Pour une approche pragmatique du principe de précaution au service des victimes de dommages corporels : le cas des victimes du vaccin contre l'hépatite B

Widely studied, often invoked and nevertheless frequently disparaged, the precautionary principle, whose potential influence on civil liability is well established, is an effective tool for improving the situation of victims of personal injury that are left out of the compensation field. The fate of victims with neurological disorders after being vaccinated against hepatitis B shows it. For them compensation stumbles on scientific uncertainty concerning the causal link between the vaccine and the damage. The precautionary lack breakthrough in litigation for victims of vaccine against hepatitis B should be encouraged in the name of a pragmatic approach to the precautionary principle. The concern for equality between victims and between victims and pharmaceutical companies legitimate the use of precautionary principle that normativity is no longer contested. It should be so at least temporarily before a legislative response as desired by a large part of legal doctrine.