Bernard Condon

In rare cases of serious illness from the shots, the injured are blocked from suing and steered instead to an obscure federal bureaucracy with a record of seldom paying claims.

U.S. stocks dropped sharply Monday after a plunge in Chinese markets triggered by weak Chinese manufacturing data and escalating tensions in the Middle East. The Dow Jones industrial average sank 2 percent following a rout that stretched across Asia into Europe.

The last time the stock market was this high, the Great Recession was turning a month old, and stocks were pointed toward a headlong descent.