Last Updated: 2002-12-11 17:01:23 -0400 (Reuters Health)

WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) - Calling a last-minute provision added to last month's massive homeland security bill barring lawsuits against makers of a preservative used in childhood vaccines "special interest politics at its worst," a bipartisan group of US House and Senate members Wednesday announced an effort to repeal the provision when Congress reconvenes in January.

"We will be doing whatever is necessary to reverse this provision," said Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) of the language that would effectively dismiss hundreds of lawsuits filed by families of children with autism and other neurological disorders. The lawsuits claim that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative formerly used in many vaccines, contributed to their children's condition. "This is about making sure that families of autistic children are protected," Stabenow said.

The lawmakers, including Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), said they were particularly outraged by the way the provision--which technically requires complaints about thimerosal or any other vaccine additive to be first adjudicated by the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program--was added to the bill at the last possible minute. "They gave the companies a 'get out of jail free' card," said Leahy.

The biggest problem with the language, said Burton, is that many of the families whose lawsuits will now be dismissed are ineligible for the vaccine compensation program, which has only a three-year window in which to file claims. "Many of these families of autistic children didn't even know there was a [vaccine compensation] program until the three-year statute of limitations was up," Burton said.

Lynn Redwood, the mother of an autistic child and president of the advocacy group "Safe Minds," said hers was one of those families unaware of the program until it was too late. "For my son, the statute of limitations had already run before we were even aware there was mercury in the vaccines," she said.

Eli Lilly issued a statement defending the provision being added to the homeland security bill, saying Congress always intended that claims against vaccine additives should follow the same process as those against vaccines themselves. In filing the lawsuits in the first place, the company said, "the trial bar is clearly attempting to thwart the original aim of Congress, which was to reduce the chilling effect that litigation has on the development of new vaccines."

Exactly what lawmakers can do to affect the situation, however, remains unclear. Stabenow conceded that by the time Congress reconvenes in January, most, if not all, of the pending lawsuits will already have been dismissed, so repealing the provision will not help those families. Extending the three-year window for filing claims under the federal vaccine compensation program is one option, the lawmakers said, as is raising the tax vaccine manufacturers now pay to finance the compensation program.