Liability for damage from vaccines

Mujović Zornić, Hajrija (2016) Liability for damage from vaccines. Pravni život: časopis za pravnu teoriju i praksu, 65 (9). pp. 303-320. ISSN 0350-0500

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Abstract

Mandatory immunization exposes individual vaccinees to private risks so that society may benefit from the reduced risk of infectious disease epidemics by avoiding the health care and opportunity costs associated with such diseases. Even those individuals whose bodies are immunologically incapable of suficient response to vaccination, or who have not been vaccinated (because they are not within the ambit of mandatory vaccination laws) benefit from vaccinees’ assumption of risk because the high levels of immunization in the population will provide protection. On the other hand, system for compensating for vaccine’ s medical injury illustrates the imagination and freedom of the courts in developing the rules they deem necessary to do justice in this complex area. The case law is characterized by considerable subtlety, as well as a tendency to assist the patient. Although some commentators have expressed the hope that patient safety initiatives, once they bear fruit, may lead to a fall in such cases, this seems unlikely. As noted, one of the findings underlying the patient safety movement is how rarely cases of medical injury lead to a compensation claim. It will at any rate be interesting to see how matters develop in the future.

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