http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=%5CPolitics%5Carchive%5C200212%5CPOL20021212a.html
Homeland Security Rider Prompts
Protest From Autism Activists
By Christine Hall
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
December 12, 2002
(CNSNews.com) - The next Congress should repeal a provision in the
homeland security bill that protects drug companies like Eli Lilly from
lawsuits, urged a handful of lawmakers and autism activists at a Wednesday press
conference.
Proponents of the provision, however, argue that lawsuit immunity is necessary
to make sure that companies continue to offer life-saving vaccines to combat
bio-terrorism.
Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.)
plan to introduce legislation next year to undo the grant of lawsuit immunity to
companies that have used a vaccine preservative called thirmerosal, which
contains ethylmercury.
Some believe that there is a link between exposure to thirmerosal and autism,
the neurological disorder that causes life-long disability in human interaction
and communication skills.
Though there has not been a definitive link established between thirmerosal and
autism, the Food and Drug Administration has said that thirmerosal might expose
children to unsafe levels of mercury, and the product has been removed from most
vaccines.
The preservative has been the impetus for hundreds of lawsuits against companies
like Eli Lilly, the company that first developed thirmerosal in the 1930s.
According to Government Reform Committee Chairman Dan Burton (R-Indiana), House
Minority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) said that he inserted the lawsuit immunity
provision into the homeland security bill at the behest of the White House.
Burton, who has an autistic grandson, called the thirmerosal rider a "terrible
injustice" that was "done under the cover of darkness." It takes away any
"avenue of hope" that families might someday get restitution, he said.
Burton also suggested that other means of making restitution could include
extending the three-year statute of limitations on the 1986 "Vaccine Injury
Compensation Program" (VICP) and getting companies to put more money into the
fund.
Richard Diamond, a spokesman for Armey, denied that Armey-or any other
lawmaker-was engaging in special interest politics on behalf of drug
manufacturers.
"The language is there for a good reason," said Diamond. "The news media has
willfully not reported our side of the story. We're doing this because we're
dead if we don't. What's happening on this issue is demagoguery."
The homeland security provision "does nothing of what the people complaining
about it say it does," he said. "Guess who's mad? Trial lawyers and their
biggest recipients of campaign contributions-the Democrats," said Diamond,
notwithstanding the involvement of McCain and Burton.
Eli Lilly and Company issued a statement accusing the trial bar of trying to
"short-circuit" the process of forcing plaintiffs through the compensation
program by claiming that vaccine ingredients are not covered by the program.
"The trial bar is clearly attempting to thwart the original aim of Congress,
which was to reduce the chilling effect that the litigation has on the
development of new vaccines," read the statement. "That is why it was important
to include the clarification of the law in the Homeland Security Act."
"No credible scientific link has been established between vaccines and autism,"
the company said, pointing to recent research that mercury contained in
thirmerosal is excreted more quickly in infants than previously thought and not
stored in the body.
See Related Story:
Senate Approves Homeland Security Bill (Nov. 19, 2002)
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