The cost of payments for successful claims are not included within the final estimates of the net present value, but the value of this transfer will still be estimated. The components to the calculation are exposure to a vaccine; the probability of severe adverse events; the probability of a successful claim; and the fixed claim amount.
Now I think I see it. Let me clarify for others who are as dense as me.
The table in question (shown in the post) is costing scenarios based on different potential numbers of severe harms. There is a column for different estimates of numbers of severe harms. Then next to it is a column projecting the proportion of claims for these harms that are likely to be successful. The expectation here seems to be fixed at 23%.
This seems very odd because the expectation would be that if you suffer severe harm then your claim would be successful - if the assessments are performed properly then the success rate should be 100%. The estimate of costs should be based simply on the number of severe harms - it is indeed very weird to expect that these will somehow be massively filtered down through the assessments.
Probability of a severe event and probability of a successful claim should be identical figures. That does suggest a bit of a problem!
It seems to me that the statement in 8.10: "There is no reason that a COVID-19 vaccine should be any less safe than a new vaccine entering our routine programmes, as it will have gone through the same safety requirements as any other new vaccine prior to being put on the market," might well conflict with the statement by Dr June Raine CBE, "we are transforming the MHRA, making the regulator an enabler of innovation. Our new Innovative Licensing and Access Pathway has established new partnerships to robustly and safely support all new medicines at any point in their development, and most important of all, involve patients in all aspects of decision-making." Perhaps not exactly "the same".
Why am I not surprised that 'managing claims' has cost more than actual compensation pay-outs! Is it because, given the practically blanket vaccination, any adverse effects had to be belittled so as not to frighten the public?
I wonder if the data, i.e. the actual reasons for complaining about adverse effects, regardless of allowing or denying them, is available to you brilliant geezers. After all, shouldn't at least doctors know why effects for people were serious enough to actually and officially complain about them?
Or has the Nation come to this, that the government regards us as potential scammers who'd do anything to get some money from the government?
Two thoughts. I read today the Jcvi? Has decided no more covid jabs for pregnant women. (1)they are not cost effective (2) nothing to do with safety for mum or unborn child (3) won’t come into effect til 2024.
Boy, I can’t wait til Bobby Kennedy takes the helm and blasts vaxx makers and provides the evidence of the harms imposed on people.
I suspect the problem is not so much the cash, as the propaganda outcome. The less claims that are successful, the more wonderful and super-duper the vaccine, making those who are complaining of ill-effects scroungers and ungrateful chancers, and those who supported it virtuous.
'The government's impact assessment of the Expansion of the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) indicates that the cost management plan was designed to ensure that only 25% of vaccine claims related to adverse events would be successful. In other words, 75% of claims would be unsuccessful.'
'Despite the medical screening safety net (presumably to stop spurious claims), they imposed a limit to the successful claims'
Sorry, old geezers, I can't quite follow.
This seems to suggest that government had some kind of quota for successful claims, exerting pressure on medical assessors to limit the number of claims they approved for purely budgetary reasons. Sorry Smithers, I know he's paralysed for life but we can't go over 37 for Basingstoke. But is that what you want to say?
That would be explosive. I'm no fan of this payment scheme, it seems a terrible evasion of reponsibility by all concerned. But I can't find this in the document you linked to in the section mentioned (p.7, 5.2). What is here seems(?) to be forecasts of the likely costs. Could you nail this down a bit? Where does it say that assessors may only approve a maximum 25% of the claims they assess (if that is what you are saying)?
So the criteria is based on worst case scenario numbers of the H1N1 monovalent vax circa 2009?
Great model to use except the monovalent didn't contain an adjuvant, was not mRNA, so was essentially a completely different class of vax. Never mind the lack of understanding of multi component adjuvant effect over time/exposure.
So I think this means it means that it cost about £20,000,000 to agree that out of almost 16,000 claims four should be successful (because of adverse effects from Pfizer/ Moderna).
The remaining claims have yet to be assessed, don't involve Pfizer/ Moderna, don't qualify for assessment, or fail (on the balance of probability) to meet the threshold of either 'causation' or 'disability'. Somebody is making a lot of money here, but it's not the disabled.
If you look at the checklist on page 36/37 it is easy to see that the odds are stacked against the claimant from the start, especially if they experience a rare adverse event or one where there is a temporal delay between administration and diagnosis (eg an autoimmune or difficult to diagnose condition).
