Washington,, DC, Jan. 10 -/E-Wire/-- The announcement today by Senators Snowe,
Collins and Chafee that an agreement was reached today with the Senate 
leadership to eliminate the thimerosal liability shield from the Homeland 
Security Act was welcome news to Safe Minds and the Mercury Policy 
Project.  The groups applauded the efforts of those interested in 
reestablishing justice and legal recourse for the vaccine-injured children. 

"We applaud Senators Chaffee, Snow and Collins in their continuing 
efforts to right a terrible wrong doing taking away the legal rights of autistic 
children," said Michael Bender of the Mercury Policy Project.  "We look 
forward to seeing the vaccine compensation act amended within the next 
six months so that it is more "family friendly. However, we are wary that 
this same nightmare liability shield provision may reappear again and 
would hope that these moderate Republicans will prevent this."

"We hope the agreement announced today is a positive sign for families 
of autistic children whose right to go to court were taken away in the 
Homeland Security Bill by a corporate special-interest provision for 
pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly," Lyn Redwood, President of Safe Minds. 
"We call on President Bush, as well as House and Senate leaders, to 
support Senators Chafee, Collins and Snowe and the other members of 
Congress who are working to protect families and individual rights."

SAFEMINDs and the Mercury Policy Project look forward to learning more 
about the details of the agreement and remain hopeful that Congress will 
not only repeal the Eli Lilly provision, but to amend VICA so that 
congresses original intent for this program is fulfilled.  

Mercury Policy Project and SAFEMIND are non-profit organizations 
dedicated to  reducing and eliminating mercury exposure and improving 
children’s health and environmental outcomes through the elimination, 
treatment and scientific investigations of mercury, regardless of its 
source, including thimerosal in medical products.

Both organizations strongly support legislation to be introduced session 
by Burton-Waxman as the most effective way of fixing the glaring 
inadequacies of the current Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.
  
For more information, see:
http://www.safeminds.org
http://www.mercurypolicy.org

/SOURCE: 

Mercury Policy Project

-0- 

01/10/2003 

/CONTACT: 

Lyn Redwood, Safe Minds, 404-932-1786,
Michael Bender, Mercury Policy Project, 
802-223-9000/ 

/WEB SITE: