Action Alert: Drug Companies Out to Gut Vaccine Compensation Reform

[From from New York Attorney John F. McHugh.]

As you may know Congressman Dave Weldon of Florida and Jerold Nadler of New York had introduced a bill to make obtaining compensation under the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program easier. Today I was informed by Stuart Burns. Congressman Weldon's legislative director, that the bill, now sponsored by Dan Burton of Indiana and Henry Waxman of California, is in trouble. The vaccine manufacturers have lobbied heavily against it.

The Bill is HR 3741, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Improvement Act of 2002. Mr. Burns tells me that to get this bill passed we need to have a major letter writing campaign by parents of injured children directed both to the representative and to the

J. Dennis Hastert, Speaker,

United States House of Representatives,

The Capitol,

Washington, D.C. 20515.

Fax: 202-225-0697.

If we do not do this, the bill has only about a 30% chance of passage. Local representatives need to be urged to co-sponsor the bill. The Speaker must be urged to bring the bill up for a vote. If possible parents should visit their representative's district office and if possible ask to speak to the representative personally.

The bill provides for the payment of the costs of medical experts from the trust fund as they are incurred. This provision will be particularly useful to the parents of Autism Spectrum children as the tests needed to link this type of disorder to a vaccine are expensive and hard to find. Further, expert witnesses who are willing to testify in vaccine cases are also hard to find as many doctors fear ostracism by their profession if they do so. It is equally useful to parents who do not have surplus funds as the medical costs which must be incurred to prove even a case supposedly automatically covered by the Vaccine Act can be considerable.

The bill also deals with the statute of limitations problem. Most parents and practitioners do not connect their child's disability to a vaccine immediately. Sometimes medical practitioners never make the connection. Therefore, many parents do not learn of either the cause of their child's disability or of the compensation program until the limitations period has expired. This bill extends the period from three years to six years and allows anyone with a claim which has now expired to file within two years of the bills becoming law.

This situation is urgent. Thank you for your assistance to these Congressmen who have taken up this cause, notably a coalition of conservative Republicans with Liberal Democrats. If these diverse thinkers can see the need for this Bill, those of us most affected must help. A suggested text of the two letters now needed is following, but if you can draft your own that would be preferable, particularly if you can explain your own situation emphasizing that you are a constituent of the representative addressed.

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