Ineffective vaccine, no compensation for damage resulting from the development of the disease

The legal indemnity is not triggered in the event that the vaccine did not work and the person contracting the disease causing serious damage to health. The Court of Cassation clarified this with ordinance no. 20539 deposits today reported for the “Massimario“, accepting the appeal of Ministry of Health.

At the center of the quarrelthe request first from the mother and then (once of age) directly from the son, of the indemnities provided for by law 210/1992 for the disease contracted despite the administration of the so-called vaccine. trivalent (measles, mumps and rubella). At first instance, the Court of Macerata and the Court of Appeal of Ancona had agreed with the applicant.

However, the Ministry has lodged an appeal claiming that the second instance judge would have erred in considering «the causal link between the reported damages and the vaccine when, on the other hand, the vaccination had proved ineffective ». In fact, again in the opinion of the recurrent party, the lack of response to the vaccine, linked to individual factors, could not be equated with an adverse reaction causally linked to it. Nor could the case envisaged by paragraph 4 of art. 1 of the law n. 210 of 1992, which referred to the particular situation in which unvaccinated subjects contract the disease by coming into contact with recently vaccinated people and, therefore, suitable for spreading the virus. Moreover, since it was mumps, the risk of spreading the virus by vaccinated subjects did not exist.

For the IV Civil Section the appeal hits the mark. As clarified in the case of polio, but the reasoning is “extendable” to this dispute by “identity of ratio”, the right to compensation for damages resulting from compulsory vaccination “is recognized only in cases where there is a causal link between the administration of the vaccine and the damage suffered by the passive subject of compulsory health treatment “. “Consequently, the applicant’s request to draw up theineffectiveness of the vaccine administered, and not the direct causal link between the latter and the disease subsequently contracted “. In fact, the law n. 210 of 1992 introduced compensation in favor of subjects damaged by irreversible complications due to compulsory and even simply recommended vaccinations.

According to the art. 1, paragraph 1: “Anyone who has reported, due to vaccinations required by law or by order of an Italian health authority, injuries or infirmities, from which a permanent impairment of psycho-physical integrity has resulted, has the right to compensation from the State, under the conditions and in the ways established by this law“. Therefore, the text states that the compensation was recognized by the law “only where there is a causal link between the administration of the vaccine and the damage suffered by the passive subject of the compulsory health treatment”.

«Il generated fact of the right to compensation – the reasoning continues – is, therefore, thevaccine inoculation that it later proved to be harmful to the subject “. Thus, both the literal interpretation of the rule and systematic considerations” lead to the exclusion of the right to compensation for those who contract the disease after having undergone vaccination as a consequence of ineffectiveness of the same on their organism “.

While art. 1, paragraph 4, of law no. 210 of 1992, recalled by the territorial court, does not support the thesis of the countercurrent, but, on the contrary, that of the Ministry of Health. In fact, the Supreme Court affirms, it provides that: “The benefits referred to in this law are due to non-vaccinated persons who have reported, as a result and as a consequence of contact with a vaccinated person, the damage referred to in paragraph 1; (…)“. The provision, therefore, is applicable only if the unvaccinated has been infected by a vaccinated person; evidently still contagious despite the medical treatment received. In the present case, however, also wanting to equate the position of the countercurrent with that of an unvaccinated personthe proof would be missing of the origin of the infection from another person subjected to the trivalent Cd vaccination.