Transverse Myelitis COVID Vaccine Lawsuit: CICP, Not Courts

If you developed transverse myelitis after a COVID-19 shot, a transverse myelitis COVID vaccine lawsuit against Pfizer, Moderna, or Johnson & Johnson is almost certainly off the table. A federal law called the PREP Act shields the manufacturers, distributors, and administrators of COVID-19 vaccines from injury suits, and courts have been dismissing those cases on sight. Your only realistic route to compensation is a federal administrative program called the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP), and the numbers there are grim: of the 6,827 COVID-19 claims decided as of March 2026, just 95 were found eligible for compensation.¹

Why Courts Dismiss These Lawsuits

The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act grants broad legal immunity to everyone involved in developing, manufacturing, distributing, and administering medical countermeasures covered by an HHS declaration. COVID-19 vaccines are covered, and the declaration has been extended through December 31, 2029.² Courts are required to dismiss injury claims against covered persons.³

There is one narrow exception: “willful misconduct.” To get past it, you must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the manufacturer intentionally acted to cause harm, did so without legal justification, and disregarded a risk so extreme it would almost certainly outweigh any benefit. The suit can only be filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.³ No COVID-19 vaccine plaintiff has cleared that bar.

Courts have applied this immunity consistently. In Cabaniss v. Pfizer, the Ninth Circuit in February 2024 affirmed dismissal of a suit brought by a father whose minor son developed immune thrombocytopenia after a COVID-19 vaccine, holding that Pfizer qualifies as a “covered person” and that the plaintiff had not alleged willful misconduct.⁴ An earlier case, Kehler v. Hood, involved a transverse myelitis claim and was dismissed on the same PREP Act grounds.³

The CICP Is Your Only Compensation Route

Because the courts are closed, the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program run by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is the only place to seek money. It is not a court. HHS officials decide claims, you get one internal reconsideration if denied, and no judge can review the result.⁵

Several features of the program directly shape what a transverse myelitis claimant can expect:

You have one year from the date of vaccination to file. Miss it and the claim is barred.
The program does not pay attorneys’ fees. If you hire a lawyer, you pay out of pocket.
There is no COVID-19 injury table, so you must independently supply “compelling, reliable, and valid” medical evidence that the vaccine directly caused your transverse myelitis. A temporal connection (symptoms starting shortly after the shot) is not enough on its own.¹
Compensation covers only unreimbursed medical expenses and lost wages, with lost wages capped at $50,000 per year. There is no payment for pain and suffering.
The CICP pays last. Benefits are reduced by whatever private insurance or public programs have already covered.⁶

The one-year deadline is strict and unforgiving. HRSA data show roughly 2,576 COVID-19 countermeasure claims denied for missing it, and five of those were specifically transverse myelitis claims.⁷ If you are still inside your window, filing to preserve the claim matters even if you are still gathering records.

What the Numbers Look Like for Transverse Myelitis Claims

As of March 2026, HRSA had received 14,129 COVID-19 countermeasure claims. More than half were still pending. Of the 6,827 decided, 95 were found eligible, and the program had actually paid 34 claims totaling slightly over $6 million.¹ The denials fall into three roughly equal buckets: around 2,576 claims lacked required medical records, another 2,576 were filed too late, and 1,319 failed the causation standard.

HRSA does not publish which specific injuries made up the 95 eligible claims, so it is not publicly clear whether any transverse myelitis claimant has been paid. What is public are the denials. HRSA’s tables list at least nine transverse myelitis claims denied on the merits for failing the causation standard,⁸ plus the five denied for missing the deadline.⁷

Dr. Joel Wallskog’s case illustrates the pattern. A Wisconsin orthopedic surgeon who performed over 800 major surgeries a year, he developed leg weakness, numbness, and severe balance problems within a week of a December 30, 2020 Moderna dose. He was diagnosed with transverse myelitis involving a demyelinated spinal cord lesion and has been unable to return to surgery.⁹ He filed a CICP claim in May 2021. HRSA denied it in November 2022, finding the medical evidence insufficient to establish causation. His reconsideration request, filed the following month, was still pending with no response as of April 2024.¹⁰

What the Science Says About Causation

Causation is the hardest part of a CICP claim, and the evidence is mixed. A 2022 analysis of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System found 593 transverse myelitis reports after COVID-19 vaccination, with per-million-dose rates of 0.22 for Pfizer, 0.31 for Moderna, and 0.78 for Johnson & Johnson.¹¹ A nationwide Korean self-controlled case series published in late 2024 found the risk of acute transverse myelitis was 2.4 times higher in the six weeks after vaccination, with AstraZeneca at 3.3-fold, Moderna 2.6-fold, and Pfizer roughly 2-fold.¹² The Netherlands Pharmacovigilance Centre has classified transverse myelitis as a rare side effect of the AstraZeneca and Janssen vaccines.¹³

U.S. regulators have not formally declared a causal link for the mRNA vaccines, and HRSA is applying its “compelling, reliable, and valid” standard against that uncertain backdrop. In practice, strong CICP packages tend to include detailed medical records documenting the onset timeline, imaging confirming the diagnosis, specialist opinions ruling out other causes, and references to the published causation literature.

