About Us

NVIC's Notable Accomplishments & History



The non-profit charity, National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), is an educational (501c3) organization founded in 1982 by parents whose children were injured or died following DPT vaccine reactions. With headquarters located in Sterling, Virginia, NVIC’s mission is to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and to secure informed consent protections in U.S. vaccine policies and laws.

NVIC is publicly supported by individual donations from citizens and private foundations and does not accept funding from pharmaceutical corporations, government agencies or non-governmental organizations promoting one-size-fits-all vaccine policies and mandatory use of vaccines.

National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986

NVIC's co-founders worked with Congress on the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. This historic law acknowledged that vaccine injuries and deaths are real, and that vaccine safety reforms are needed in the vaccination system. NVIC's co-founders were responsible for securing the vaccine safety informing, recording, reporting and research provisions in the law that required doctors and other vaccine providers to:

  • give parents vaccine benefit and risk information before their children are vaccinated;
  • keep written records of vaccine manufacturer names and lot numbers for each vaccination given;
  • enter serious health problems following vaccination into a child's permanent medical record; and
  • report serious health problems following vaccination to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS).

In addition, the law acknowledges that the vaccine injured and their families should have access to a federally operated vaccine injury compensation system that offers a less expensive, less traumatic, more equitable and expedited administrative alternative to filing a vaccine injury lawsuit in civil court. The 1986 Act created a federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) that, by 2023, had awarded over $5 billion dollars in vaccine injury compensation to individuals, who were injured or died after receiving federally licensed and recommended vaccines mandated by state governments for children to attend school.

NVIC has monitored and been critical of the government’s implementation of the 1986 law, including congressional amendments and federal agency rule making changes that have removed or substantially weakened the law’s vaccine injury compensation and vaccine safety and research provisions, which included a 1987 amendment that removed medical malpractice liability for doctors and other vaccine administrators. A 2011 US Supreme Court decision effectively removed all civil liability for vaccine injuries and deaths from vaccine manufacturers, including harm caused by product design defect (failure to make a safer vaccine). Learn more about the 1986 law and the VICP.

NVIC Vaccine Safety and Informed Consent Advocacy

NVIC's Notable Accomplishments & History

Since 1982, NVIC has monitored vaccine research, development, regulation, policymaking and legislation and advocated for the raising of government standards for vaccine licensure and policymaking. In 1996, NVIC realized a major goal when, after 14 years of public advocacy, the FDA finally licensed a purified pertussis vaccine (DTaP vaccine) for American babies. In 1999, the live virus polio vaccine (OPV) that can cause vaccine strain polio paralysis was replaced by the inactivated polio vaccine to prevent vaccine strain paralytic polio cases in America.

For more than three decades, NVIC co-founders, staff and volunteers have:

  • Served as consumer representatives on the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines, the National Vaccine Advisory Committee, the Institute of Medicine's Vaccine Safety Forum, the FDA Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, the Vaccine Policy Analysis Collaborative, and other public engagement projects;
  • Provided informed public comment to federal agencies and vaccine advisory committees, and in response to federal rule making proposals that affect vaccine safety and the legal right to exercise informed consent to vaccination;
  • Testified in Congress and in state legislatures on vaccine science, policy, law and the human right to informed consent to medical risk taking.

NVIC Educational Conferences

In 1989, NVIC held an International Scientific Workshop attended by pediatric neurologists, epidemiologists, neuroimmunologists, molecular biologists, bacteriologists and neuropathologists to evaluate the neurological complications of pertussis and the whole cell pertussis vaccine. In 1997, NVIC held the First International Public Conference on Vaccination, which brought together doctors, scientists, health officials, lawyers, ethicists, journalists and parents from 34 states and five countries to the U.S. Capitol to present new scientific data about vaccines and diseases and discuss the biological mechanism of vaccine-induced injury, death and chronic illness. NVIC also sponsored international public conferences on vaccination in 2000, 2002 and 2009  in the Washington, D.C. area.

