The $11 Million Dollars Given To This Girl Paralyzed From Flu Shot Just Not Enough
Sarah Behie’s life change forever back in 2010. She received a flu shot that year and her symptoms began merely three weeks following the date. After that, her life changed forever. She lost the use of her legs. She became unable to care for herself. She was soon diagnosed with Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological condition resulting from the flu shot. The disease causes partial to partial and sometimes full paralysis. Behie was no longer able to use her legs.
In 2014, Behie received a settlement from the Vaccine Injury Court (that’s 4 years later for those counting). It was for $11.6 million earmarked for the lifetime of treatment she’d now require, while she would receive $1 million for lost wages and “pain and suffering.” You can see the results from the decision here. It’s a settlement, for all intents and purposes, which stipulates that Behie is finished with any litigation over the matter. It seems like a grandiose amount, but the reality is that most all of it goes to her treatments and permanently damaged lifestyle. She gets very little in the way of personal compensation and what little she does get doesn’t even begin to heal the wounds of losing one’s ability to walk.
Because the government protects pharmaceutical companies, the pharmaceutical company really pays nothing here. The protected layer known as Vaccine Injury Court pays the tab while simultaneously protecting the interest of the pharmaceutical company. Imagine if all pharmaceutical companies were held accountable for their actions? Like most any company, risk in liability is something which fuels your interest to maintain a clean product that doesn’t harm anyone or anything. Civil settlements could add up for a business and eventually take them down. But not for pharmaceutical ventures, they have no risk, nothing to lose, when their product fails. They possess no incentive when it comes to protecting human health and welfare.
We need, as a community, to repeal vaccine injury immunity for pharmaceutical companies. We need to do this for the sake of all those who have been injured and all of those who will soon be injured. It makes no sense whatsoever that pharmaceutical companies act under an immunity not equally given to other businesses and verticals. It lends complete credence to the idea that pharmaceutical companies are nefarious.
When I think of Sarah. And I think of the struggle that she and her family have endured, I am angered by the idea that our own government would fight against her on behalf of a billion dollar pharmaceutical venture. The concept astounds me as much as it angers and saddens me. But being angry accomplishes little to nothing. So what can we do?
We have to be willing to fight back and seek out justice for all.
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