The Constitutional Challenge in Smith v. United States

Some claimants are trying to crack the system open from a different angle. In Smith et al. v. United States (Case No. 4:24-cv-00334), filed in April 2024, plaintiffs including Dr. Wallskog are asking a federal court to declare the CICP provisions of the PREP Act unconstitutional. The complaint describes the program as a “black hole” with no judicial review, no transparency about who decides claims or what evidence they consider, and no meaningful way to challenge a denial. The suit raises due process and separation-of-powers arguments.¹⁰ It remains active. A ruling for the plaintiffs could reshape the compensation landscape, but it would not help anyone who missed the one-year filing deadline in the meantime.

Why a Move to the VICP Would Matter

People injured by routine childhood vaccines use a different and much more claimant-friendly program, the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP). Claims there are decided by special masters in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims through formal hearings, either side can appeal to higher courts, the program pays attorneys’ fees for good-faith claims, and a vaccine injury table creates a presumption of causation for listed conditions.⁵ Transverse myelitis claims tied to flu and other VICP-covered vaccines have produced settlements and judgments running from roughly $60,000 to $400,000, often with ongoing annuity payments.¹⁴

Moving COVID-19 vaccines into the VICP requires three steps: a CDC recommendation for routine use in children or pregnant women (done in 2023), congressional legislation adding the excise tax that funds the VICP, and an HHS addition to the injury table. The tax step requires a law Congress has not passed.⁶ The Vaccine Injury Compensation Modernization Act (H.R. 5142), introduced in 2023, would have made the transfer and raised the $250,000 compensation cap that has not changed since 1988, but it did not advance.¹⁵

From the opposite direction, Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee introduced the End the Vaccine Carveout Act (S. 3853) in February 2026, which would eliminate the PREP Act liability shield for COVID-19 vaccines and let injured people sue manufacturers in state or federal court.¹⁶ It was referred to the Senate HELP Committee and is considered unlikely to advance.¹⁷

What to Do Now

If your injury is recent, the single most important thing is the one-year filing deadline. File a CICP claim to preserve the deadline even if your medical workup is incomplete. If the one-year window has already closed, the program will not help, and no suit against the manufacturer is viable while the PREP Act declaration remains in force through December 31, 2029.

If you are inside the window, build the strongest causation package you can: full neurology records, MRI imaging confirming the demyelinating lesion, documentation that other causes were ruled out, and a treating physician’s written opinion connecting the diagnosis to the vaccine. The 2024 Korean study and the Dutch regulator’s classification are useful supporting references, particularly for AstraZeneca and Janssen recipients. Because the CICP does not pay attorneys’ fees, consult a lawyer about cost before retaining one; some vaccine injury firms handle these matters on terms that account for the limited recovery.

And keep an eye on Smith v. United States and any renewed push to move COVID-19 vaccines into the VICP. Neither is a sure thing, but either would substantially change what a transverse myelitis claim is worth.

1
HRSA. CICP Data
2
CIDRAP. HHS Secretary Extends Duration of COVID PREP Act Declaration
3
HHS ASPR. PREP Act Questions and Answers
4
U.S. Supreme Court. Cabaniss v. Pfizer, No. 23-55297
5
HRSA. Comparison of CICP and VICP
6
Congress.gov. Congressional Research Service Report on CICP
7
HRSA. CICP Table 8 – Ineligible Claims
8
HRSA. CICP Table 7 – Claims Denied Compensation
9
React19. Joel Wallskog
10
Siri & Glimstad LLP. Smith et al. v. United States, Complaint
11
PMC. Neurological Events Reported After COVID-19 Vaccines
12
PMC. Self-Controlled Case Series Study of Acute Transverse Myelitis After COVID-19 Vaccination
13
Lareb. Overview of Transverse Myelitis After COVID-19 Vaccination
14
MCTLaw. Vaccine Injury Results by State
15
Congress.gov. H.R. 5142 – Vaccine Injury Compensation Modernization Act
16
Congress.gov. S. 3853 – End the Vaccine Carveout Act
17
GovTrack. S. 3853 – End the Vaccine Carveout Act