Bioethics Grand Rounds -Anna Kirkland, JD, PhD

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Wed, June 28, 2017, 12:00pm
Location: 
UH Ford Auditorium

Anna Kirkland, JD, PhD Title –  "The Vaccine Injury Compensation Court and Its Critics"

Presenter –  Anna Kirkland, JD, PhD, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Women's Studies and Political Science, University of Michigan

Abstract: The so-called vaccine court is a small special court in the United States Court of Federal Claims that handles controversial claims that a vaccine has harmed someone. The government steps in as the defendant and vaccine manufacturers are protected from liability. In this court, lawyers, activists, judges, doctors, and scientists come together, sometimes arguing bitterly, trying to figure out whether a vaccine really caused a person’s medical problem. Drawing on her recently published book, Vaccine Court: The Law and Politics of Injury (NYU Press, 2016), Prof. Anna Kirkland will discuss the ethical controversies surrounding the vaccine court, from the perspective of anti-vaccine movement activists as well as from the mainstream.