Here I think we need to be careful to accept peer reviewed trial data and peer reviewed observational data. The former because we know that harms were hidden and know how this is done eg August Roux, Maddie de Garay. The latter because some very large population based observational studies used for this purpose have potential methodological flaws which may obscure certain signals eg pooling data which obscures specific signals like myocarditis risk in young men.
One of my earliest yellow cards was a person who developed a high fever soon after AZ1 then a very specific rare neurological disorder. I cannot see any peer reviewed literature supporting causality for this condition but from the sequence of events I don’t think it was a coincidence either. I don’t think causality would be accepted in such a case, no matter what my suspicion is as it is such a high bar to pass for causality. Most people have some risk factors for something and so if the product worsens or accelerates a pre-existing disease it looks like there is no chance of compensation. Maybe this sort of thing will eventually show up in national stats or maybe it won’t.
Description and scale of key monetised costs by ‘main affected groups’
"Estimates for the present value of the costs as a result of the addition of COVID-19 to the act only include the administrative costs. These costs are estimated to be £630k in the scenario where there are no successful claims; between £630k to £2.4m in scenarios with successful claims from one round of vaccinations and £6m in the scenario with future rounds of vaccination. Payments are direct transfers to members of the public, so they are not included in the headline costs, but are still a financial cost to Government. These transfers are estimated to equal to £0 in the scenario where there are no successful VDPS claims; between £3.2m to £13.2m in scenarios where there are successful claims from one round of vaccination and £63.2m in the scenario with future rounds of vaccination (3.5% discount rate). Due to the high level of uncertainty the central estimate Scenario 3 has been taken as the best estimate."
Well said Sir Humphrey Appleby. "These costs are estimated to be £630k in the scenario where there are no successful claims;"
As I see it from the evidence of Myo- and pericarditis, heart attacks in the young, curious new white protein in the circulatory system, strokes and all manner of other stuff, where did this lot come from? The present 10% or so and rising of excess death statistics is an indicator of something very serious, yet we have no visible investigation! The bulk of UK people were vaccinated with Phizer/Moderna MRNA, yet there were nearly no serious outcomes, except about 100,000 excess deaths per year, timed with the start of the vaccinations! It is also proven that the vaccines cause immune system damage and reduced effectiveness. Is this not a serious outcome? In the opposite to normal, these statistics do not lie, they have no pre-sorting or limitations on data, and are very simple.
I decided to make this a new comment rather than a reply.
The Covid situation was unusual and dangerous we can agree probably. There was an urgent need for interventions that might mitigate a catastrophe.
At least I was aware that my vaccine had not been through the usual due diligence that might be expected for a normal drug/vaccine in normal times. Companies and governments had done their best to come with a proposition for us citizens. I thought the risk was less than catching Corona and being treated by a broken hospital system and so I chose for the vaccine. Everybody I know had the same opportunity to choose and some chose not to be vaccinated.
Forcing people to vaccinate or lose their job, as indeed happened, is an ethical dilemma. Still I would argue each individual had the right and the obligation even to choose for themselves. It is not as if the uncertainty was hidden or being lied about. Nor is it the case that there were/are no other jobs - we live in an era of full employment. We were being informed from several directions and we all made a choice for ourselves.
It is all very clever being wise after the event but none of us knew how this pandemic might unfold. Fortunately the pandemic expired: in my opinion largely thanks to the Pfizer/BionTech vaccine. The Oxford vaccine was withdrawn early and still nobody is looking into the connection between Long Covid and the AZ vaccine despite some of the correlations being blatant.
You were talking about "rights of redress". Such a right assumes someone was setting out intentionally to cause you harm. I do not see the slightest evidence for such a suspicion. Everybody was batting for the team - including AZ and Oxford.
Our systems in Europe are established to support the handicapped and no doubt many have been handicapped by Covid. Let the system do its job and please stop looking for scapegoats among the few pharma companies who stepped up and the many governments who were trying to give wise advice.
See page 8 on the impact assesmment and figure 1
The cost of payments for successful claims are not included within the final estimates of the net present value, but the value of this transfer will still be estimated. The components to the calculation are exposure to a vaccine; the probability of severe adverse events; the probability of a successful claim; and the fixed claim amount.
Now I think I see it. Let me clarify for others who are as dense as me.
