The Ministry of Health and Welfare yesterday said it would file an appeal against a recent court ruling that the ministry should compensate the family of a teenager who died nearly three years after he received a flu vaccine.
The teenager, surnamed Chen (陳), in 2009 received a vaccine against the influenza A virus subtype H1N1. He subsequently developed a number of symptoms, including acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, which his parents claimed were side effects of the vaccine, and died of septicemia in 2012.
The Taipei High Administrative Court ruled that a link between Chen’s death and the vaccine could not be ruled out, and ordered the ministry to pay NT$2.08 million (US$63,745) in compensation to his family.
At the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday, Vaccine Injury Compensation Program convener Chiu Nan-chang (邱南昌) called the ruling into question.
“We made the judgement [that the teenager’s death was not linked to the vaccine] based on careful examination and review, which was overruled by the court,” Chiu said.
Chiu, the head of Mackay Memorial Hospital’s Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, said the program is comprised of 21 committee members with medical and judicial backgrounds, as well as other specialties, and operates independently.
“If this type of situation reoccurs, who is to determine the casual relations of medical issues in the future?” Chiu asked. “Will the courts resolve all medical disputes and drug injury relief?”
“The judge has overreached into the field of medicine,” Chiu said, adding that the judge should have respected the group’s judgement, or at least have consulted other medical specialists before delivering a ruling.
CDC Director-General Steve Kuo (郭旭崧) said the agency expressed its deepest condolences, but was also concerned of the greater “disasters” that might occur if it was to accept the ruling: the disbanding of the program and threats to national disease prevention.
“Statistics show that among the deaths caused by influenza each year, about 95 percent of victims were not vaccinated,” Chiu said. “If people begin to fear getting a flu vaccine because of this case, it would have a significant impact on public health.”
“The ministry has decided to file an appeal. We will not give in to this judge, who has ignored scientific evidence and overruled science,” he added.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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