The
LIABLE Act would trigger a historic legal reckoning — unleashing a
tsunami of lawsuits from millions of vaccine-injured Americans against
Pfizer and Moderna.
by Nicolas Hulscher, MPH
Representative Chip Roy has introduced the Let Injured Americans Be Legally Empowered (LIABLE) Act,
a bill that would strip COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers of the federal
legal immunity granted during the pandemic and allow millions of injured
Americans to pursue civil lawsuits.
During the COVID-19 emergency, the vaccines were classified as medical “countermeasures,” triggering protections under the PREP Act that effectively blocked lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies. Instead, injured victims have been forced into the federal Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP)—a little-known system that has paid only a tiny number of claims.
The
LIABLE Act would remove all federal laws that grant COVID-19 vaccine
manufacturers immunity from civil liability for harms caused by the
shots. It would also allow individuals to pursue lawsuits even if they previously filed claims through federal compensation programs, and the legislation would apply retroactively, meaning people vaccinated earlier in the pandemic could still bring legal action.
The
bill is co-sponsored by several members of Congress, including Thomas
Massie, Lauren Boebert, Clay Higgins, Paul Gosar, and Andy Biggs.
If the bill becomes law, the legal reckoning would be enormous.
A
tsunami of lawsuits from millions of vaccine-injured Americans would
slam vaccine manufacturers such as Pfizer and Moderna — potentially
large enough to drive the companies into bankruptcy.
Nicolas Hulscher, MPH
Epidemiologist and Foundation Administrator, McCullough Foundation