The table in question (shown in the post) is costing scenarios based on different potential numbers of severe harms. There is a column for different estimates of numbers of severe harms. Then next to it is a column projecting the proportion of claims for these harms that are likely to be successful. The expectation here seems to be fixed at 23%.
This seems very odd because the expectation would be that if you suffer severe harm then your claim would be successful - if the assessments are performed properly then the success rate should be 100%. The estimate of costs should be based simply on the number of severe harms - it is indeed very weird to expect that these will somehow be massively filtered down through the assessments.
Probability of a severe event and probability of a successful claim should be identical figures. That does suggest a bit of a problem!
The real cost of vaccine damage is evident in the rise of personal independence payments.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/personal-independence-payment-statistics-to-april-2024/personal-independence-payment-official-statistics-to-april-2024
It is easier to claim, harder to be declined and no need to mention vaccine.
PIP is not easy to claim, by any means, but yes, easier than VDP.
Absolutely appalling - but so not surprising.
It seems to me that the statement in 8.10: "There is no reason that a COVID-19 vaccine should be any less safe than a new vaccine entering our routine programmes, as it will have gone through the same safety requirements as any other new vaccine prior to being put on the market," might well conflict with the statement by Dr June Raine CBE, "we are transforming the MHRA, making the regulator an enabler of innovation. Our new Innovative Licensing and Access Pathway has established new partnerships to robustly and safely support all new medicines at any point in their development, and most important of all, involve patients in all aspects of decision-making." Perhaps not exactly "the same".
Why am I not surprised that 'managing claims' has cost more than actual compensation pay-outs! Is it because, given the practically blanket vaccination, any adverse effects had to be belittled so as not to frighten the public?
I wonder if the data, i.e. the actual reasons for complaining about adverse effects, regardless of allowing or denying them, is available to you brilliant geezers. After all, shouldn't at least doctors know why effects for people were serious enough to actually and officially complain about them?
Or has the Nation come to this, that the government regards us as potential scammers who'd do anything to get some money from the government?
Two thoughts. I read today the Jcvi? Has decided no more covid jabs for pregnant women. (1)they are not cost effective (2) nothing to do with safety for mum or unborn child (3) won’t come into effect til 2024.
Boy, I can’t wait til Bobby Kennedy takes the helm and blasts vaxx makers and provides the evidence of the harms imposed on people.
Looking forward to the day Kennedy provides any evidence for his worst fears.
I suspect the problem is not so much the cash, as the propaganda outcome. The less claims that are successful, the more wonderful and super-duper the vaccine, making those who are complaining of ill-effects scroungers and ungrateful chancers, and those who supported it virtuous.
'The government's impact assessment of the Expansion of the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) indicates that the cost management plan was designed to ensure that only 25% of vaccine claims related to adverse events would be successful. In other words, 75% of claims would be unsuccessful.'
'Despite the medical screening safety net (presumably to stop spurious claims), they imposed a limit to the successful claims'
Sorry, old geezers, I can't quite follow.
This seems to suggest that government had some kind of quota for successful claims, exerting pressure on medical assessors to limit the number of claims they approved for purely budgetary reasons. Sorry Smithers, I know he's paralysed for life but we can't go over 37 for Basingstoke. But is that what you want to say?
That would be explosive. I'm no fan of this payment scheme, it seems a terrible evasion of reponsibility by all concerned. But I can't find this in the document you linked to in the section mentioned (p.7, 5.2). What is here seems(?) to be forecasts of the likely costs. Could you nail this down a bit? Where does it say that assessors may only approve a maximum 25% of the claims they assess (if that is what you are saying)?
So the criteria is based on worst case scenario numbers of the H1N1 monovalent vax circa 2009?
Great model to use except the monovalent didn't contain an adjuvant, was not mRNA, so was essentially a completely different class of vax. Never mind the lack of understanding of multi component adjuvant effect over time/exposure.
Completely ridiculous.
Was Yes Minister just a comedy or was it made compulsory civil service training?
So I think this means it means that it cost about £20,000,000 to agree that out of almost 16,000 claims four should be successful (because of adverse effects from Pfizer/ Moderna).
The remaining claims have yet to be assessed, don't involve Pfizer/ Moderna, don't qualify for assessment, or fail (on the balance of probability) to meet the threshold of either 'causation' or 'disability'. Somebody is making a lot of money here, but it's not the disabled.
