Fewer than 7,000 Americans have received federal compensation for vaccine-related injuries in the last three decades, which suggests that harm from immunizations is rare, reports The New York Times.
Three things to know:
1. Since 1988, the U.S. National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has only compensated 6,600 people for harm allegedly from vaccines. This is an extremely small figure when considering that "billions of doses of vaccines have been given to hundreds of millions of Americans" over that time period, according to NYT.
2. In about 70 percent of the cases involving compensation, officials did not find sufficient evidence that an inoculation caused the individual's harm.
3. The federal program has paid out $4.15 billion over 31 years, a figure many vaccine skeptics point to when questioning vaccine safety. However, health experts say the program's data proves vaccines are safe and well-studied before brought to market.