November 14, 2025, marked the 39th anniversary of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA), Congress’s attempt to address vaccine injuries associated with school mandates.
The 1986 act, signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, removed liability from vaccine manufacturers and established a no-fault vaccine injury compensation program—an acknowledgment that children and adults would inevitably be harmed by vaccines. Lobbied for by vaccine manufacturers on the brink of bankruptcy from vaccine injury-related litigation and by parents desperate for resources to care for severely vaccine-injured children, the authors of NCVIA sought to ensure safer vaccines while simultaneously eliminating a key market indicator of product safety: liability.
This effort to promote vaccine safety came with an explicit recognition that vaccines are inherently unsafe.
On October 9, 1986, Congressman Henry Waxman (D, CA), the author of NCVIA, wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post:
“. . . these vaccines, which we take for granted now, are not completely safe. Some children will suffer adverse side effects for a few days. Some will face severe reactions, even mental retardation, permanent disability or death. . . .The particular tragedy and the paradox of vaccine injuries is that these children really are hurt in the line of public duty. But unlike veterans who are injured in war or workers injured on the job, these children have no place to file their grievances or turn for care. The schools and clinics and private pediatricians who administer the shots are not prepared to take care of lifetime injury.”
Congressman Waxman’s frank admission of vaccine injury, and the acceptance of collateral damage tied to school vaccine mandates, is shocking and indicative of a broad consensus that it’s okay to sacrifice our children for the fantasy that we can and should live without ever getting sick.
His op-ed continued:
“. . . vaccines are a unique product. They are required for all children. . . . They are inherently unsafe. And we cannot afford to be without them.”
Historical records show that vaccine injury was broadly accepted as the necessary price for reducing disease, a sentiment that continues today. Congressional hearings in the mid 80s identified the pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine as “the most controversial” of the seven vaccines routinely given at the time. A 1985 Washington Post article stated:
“[Pertussis] vaccine… has side effects that range from soreness to—in rare cases—brain damage… about 54 cases a year… Brain damage to 54 children a year is the cost of saving hundreds of other children’s lives… States impose this danger on all children… Few suffer, but some suffer grievously.”
Another article from May 1986 observed:
“WHOOPING COUGH vaccine. . .harms some [children], a few severely and even fatally. The tragic cost of protecting the majority presents pressing questions of public equity. . .”
The NCVIA deliberations echo Shirley Jackson’s short story The Lottery, in which a seemingly ordinary ritual culminates in the sacrifice of an innocent ‘winner’ for the perceived good of the community.
Although it was widely acknowledged at the time of NCVIA’s passage that the DPT vaccine could cause serious harm, the pertussis-containing vaccines Infanrix and Daptacel were nevertheless licensed years later using DPT as the “placebo” in clinical trials, providing no meaningful assurance of product safety. Underscoring the seriousness of these concerns, a retrospective study published in 2018 found that “DTP-vaccinated children tended to have higher mortality than DTP-unvaccinated children.”
Fourteen years after NCVIA, in December 2020, Pediatrics summarized 20th-century mortality data:
“Between 1900 and 1998, the death rate from the major infectious diseases declined 99.7%… Nearly 90% of the decline in infectious disease mortality occurred before 1940, when few antibiotics or vaccines were available.”
Vaccines contributed to some decline in disease, but historical records indicate improvements in “socioeconomic conditions, water treatment, food safety, organized solid waste disposal, and public education about hygienic practices” played a far more significant role. How many children continue to be harmed because lawmakers conclude—implicitly or explicitly—that a certain number of casualties is an acceptable cost for the greater good?
By prioritizing safety over liberty, Congress enacted a policy that justified harm while ignoring the historical evidence that true public health rests not on mandates, but on freedom.
Thirty-nine years after the passage of the NCVIA, the lessons of that era remain urgent. A society willing to sacrifice a few for the perceived benefit of many has lost sight of the fundamental dignity owed to every individual. Informed consent is not a luxury, nor a negotiable privilege, it is a basic human right.
It is time to correct course. The restoration of informed consent must become a national priority, and The Medical Freedom Act provides the framework to protect individuals from coercion, discrimination, and institutional overreach.
For further information on this topic and more, see our Guarding Liberty page, just for you, here. We stand ready to be a resource as you consider this critical legislation.
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
― Benjamin Franklin
Guarding Liberty, Stand for Health Freedom’s lawmaker newsletter, provides essential insight into the current forces influencing medical freedom, constitutional rights, and informed consent.
