President Bush continues to reveal that he considers an uninformed public to be his greatest asset. This time, it’s the parents of autistic children that the Administration wants to hide critical information from.
By Frederick Sweet


Attorneys for President George W. Bush asked a federal court to keep documents from the public on hundreds of cases of autism believed caused by childhood vaccines. According to Reuters news service, on November 25th, Department of Justice lawyers asked a US Court of Federal Claims, “to seal the documents, arguing that allowing their automatic disclosure would take away the right of federal agencies to decide when and how the material should be released.”

Attorneys for the families of hundreds of autistic children charge the government is attempting to keep the information out of civil courts, where juries might be convinced to award large judgments against the vaccine manufacturers.

The courts are currently hearing approximately 1,000 claims brought by families of autistic children. The suits charge that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, which until recently included a mercury-containing preservative known as thimerosal, can cause neurological damage leading to autism. Evolving medical evidence has connected the childhood vaccinations and autism.

The request by Bush's Administration asks a federal court to order that documents on hundreds of cases of autism be kept from the public.
The parents' attorneys said that Bush's order amounts to punishing the families of injured children because it would require them to incur extra time and expense to regenerate the withheld evidence for a civil suit. "Wouldn't it be a shame if at the end of the day our policy would be to compensate lawyers [for unnecessary research, because of the government's blockage of information]," said Jeff Kim, an attorney with Gallagher Boland Meiburger & Brosnan, which represents about 400 families of autistic children who received the MMR vaccine.

Kim further accused the government of trying to lower "a shroud of secrecy over these documents" to protect vaccine manufacturers who, he said were "the only entities" that would benefit if the documents are sealed.

According to the Reuters report, Bush Administration lawyers asked the Federal Court official, George Hastings, to seal the court records for preserving the legal right of the Secretary of Health and Human Services to decide when evidence about the vaccines should be released to the public. Justice Department attorney Vincent Matanoski argued that allowing the parents of autistic children to use the court evidence on vaccines in later civil suits would confer an advantage on plaintiffs choosing to forgo federal compensation. Hastings has not said when he would issue a ruling on sealing the court documents, but he did say his decision would be "very prompt."

Earlier, Bush built into his Homeland Security bill protection for drug companies from law suits arising from smallpox vaccines requested by the government anticipating bio-terrorism attacks. Now, by broadening protection to include common childhood vaccinations, the Bush Administration has undermined the pending autism lawsuits, making sure that important information connecting vaccinations to autism can never be seen in a courtroom.

In the November 25 issue of AT ISSUE, the official newsletter of the United Auto Workers union, UAW president Ron Gettelfinger wrote about Bush's Homeland Security bill:

“ … there's one group that already feels more secure -- pharmaceutical companies. They'll benefit from a little-noticed provision of the homeland security bill that prevents the parents of autistic children from suing the manufacturers of childhood vaccines in state courts, even if there is hard evidence the vaccines were linked to the autism. Instead, these claims would be shunted to a very limited federal compensation program.

“What does limiting the liability of drug manufacturers have to do with homeland security? A good question, but not one that Republicans want to answer. Instead, a spokesman said that the autism vaccine rider, inserted into the bill by GOP leadership, ‘was something the White House wanted.’”

Gettelfinger continued,

“Just this past summer the current President Bush appointed the Chairman and CEO of Eli Lilly, Sidney Taurel, to the Homeland Security Advisory Council. Did Mr.Laurel advise the Council that drug companies had to be protected from lawsuits in order to keep our nation safe from terrorists?
“Meanwhile, drug companies have become major funding for Republican candidates. Since 1989, Eli Lilly alone gave $5.9 million to congressional campaigns, three-fourths to GOP candidates. In this past election cycle Lilly gave $1.6 million, eighty percent to Republican candidates. And Lilly and other drug companies spent millions this year on phony 'issue ads' .designed to buttress GOP candidates.”

Clearly, President Bush has moved quickly to protect one of his biggest political campaign contributors, the pharmaceutical industry. According to recent figures published by the Center for Responsive Politics, during the year 2000 election cycle, the industry donated over $18-million to the Republican Party, twice as much as it gave to the Democrats. By 2002, the ratio of pharmaceutical political contribution widened to nearly three times as more money continued to pour into the Republicans’ coffers.

Rather than increase “homeland security,” President Bush has decided to increase the security of pharmaceutical companies from lawsuits, which in turn increase the health risks for all Americans. When courts punish errant pharmaceutical companies, the result of health-based lawsuits, then the public benefits because the companies are compelled to take corrective action. But once again Bush is using the 9/11 tragedy as a pretext for repaying political debts, this time to the pharmaceutical industry.

Bush's homeland security bill, then, has less to do with defending Americans from future terrorist attacks, and more to do with underming the health safety of Americans.