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.
1947 New York City smallpox outbreak
On April 4, 1947, New York City Mayor William O'Dwyer and Commissioner of Health Israel Weinstein informed the public about the smallpox outbreak and announced plans to vaccinate everybody in the city. At the time, the New York City Health Department had 250,000 individual doses of vaccine and 400,000 doses in bulk. O'Dwyer called an emergency meeting with the heads of the seven American pharmaceutical companies involved in vaccine production and asked them for a commitment to provide 6 million doses of vaccine. The pharmaceutical companies accomplished the task by putting the vaccine into round-the-clock production. Additional vaccine doses were obtained from the Army and Navy.