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December 09, 2002

U.S. IMMUNIZATION NEWS

"Is U.S. Shortage of Vaccines Threat to National Security?" Investor's Business Daily (www.investors.com) (12/06/02) P. A16; McCaughey, Betsy

Thirty states have lowered vaccination requirements for school children, while 40 are rationing vaccines, all due to a shortage of some vaccines, including those that offer protection against measles, mumps, and rubella, and diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis.  Part of the reason, according to author Betsy McCaughey, is the threat of litigation brought on by a 1999 National Institute of Health (NIH) recommendation that manufacturers of vaccines stop using thimerosal to preserve vaccines;  many vaccine manufacturers took the NIH's advice, and today's shortage is the result. Despite no official studies showing links between the preservative and autism, lawyers have taken the recommendation and run with it. Representing parents of autistic children, and pointing to the fact that with the increase of vaccines given to children over recent years also came an increase in cases of autism, attorneys in Medford, Mass., and Portland, Ore., have filed class action suits alleging that as many as 30 million American children may have been exposed to thimerosal.  A court established in 1986 under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act was set up to ensure that anyone hurt by vaccines would be compensated while sparing manufacturers endless litigation and punitive damages.  To get around this court--which also limits contingency fees by its very nature--the lawyers said that the 1986 law applied only to cases against makers of vaccines, and not the producers of ingredients later used by those makers.  However, two paragraphs added to the end of the recently enacted Homeland Security bill applies the law to makers of vaccine ingredients as well.

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