovInfo.gov.

How accurate are the AI summaries?

Case summaries and structured fields are extracted by Google Gemini from the raw court text. The pipeline includes batch human review for high-volume case classes. Errors are possible — every case page links to the original court documents and a plain-text source bundle so readers can verify.