Trial Magazine, the national publication of the American Association for Justice, has published a new article by mctlaw founding partner Altom Maglio in its June 2026 issue. The article, “Restoring Remedies for Serious Vaccine Injuries,” examines how the PREP Act shields COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers and administrators from liability while leaving injured people with almost no path to compensation.
In the article, Maglio explains that the only compensation available to people injured by COVID-19 vaccines runs through the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP). The CICP requires claims within one year of injury, pays nothing for pain and suffering, decides every claim internally at HHS, and bars judicial review. Several federal courts of appeal have questioned whether the program offers an adequate substitute for a civil lawsuit, and constitutional challenges to PREP Act immunity are now pending.
Maglio argues that a better system already exists. The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) has compensated people injured by covered vaccines for four decades. In the article, he lays out the specific steps that would open the VICP to people injured by COVID-19 vaccines, along with overdue reforms that would strengthen the program itself.
This is not the first time Maglio has written on this issue for a national legal audience. In 2024, Law360 published his article “A New Way Forward for COVID Vaccine Lawsuit Immunity,” which detailed how adding COVID-19 vaccines to the VICP would provide real compensation for injured people while preserving, and even strengthening, liability protections for manufacturers and administrators.
Altom Maglio is a founding partner of mctlaw, with offices in Washington, DC, Sarasota, FL, and Seattle, WA. The firm represents people nationwide in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.
