Justice Dept. Seeks to Seal Vaccine Papers

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

ASHINGTON, Nov. 26 — The Bush administration asked a federal claims court today to seal documents relating to hundreds of claims that a mercury-based preservative in vaccines, thimerosal, has caused autism and other neurological disorders in children.

Lawyers for the Justice Department asked for the protective order on behalf of Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, whose department administers a government fund to compensate people injured by vaccines.

A department spokesman said that the law creating the fund gives the secretary control over what information is released and that the government was merely trying to preserve that right.

About 1,000 families have filed claims under the program, asserting that their children suffered mercury poisoning from the vaccines, which until recently included the preservative. The claims are being heard by a special master, George Hastings, in a so-called vaccine court that was created in 1986, when Congress passed the measure setting up the government fund.

Lawyers for the families said they were outraged by today's move. They said the government was trying to prevent families from obtaining damaging information about the preservative, which could later be used against drug companies in civil courts.

"We're dealing with real injury to real children in a program that is funded by taxpayer dollars," said Michael R. Hugo, a Boston lawyer. "It is unbelievable to me that the president of the United States, in the name of trying to help the drug industry, would put the interests of the drug industry over the interests of neurologically impaired sick children and their parents."

Today's move comes on the heels of another controversy involving thimerosal.

Congressional Republicans inserted a provision into the domestic security bill, signed into law on Monday by President Bush, that is intended to protect Eli Lilly, thimerosal's manufacturer, from lawsuits over the preservative. The provision would force families to seek compensation through the vaccine court instead of civil courts.

Michael Bender, a spokesman for the Mercury Policy Project, a nonprofit advocacy group that is helping the families, said today's move "amounts to insult on injury" for children whose parents have filed claims.

"Suppressing these documents," Mr. Bender said, "flies in the face of an open and transparent court system."