in cicp, claims are adjudicated by hrsa. whereas in vicp, they are adjudicated by the court of federal appeals. who pays for the appropriated funds whereas in vicp, it comes from taxes levied on manufacturers on each vaccine. before the covid-19 pandemic, cicp was a very small program due to its limited scope. claims have exploded know that white they distributed him even mandated countermeasures are covered under the program. as of january 1st of this year, the total number of claims ever filed was 13,000 106 and covid- 19 claims account for 12,854. nearly 96% of the total. because of the design and their limited resources adjudication of lames is a lengthy and burdensome process. it's also reap hoarded that 10,600 40 of these claims are currently pending or under review. commander grimes, how is the cicp structured to ensure fairness to petitioners and how does this compare to the traditional litigation system? >> thank you for that question. we administer the program by statute. we call the requester, they file a request

we at hrsa are carrying out these programs as directed by congress per thank you for the opportunity to be here today to discuss hrsa's work and we look forward to continue to work with congress on these critically important programs. >> thank you, all, very much for your testimony. i recognize myself for questions. i want to say a couple things before we start. i want everyone to understand, especially those serving on the government side, public reception -- perception becomes reality. because of that, words matter. words matter. for those of us, as members of congress, or as physicians at home, we are face to face with people. we are sitting face to face with somebody. we are not just looking at data on a sheet and making decisions. it needs to be done, what you are doing, but there is a difference. that is why i say words matter. let me give you an example. when you say safe and effective, that is relative in your mind. it is relative in your mind but it is not to the person at home. they hear 100% safe and 100% effective. that is what they hear. this is why words matter. dr. fou

and so working with transunion and also with hrsa's database, we've looked at a way to bring in able to process more applications to kind of stop the bottleneck if there was one. and we're continuing to do that. and so we appreciate your support. and so i'm sorry if i maybe got a little, you know, excited earlier. i'm glad you did. you know that that's how i am, right? that's good. we love what we do. absolutely. it's okay that we have this exchange because it's a good thing we're all on the same team. we really are. we're just trying to look into it and see it better, that's all. but we do meet quarterly on this information. and so we only have six months of data thus far. you know we're it's a march data is being compiled right now. and so i think we'll have another quarterly deirdre soon. and so hopefully at the end of this fiscal year, we'll have a full year's information and get our plan ready for the next year. yeah. and start tweaking it, making it better. perfect. thank you. well, thank you for thank you for the report. thank you for pushing i know thank you for pushing. and,