Looking at the WHO causality assessment criteria for AEFI it is not surprising to see that so few people meet the bar for causality: https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/340802/9789241516990-eng.pdf?sequence=1
If you look at the checklist on page 36/37 it is easy to see that the odds are stacked against the claimant from the start, especially if they experience a rare adverse event or one where there is a temporal delay between administration and diagnosis (eg an autoimmune or difficult to diagnose condition).
Here I think we need to be careful to accept peer reviewed trial data and peer reviewed observational data. The former because we know that harms were hidden and know how this is done eg August Roux, Maddie de Garay. The latter because some very large population based observational studies used for this purpose have potential methodological flaws which may obscure certain signals eg pooling data which obscures specific signals like myocarditis risk in young men.
One of my earliest yellow cards was a person who developed a high fever soon after AZ1 then a very specific rare neurological disorder. I cannot see any peer reviewed literature supporting causality for this condition but from the sequence of events I don’t think it was a coincidence either. I don’t think causality would be accepted in such a case, no matter what my suspicion is as it is such a high bar to pass for causality. Most people have some risk factors for something and so if the product worsens or accelerates a pre-existing disease it looks like there is no chance of compensation. Maybe this sort of thing will eventually show up in national stats or maybe it won’t.
From the impact assessment:
Description and scale of key monetised costs by ‘main affected groups’
"Estimates for the present value of the costs as a result of the addition of COVID-19 to the act only include the administrative costs. These costs are estimated to be £630k in the scenario where there are no successful claims; between £630k to £2.4m in scenarios with successful claims from one round of vaccinations and £6m in the scenario with future rounds of vaccination. Payments are direct transfers to members of the public, so they are not included in the headline costs, but are still a financial cost to Government. These transfers are estimated to equal to £0 in the scenario where there are no successful VDPS claims; between £3.2m to £13.2m in scenarios where there are successful claims from one round of vaccination and £63.2m in the scenario with future rounds of vaccination (3.5% discount rate). Due to the high level of uncertainty the central estimate Scenario 3 has been taken as the best estimate."
Well said Sir Humphrey Appleby. "These costs are estimated to be £630k in the scenario where there are no successful claims;"
As I see it from the evidence of Myo- and pericarditis, heart attacks in the young, curious new white protein in the circulatory system, strokes and all manner of other stuff, where did this lot come from? The present 10% or so and rising of excess death statistics is an indicator of something very serious, yet we have no visible investigation! The bulk of UK people were vaccinated with Phizer/Moderna MRNA, yet there were nearly no serious outcomes, except about 100,000 excess deaths per year, timed with the start of the vaccinations! It is also proven that the vaccines cause immune system damage and reduced effectiveness. Is this not a serious outcome? In the opposite to normal, these statistics do not lie, they have no pre-sorting or limitations on data, and are very simple.
I found this document online and it seems Nadhim Zahawi signed off the costings of Vax damage payments?
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukia/2021/20/pdfs/ukia_20210020_en.pdf
I decided to make this a new comment rather than a reply.
The Covid situation was unusual and dangerous we can agree probably. There was an urgent need for interventions that might mitigate a catastrophe.
At least I was aware that my vaccine had not been through the usual due diligence that might be expected for a normal drug/vaccine in normal times. Companies and governments had done their best to come with a proposition for us citizens. I thought the risk was less than catching Corona and being treated by a broken hospital system and so I chose for the vaccine. Everybody I know had the same opportunity to choose and some chose not to be vaccinated.
Forcing people to vaccinate or lose their job, as indeed happened, is an ethical dilemma. Still I would argue each individual had the right and the obligation even to choose for themselves. It is not as if the uncertainty was hidden or being lied about. Nor is it the case that there were/are no other jobs - we live in an era of full employment. We were being informed from several directions and we all made a choice for ourselves.
It is all very clever being wise after the event but none of us knew how this pandemic might unfold. Fortunately the pandemic expired: in my opinion largely thanks to the Pfizer/BionTech vaccine. The Oxford vaccine was withdrawn early and still nobody is looking into the connection between Long Covid and the AZ vaccine despite some of the correlations being blatant.
You were talking about "rights of redress". Such a right assumes someone was setting out intentionally to cause you harm. I do not see the slightest evidence for such a suspicion. Everybody was batting for the team - including AZ and Oxford.
Our systems in Europe are established to support the handicapped and no doubt many have been handicapped by Covid. Let the system do its job and please stop looking for scapegoats among the few pharma companies who stepped up and the many governments who were trying to give wise advice.