When Susan Lawson of Colorado hears parents declaring, unequivocally, that everyone should vaccinate their children because it's perfectly safe, she says it feels like a punch in the gut." That's because she's seen another side of the story: Her daughter Julia, now 9, was left with permanent brain damage - an injury acknowledged by a federal court payout - after receiving her MMRV (measles-mumps-rubella-varicella) shot when she was a year old. Renee Gentry, a Washington D.C.-based vaccine-injury attorney ... believes that injuries, however rare, should be a part of the public conversation. "Vaccines are incredibly important, but we should treat them as they are - man-made pharmaceuticals that carry risk. The fear is that if you talk about that at all, people won't vaccinate." But not discussing it, she says, is to deny reality. "To say there is nothing unsafe about vaccines - when you can have a reaction to an aspirin - makes no sense." She adds, "Informed consent is the underlying basis of medical care, and parents shouldn't have to be afraid to raise questions with their doctors. Because yes, vaccine injuries are rare, but they do exist." Since the first Vaccine Injury Compensation Program claims were filed in 1989, nearly 4,000 compensation awards have been made, totaling nearly $3 billion; nearly 10,000 claims, meanwhile, have been dismissed. In 2014, the court made 365 awards totaling more than $223 million. Lawson, meanwhile, has been forever changed by ... becoming one of the rare statistics.