Onset intervals versus the Table windows
Live · 13,300 cases in database · latest filing 2026-06-08
How many days after vaccination symptoms began, as stated in the decision, for the main neurological and shoulder claims, against the onset windows the Vaccine Injury Table uses to presume causation. Two things to look for: whether adjudicated onsets actually cluster where the Table says they should, and how sharply the win rate falls once a claim lands outside the window.
Guillain-Barré syndrome
Cases with stated onset
252
150 won · 102 lost
Median onset, wins
12 d
days after vaccination
Median onset, losses
16 d
days after vaccination
Win rate inside vs outside window
73% / 33%
n = 169 / 83
Onset interval, Guillain-Barré syndrome
Table window for GBS after influenza vaccine: onset 3 to 42 days. Brighter bars fall inside the Table window.
SIRVA
Cases with stated onset
1,872
1,743 won · 129 lost
Median onset, wins
0 d
days after vaccination
Median onset, losses
0 d
days after vaccination
Win rate inside vs outside window
95% / 75%
n = 1,730 / 142
Onset interval, SIRVA
Table window for SIRVA: pain within 48 hours of vaccination. Brighter bars fall inside the Table window.
Encephalopathy / encephalitis
Cases with stated onset
139
49 won · 90 lost
Median onset, wins
4 d
days after vaccination
Median onset, losses
2 d
days after vaccination
Win rate inside vs outside window
36% / 34%
n = 107 / 32
Onset interval, Encephalopathy / encephalitis
Table windows: within 72 hours for DTaP/Tdap; 5 to 15 days for MMR. Shaded range covers 0 to 15 days. Brighter bars fall inside the Table window.
Transverse myelitis
Cases with stated onset
67
20 won · 47 lost
Median onset, wins
4 d
days after vaccination
Median onset, losses
15 d
days after vaccination
Table window
none
off-Table condition
Onset interval, Transverse myelitis
Not a Table injury; every claim must prove causation under Althen.
Brachial neuritis
Cases with stated onset
32
17 won · 15 lost
Median onset, wins
0 d
days after vaccination
Median onset, losses
12 d
days after vaccination
Win rate inside vs outside window
73% / 43%
n = 11 / 21
Onset interval, Brachial neuritis
Table window for brachial neuritis after tetanus-containing vaccines: 2 to 28 days. Brighter bars fall inside the Table window.
Why the onset window matters
The Vaccine Injury Table pairs each listed injury with a time window in which the first symptom must appear. Inside the window causation is presumed and the government must prove an alternative cause; outside it the petitioner carries the full Althen burden. The windows were set from case reports and the biology of each mechanism: a needle injury to the shoulder hurts within two days, an immune-mediated neuropathy such as Guillain-Barré syndrome takes days to weeks to develop, and a live-virus vaccine's fever peaks a week or two after the dose.
The distributions on this page are the program's own adjudicated record of when symptoms began, and they show two things at once: adjudicated onsets do cluster where the biology predicts, and the win rate drops steeply for claims that fall outside the window, which is the presumption doing its work. A claim with a stated onset on day 50 after a flu shot is not impossible, but it must be argued case by case.
Coverage. Onset is recorded only when the public decision states it, which is rare in stipulations and common in reasoned rulings, so these distributions over-represent contested cases. Days are as extracted by the AI pipeline from the decision text; values above ten years are excluded as extraction errors. Table windows are summarised; the Table itself carries vaccine-specific definitions and exclusions.