The Conflict Analytics Lab (CAL), in collaboration with researchers from Oxford University, University College Dublin, and the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, has developed an online dispute resolution tool called Vaccine Mediator. This innovative tool will help governments process vaccine injury claims more efficiently, mitigate the need for civil proceedings, and help ease people’s vaccination hesitancy. It was launched today as part of CAL’s AI-powered legal aid platform MyOpenCourt.

Professor Samuel Dahan, CAL Director, says, “We are keen to address access to justice issues through the provision of a personal, easy-to-use, and cost-effective infrastructure for the Canadian public and our neighbours in the United States.” 

People who have experienced severe adverse reactions to an approved vaccine can use Vaccine Mediator to report possible side-effects. Vaccine Mediator then pre-assesses their eligibility for compensation, provides them with a self-report and a personalized, jurisdiction-specific next-steps guide, and enables them to submit a pre-drafted claim to the relevant government agency. The tool’s flagship feature guides users through the entire process from application to settlement by connecting them with law student mediators supervised by Dahan.

Compensation frameworks, like Canada’s Vaccine Injury Support Program released on June 1, set out levels of compensation based on the extent of harm suffered – a framework that has been particularly important amid the masses of people being vaccinated as protection from COVID-19. 

The most effective way to deploy a compensation structure, Dahan explains, is to complement it with a mediation system. “We’ve heard of doctors dismissing claims from patients who’ve reported serious side effects from approved vaccines,” he says. “Eventually more costly litigation could arise and really cause the government a serious problem.”

Transatlantic origins and student builders at work. The idea for Vaccine Mediator arose last winter when Dahan’s long-time research partner, Professor Duncan Fairgrieve of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, began working with Oxford University to develop a bespoke vaccine injury compensation plan for the U.K. The pressing need for such plans was being articulated by doctors, lawyers, and families world-wide. 

Helping to build Vaccine Mediator were seven gifted CAL students: Avinash Pillay, Solinne Jung, Yoonhyun Cho, Anushka Pharthyal, and David Liang (Law); Cindy Lin (Business); and Tobias Carryer (Computing Science). 

Pillay, project lead, explains, “We analyzed the survey design and underlying legal basis for each compensation scheme in use around the world to create a ‘universal’ self-reporting tool that can work with both present and future no-fault programs. Then we analyzed data sets from their self-reporting databases to find vaccine injury trends that can inform our AI on the correlation between a symptom and the vaccine dose in question. Our research assistants codified these trends, designed the infrastructure for Vaccine Mediator, and converted it to a script that could be implemented on MyOpenCourt.” 

Next steps for Vaccine Mediator 2.0. For the next iteration of Vaccine Mediator, CAL aims to use the self-reported data from the first, along with survey and curated medical data, to build and then operate a more robust screening system to assess claims’ validity. It will also identify potential remedies for injured persons.  

Vaccine Mediator will ultimately serve two additional roles: as a misinformation detection and rectification tool on vaccine side-effects and legal remedies; and as a predictive analytics system through which student mediators can assess whether the symptoms reported are medically recognized side-effects that could possibly affect people’s compensation eligibility.

As Dahan explains, “Information gathered and analyzed from the first iteration will be used to help users assess whether their symptoms are drawn from false information. We’ll help combat the spread of misinformation by providing real-time, up-to-date vaccine injury facts.”

About the Conflict Analytics Lab
A project of Queen’s Law and the Smith School of Business, the Conflict Analytics Lab (CAL) is a research-based consortium concerned with the application of data science and machine learning to dispute resolution. Conflict analytics is the process of extracting actionable knowledge from negotiation, mediation, and settlement agreements. 

Watch Professor Dahan speak about Vaccine Mediator in an interview with Lawyers and Mediators International.

By Lisa Graham