Vaccine court
The VICP covers all vaccines listed on the Vaccine Injury Table maintained by the Secretary of Health and Human Services; in 2007 the list included vaccines against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough), measles, mumps, rubella (German measles), polio, hepatitis B, varicella (chicken pox), "Haemophilus influenzae" type b, rotavirus, and pneumonia. From 1988 until 8 January 2008, 5,263 claims relating to autism, and 2,865 non-autism claims, were made to the VICP. 925 of these claims, one autism-related (see previous rulings), were compensated, with 1,158 non-autism and 350 autism claims dismissed; awards (including attorney's fees) totaled $847 million. The VICP also applies to claims for injuries suffered before 1988; there were 4,264 of these claims of which 1,189 were compensated with awards totaling $903 million.
John Ring (surgeon)
An attack on cow-pox treatment made by Benjamin Moseley, physician to the Chelsea Hospital, brought from Ring a refutation, Then in August 1799, he met Edward Jenner, and they became friends. From 1799 Ring devoted most of his professional life to the cause of vaccination. He had leading medical men in London sign a document acknowledging that cow-pox was a much milder and safer disease than inoculated smallpox. He went to Ringwood in 1808 at the head of a deputation to investigate some supposed failures of vaccination; feeling was running so high that the deputies carried pistols.