2020 Fifth International Public Conference on Vaccination.  In October 2020, NVIC sponsored the Fifth International Public Conference on Vaccination: Protecting Health and Autonomy in the 21st Century. Like the previous educational conferences NVIC sponsored between 1997 and 2009, the 2020 conference was scheduled in late 2018 to be held in 2020 in a hotel in the Washington, D.C. area. In early 2020, when coronavirus pandemic-related social distancing regulations and travel restrictions were implemented in the U.S. and other countries, NVIC staff quickly pivoted to the production of a pay-for-view virtual conference held online.

Like NVIC’s previous conferences on vaccination, the 2020 conference provides information and perspective on long-standing and emerging scientific, medical policy, legal and ethical issues related to health and vaccination that empowers individuals to make well-informed decisions for themselves and their children. The conference features video presentations by 51 speakers, including scientists, physicians, holistic health professionals, authors, attorneys, and civil and human rights activists, who openly explore controversial issues about vaccination and health.

NVIC Publications, Website and Social Media

Since 1982, NVIC has published print information about vaccines and diseases for the purpose of preventing vaccine injuries and deaths and protecting informed consent to vaccination. In 1995, NVIC launched the first consumer operated website publishing information on vaccination and diseases and dedicated to instituting vaccine safety reforms in the vaccination system.

Today, NVIC publishes both printed brochures, posters, guides and special reports, as well as vaccine information that can be downloaded from NVIC.org. Visit the Ask 8 Vaccine Information Kiosk to download information. Some of this information is translated into Spanish.

NVIC also publishes two free online publications: the monthly NVIC Newsletter and a weekly newspaper journal, The Vaccine Reaction, which are emailed to subscribers and feature news about vaccine-related news and special events. NVIC's posts breaking vaccine news 24 hours a day on our social media outlets -  X (formerly Twitter), Telegram, Minds, Rumble, Parler, Gab and MeWe.

NVIC co-founder and president Barbara Loe Fisher has published comprehensively referenced written and video blog commentaries since 2006, most of which are archived on Barbara Speaks Out on this website.

NVIC Vaccine Choice Advocacy

NVIC launched the free online NVIC Advocacy Portal in 2010, a communications and legislative advocacy network that electronically connects registered users with their own legislators and keeps them informed in real time about vaccine-related bills introduced in their own state that either threaten or expand the human right to exercise voluntary vaccine decisions. The NVIC Advocacy Portal helps users work in their own state to protect freedom of thought and conscience and the legal right to obtain flexible medical, religious, and conscientious belief vaccine exemptions in vaccine laws.

NVIC Counseling and Vaccine Reporting Programs

NVIC has operated a Vaccine Reaction Registry since 1982. Vaccine reaction reports can also be posted with photos on NVIC’s International Memorial for Vaccine Victims. Those families, who have suffered harassment when trying to make informed, voluntary vaccination decisions for themselves or their children, can publicly post their experiences on NVIC’s Cry for Vaccine Freedom Wall. For those who have suffered vaccine failure, reports may be submitted for posting on our Vaccine Failure Wall.

Conducting Your Own Research

The majority of information published on NVIC’s website is referenced with links to other websites and resources providing information about vaccination. In support of informed decision-making, NVIC encourages everyone to research and become fully informed about the complications of infectious diseases and complications of vaccines and consult one or more trusted health care professionals before making a decision about vaccination.

NVIC is 100% Funded by Public Donations

NVIC is not funded by government, corporations, foundations or institutions that promote mandatory use of vaccines. NVIC is 100% funded by public donations.

As the oldest charitable consumer-operated organization publishing information on vaccines and diseases in the U.S., NVIC co-founders launched this website (formerly known as 909shot.com) in 1995. Since 2006, we have sponsored the user-friendly MedAlerts website, which offers the public an easy way to search the federally operated Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

In 2010, we launched the NVIC Advocacy Portal to provide residents of every state with information about vaccine-related bills that threaten or expand the ability to make voluntary decisions about vaccination so they can take action to protect their rights. The Vaccine Reaction journal newspaper was established in print form in 1995, and was re-launched as a digital publication in 2015 to encourage an “enlightened conversation about vaccination, health and autonomy.”

Please give generously today to help support NVIC’s four websites and our four-decade commitment to public education and defending civil liberties, including freedom of thought, speech, conscience and informed consent to medical risk taking.

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NVIC is 100% funded by donations.
 

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