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"Protecting
the health and informed consent rights of children since 1982."
Contact: Barbara Loe Fisher
703-938-0342
for immediate release
November 15, 2005
CONGRESS SET TO BAIL OUT BIG PHARMA IN SECRET
Washington, D.C. – A behind-the-scenes plan is
reportedly taking shape in Congress to attach language to an unspecified
conference report giving drug companies blanket immunity from liability for
vaccine injuries and deaths.
The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), a
watchdog consumer advocacy group critical of provisions in “The Biodefense and
Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act of 2005" (S. 1873) sponsored by
Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) and a similar bill in the House (H.R. 3970), calls
the reported plan “an end-run by Pharma’s friends in Congress to take away
the civil rights of the American people.”
In the past few weeks, public criticism about the
proposed bail-out of drug companies has been mounting as Americans are being
told that a pandemic bird flu is coming and drug companies are asking Congress
to bar citizen access to the civil justice system when they are harmed by
vaccines. Because the bird flu virus has not mutated into a form that is
transmissable from human to human, questions have been raised as to whether
irrational fear about bird flu is being generated in an attempt to stampede
Congress into passing liability protections the pharmaceutical industry has been
seeking for 40 years.
Pointing out that there are twice as many drug
companies marketing vaccines in the U.S. today as there were in 1982 when NVIC
was founded, NVIC President Barbara Loe Fisher said, “It is a big lie that drug
companies have been driven out of business by lawsuits in the past two decades.
The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 protected drug companies and
doctors from almost all lawsuits. There are only a handful of vaccine injury
lawsuits pending in civil courts but Pharma is on the brink of conning Congress
into destroying Americans' Seventh Amendment Constitutional right to seek
redress in a civil court in front of a jury of their peers. Apparently drug
companies only want profits and not accountability when Americans die or are
injured by experimental and poorly tested biodefense and pandemic flu vaccines
they can be forced to take whenever the Secretary of Health and Human Services
declares a public health emergency and state officials follow suit.”
In a November 15th letter to Senator Burr's
staff director, U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Bioterrorism and Public Health
Preparedness, NVIC President Barbara Loe Fisher describes S. 1873 as “arguably
unconstitutional” because it (1) lacks transparency into the research,
development, licensure and post-licensure surveillance of vaccines and drugs
used in public health emergencies; (2) lacks accountability for either
manufacturers of these products or government health officials who mandate their
use without informed consent; and (3) lacks justice for those who will
inevitably die or suffer chronic illnesses after being compelled to take these
products.
The proposed law will also create a new agency
within the Department of Health and Human Services that will secretly develop
experimental drugs and vaccines to be used by civilian and military populations
whenever the Secretary declares “a potential or actual” public health
emergency. The agency may deny Freedom of Information Act requests by citizens
and is not subject to review of its actions by the judicial branch of
government.
In 1982, there were four drug companies marketing
vaccines in the U.S.: Wyeth, Lederle, Merck and Connaught. Today there are
eight: Wyeth, Merck, Sanofi Pasteur, GlaxoSmithKline, MedImmune, Chiron, Bioport,
and VaxGen. There are ten vaccine injury lawsuits currently pending in U.S.
civil courts, with the majority involving a highly reactive whole cell version
of DPT vaccine no longer distributed in the U.S.
For more information and a complete text of
Barbara Loe Fisher’s 11 page letter to Senator Burr’s subcommittee staff, go
to www.nvic.org.
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