Dupuch-Carron v. Secretary of the Department of Health & Human Services, No. 20-1137 (Fed. Cir. 2020)
Annotate this Case
The parents were domiciled in Nassau, the Bahamas. Mother traveled to the U.S. five times while pregnant. A.R. was born in November 2015, in Nassau, and lived in Nassau for six months. He received his first two sets of vaccinations in Nassau, with no apparent adverse consequences. During his six-month well-child visit in Nassau, A.R. received his third set of eight vaccinations that are listed in the Vaccine Injury Table and were manufactured by companies with a U.S. presence. Days later, A.R. became ill. A.R. was flown to Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami, Florida, where he was diagnosed with hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, an autoimmune disease of the blood. He remained in Florida as an outpatient, returning to Nassau for Christmas, and months later, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. A.R. underwent treatment, at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and at Johns Hopkins before he died.
The Federal Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the parents’ Vaccine Act claim (42 U.S.C. 300aa). The parents asserted that the condition that caused A.R.’s death was a complication resulting from the treatment he had received for his vaccine-induced condition. The Act grants standing to a person who “received [a covered] vaccine outside the” U.S. if “such person returned" to the U.S. not later than 6 months after the vaccination. A.R., while living outside of his mother’s body, was never present in the U.S. before his vaccinations such that his entrance for medical treatment could be a “return.”
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.