The threat of vaccine lawsuits

The problem with only telling one side of the story is that the truth does not become apparent. Senate majority leader Bill Frist is a vocal friend of the drug and chemical manufacturing industry. It is well known that they have donated in excess of $20,000,000 to the Republican Party in the 2002 election cycle. Public comments made by Republican Senator McCain at the time of the attempted amendment of the Homeland Security Act (before the Senate passed the Congress’s version with the stealthy added vaccine and chemical company special interest provisions) reflect the real reason these provisions were added. They were never to protect Homeland Security. Infact the only vaccines to be addressed in this bill, smallpox and anthrax, never included thimerosal, the mercury containing preservative which was the sole purpose of the Vaccine Act amendment language. The language specifically provided immunity to the the drug abd chemical industry for their bad judgement in putting toxic mercury in childhood vaccines. The reason that it does provide immunity is that in the Vaccine Act, one must file a claim within 36 months of any sign of injury or be forever barred from filing a claim in the Vaccine Act or the court system. Usually under state laws children’s rights do not terminate without their reaching the age of majority(18 or 21) or at least until they or their parents have a reason to know the child was harmed by a product. This is important in the context of mercury in vaccines because the parents do not get informed that there is mercury in the vaccine which a doctor or a nurse gives to the child. The packaging for vaccines containing mercury only advised “0.1% thimerosal by volume” and did not reflect the weight of the mercury which makes up more than 49% of the thimerosal preservative. This is shocking considering the child is exposed to 30 times the EPA safe limit for mercury with most of these shots (up to twice that for premature infants). Even the doctors’offices were not informed. Because the effects of mercury poisoning occur slowly it was virtually impossible for the majority of brain damaged children to know the cause of their harm. If mercury poisoning claims were deemed to have to go through the Vaccine Act program then approximately 80% of the brain damaged children would be precluded from any right of recovery. This is the real purpose of the vaccine act amendments.
What the Republican Party ultimately seeks to do is to pass on the extremely high cost of caring for children with autism spectrum disorders to their parents and the states’ already burdened school and social service programs. This will benefit a handfull of large corporations, some of which are foreign corporations, at the expense of taxpayers. The reality of the harm and its cost to society does not go away if the the corporations receive some immunity from the federal government.
The Vaccine Act since its inception 17 years ago has only adjudicated less than 1500 claims and only slightly more than half have received compensation. In the United States today 400,000 people have autism, with the majority in the last ten years. With the epidemic of autism increassing by five fold in period from 1990 to 2000 is it any wonder the manufactures seek a federal government bail out? The $20,000,000 they have already delivered is less than one cent on the dollar for the harm they caused. Should their 30 pieces of silver be enough?
One of the biggest crimes in all of this is that the companies who believe they will have this immunity with the next go around of legislation from the Republican majority have already reintroduced mercury into their vaccines, despite no safety studies to support this endeavor. The problem with not holding bad corporate citizens accountable is that they have no reason to provide a safe supply of vaccines for our nation’s babies.