Michael R. Hugo, Esq., an attorney who also handles vaccine-injury cases for Hugo and Pollack, LLP of Boston, says the statute of limitations for people with diabetes seeking financial compensation for their injuries is completely a matter of state law. Also, in most states, there is a period of time where the statute of limitations does not even begin to run until the child reaches the age of majority for that state. Shoemaker agrees with Hugo that statutes of limitation for states are quite variable. Frank Destefano of the CDC says, based on scientific evidence, any person with type 1 seeking monetary damages for vaccine-related injuries would have a very weak case. In order to go about proving the vaccine is the underlying cause of their developing type 1 diabetes, Hugo says a person would need competent medical testimony, as they will have to actually prove cause.
Shoemaker feels the VICP's table of injuries is controversial.
Shoemaker says if an injury is not listed under the table of injuries, it can still be proved to be related. Shoemaker agrees that Classen's published literature might be the only evidence proving that vaccines are the underlying cause of a person developing type 1. He does feel that diabetes will not be listed under the table of injuries any time soon and that the CDC will fight Classen's data with all its might. The government fought their own data about swine flu vaccine causing GBS and after manipulating the data in totally improper ways they couldn't make the association go away. NIH Chief Refutes Classen's Claims Ethan M. Shevach, MD, chief of cellular immunology at the laboratory of immunology at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, says Classen was a postdoctoral fellow in his laboratory for three years in the early 1990s.