This is a very important decision because now are divergent opinions about the vaccination opportunity and in some cases, in different countries, vaccines had significant side effects even damaging people’s health. The Court of Justice said that “specific and consistent evidence” relating to timeliness, a prior healthy status, lack of family history and multiple cases may prove to be enough to justify decision. The opinion of a vaccine producer is also necessary to be known. Theis court’s decision provides guidance for all EU courts considering similar issues because the EU court is authorizing national courts to make such judgments about causality themselves without reliance on expert opinion.
The EU’s Court of Justice
Criticism about decision was manifested. An immediate reaction had Sanofi Pasteur which reiterated that its vaccines are safe and effective and protect against infectious diseases. A case from 2006 was invoked: a French man known as J.W. was vaccinated against hepatitis B in 1998 and developed multiple sclerosis a year later. He died in 2011. Before his death, he sued the pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur, which produced the vaccine, blaming it for his decline in health. At that time there was no scientific consensus supporting a causal link.
