Oct 10 (Reuters) – Kangaroo court. Star chamber. Potemkin village.
That’s how plaintiffs lawyers in a federal lawsuit filed on Tuesday describe the obscure U.S. government tribunal charged with adjudicating claims for compensation by thousands of people who say they suffered serious injuries from COVID-19 vaccines.
The lawsuit, filed in Louisiana federal court, alleges that the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) violates the 5th and 7th amendments of the U.S. Constitution by failing to provide “basic due process protections, transparency, and judicial oversight.”
The forum “is the equivalent of a black hole,” plaintiffs lawyer Aaron Siri, a name partner at New York-founded Siri & Glimstad, told me.
The plaintiffs — eight people who say they experienced debilitating side-effects from the COVID-19 vaccine, as well as React 19, a nonprofit organization for people who claim vaccine-related injuries, want to stop the government from forcing their claims into the CICP until due process safeguards are added. Those include the right to review evidence, obtain discovery, present expert witnesses and appeal adverse decisions.