by tim » Tue Jun 09, 2026 4:31 pm
The 1979 revision of the International Classification of Diseases eliminated all cause-of-death classifications associated with vaccination.⁴ Previous versions of the ICD had listed “prophylactic inoculation and vaccination” as a separate cause-of-death category, with subcategories for deaths caused by specific vaccines. The 1979 revision and every subsequent update removed these. Since 1979, medical certifiers have had no code to assign vaccine-related deaths to. They are required, by the structure of the manual they use, to assign the death to a different category.
The asymmetry this produces is striking. The same federal government that maintains the ICD code structure also operates the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, established by the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. As of May 2021, the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program had awarded more than $4.5 billion in compensation for vaccine injuries and deaths.⁷ The federal government, in one capacity, compensates families for deaths caused by vaccines. The same federal government, in another capacity, removes the cause-of-death code that would allow those deaths to be officially documented in mortality statistics. The compensation requires the cause; the mortality statistics deny it. Both are operated by the same institution.
This structure has been in place for forty-six years. Every infant death that has occurred in temporal proximity to vaccination since 1979 has been recorded under a different code than the one that would name what happened. SIDS, “accidental suffocation,” “unknown cause,” “unspecified viral disease,” “diseases of the blood,” “cardiac arrest,” and “shaken baby syndrome” are among the 130 categories that have absorbed these deaths.² The codes operate as containers. The volume of what they contain has grown as the schedule has grown.
[quote] The 1979 revision of the International Classification of Diseases eliminated all cause-of-death classifications associated with vaccination.⁴ Previous versions of the ICD had listed “prophylactic inoculation and vaccination” as a separate cause-of-death category, with subcategories for deaths caused by specific vaccines. The 1979 revision and every subsequent update removed these. Since 1979, medical certifiers have had no code to assign vaccine-related deaths to. They are required, by the structure of the manual they use, to assign the death to a different category.
The asymmetry this produces is striking. The same federal government that maintains the ICD code structure also operates the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, established by the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. As of May 2021, the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program had awarded more than $4.5 billion in compensation for vaccine injuries and deaths.⁷ The federal government, in one capacity, compensates families for deaths caused by vaccines. The same federal government, in another capacity, removes the cause-of-death code that would allow those deaths to be officially documented in mortality statistics. The compensation requires the cause; the mortality statistics deny it. Both are operated by the same institution.
This structure has been in place for forty-six years. Every infant death that has occurred in temporal proximity to vaccination since 1979 has been recorded under a different code than the one that would name what happened. SIDS, “accidental suffocation,” “unknown cause,” “unspecified viral disease,” “diseases of the blood,” “cardiac arrest,” and “shaken baby syndrome” are among the 130 categories that have absorbed these deaths.² The codes operate as containers. The volume of what they contain has grown as the schedule has grown.[/quote]