[carapace]

From your [0]:

> Whereas between 1978 and 1981 only nine product-liability suits were filed against DTP manufactur-ers, by the mid-1980’s the suits numbered more than 200 each year.6 This destabilized the DTP vaccine market, causing two of the three domestic manufacturers to with-draw; and the remaining manufacturer, Lederle Laborato-ries, estimated that its potential tort liability exceeded itsannual sales by a factor of 200.

So did vaccines suddenly become dangerous after 1980? Or did people develop irrational fear?

If you read further it plainly says that the "National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program" was started to mollify these anti-vaxxers to try to get them to vaccinate:

> significant number of parents were already declining vaccination for their children,10 and concerns about compensation threatened to depress vaccination rates even further.11 This was a source of concern to public health officials, since vaccines are effective in preventing out-breaks of disease only if a large percentage of the population is vaccinated.12

> To stabilize the vaccine market and facilitate compensa-tion, Congress enacted the NCVIA in 1986.