Her first reaction after her lawyer called with the news was anger.

    "I was really pissed," the mother of three said. "I thought, 'I'm not going to let them walk away from this.' They need to take responsibility for what has happened."

    Her son's lawsuit involves the mercury-containing preservative Thimerosal, manufactured by the Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly Co. since 1930.

    Thimerosal has been used as a vaccine preservative for decades but was added to several additional childhood vaccines in the 1990s so they could be packaged in multiple-dose vials.

    During the decade, as many as 30 million young children may have been exposed to mercury in doses that far exceeded federal safety standards. Over the same period, the number of children diagnosed with autism skyrocketed.

    In 1999, the U.S. Public Health Service and the American Academy of Pediatrics told drug companies to produce a Thimerosal-free vaccine within two years.

    Austin attends a special class at Eisenhower Elementary School. With a vocabulary of about 10 words, he struggles to communicate. "I can't even imagine being in his body," his mother said. "It's very frustrating for him because he tries to get what he wants out, but he can't."

    Garcia wants to know what her son's disability has to do with homeland security.

    "My son will never be the same, and it's not his fault," Garcia said. "These companies should have known better. They should have checked this out more thoroughly before putting it into shots."

    Garcia and many other parents of autistic children are convinced that the high cumulative doses of mercury their young children received helped trigger the onset of autism. The prestigious Institute of Medicine concluded last year that a link between Thimerosal and neurological damage to children, though unproven, was "biologically plausible," and called for more research.

    100 families filed lawsuits

    The Garcias are among 100 families touched by autism who filed class-action lawsuits last year in a national campaign to hold the drug companies legally liable for damages and require them to pay for research and medical monitoring. The drug companies deny responsibility.

    Last week, during final negotiations on a bill creating a Department of Homeland Security, drug company lobbyists got language inserted that shields the Eli Lilly Co. from massive damage awards. The language, which survived Democrats' efforts to strip it from the bill, also forces plaintiffs in these cases to pursue their claims in a special federal "vaccine court" before suing in the state or federal courts.

    The new language will affect all those pending lawsuits, delaying them by a year or more. It will also leave an unknown number of autistic children with no legal remedy, according to Kathleen Dailey, a partner in the Portland law firm Williams, Dailey, O'Leary, Craine and Love, which is representing several families in the Thimerosal suits.

    Because the vaccine court hears only claims filed within three years after a child first exhibits symptoms, children who developed autism more than three years before their cases come before the court will be left with no legal recourse, Dailey said. "Our position is, that's unconstitutional."

    At least one U.S. senator has promised to introduce a bill in January that would strike the Thimerosal-related language from the Homeland Security Act.

    'We're entitled'

    Tory Mead of Portland, whose 4-year-old son William is a plaintiff in a separate Thimerosal lawsuit, said she was appalled that drug company lobbying was allowed to affect pending litigation.

    "Even if you don't like what we're saying, we're entitled to have our day in court," Mead said. "We have had two federal judges who have said the state courts are where these cases belong."

    The new language extends the Eli Lilly Co. protection under the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Compensation Act. That act says that claims from children who suffer serious side effects from vaccines must be heard first in a vaccine court. It allows children to receive compensation without having to prove that the vaccine caused their injury, but it caps damage awards. It also provides a buffer against litigation for manufacturers of the vaccines and the physicians who administer them.

    Lawyers in the Thimerosal cases have argued that their cases don't belong in the vaccine court because the injuries they allege were caused by the preservative, not the vaccine itself.

    The new language does away with that distinction, rendering that argument moot.

    "Eli Lilly will get the protection of the vaccine act," Dailey said. "It means we cannot pursue them as a defendant."

    The vaccine court caps damages in vaccine-related deaths at $250,000. Awards to injured children have averaged about $825,000. In their civil suit, in contrast, George and Tory Mead are seeking $13 million for their son William's lifelong care.

    Without the protection the new language provides, Eli Lilly's exposure could run into the billions if the lawsuits win certification as class actions. Company records obtained by a Dallas, Texas, law firm during discovery indicated that Eli Lilly officials were concerned about the potential toxicity of Thimerosal as early as the 1930s.

    In a Nov. 18 letter to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Carl Feldbaum, president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, a drug lobby, argued for extending protection to companies involved in making all components of childhood vaccines. "It is simply inconceivable that Congress intended anything other than for a vaccine to be considered a sum of its parts -- but several class action lawsuits suggest otherwise," he wrote.

    Lilly 'bought Congress'

    U.S. drug companies are "well positioned" to develop new vaccines to combat biological attacks by terrorists, Feldbaum wrote. But he added, "Without adequate liability protection, it will be infeasible for many of our companies to be a source of anti-terrorism technology."

    Former Eli Lilly officials hold key posts in the Bush administration.

    Mitch Daniels, a former Eli Lilly vice president, now serves as director of the Office of Management and Budget. Sidney Taurel, the company's chairman, president and chief executive, serves on the Homeland Security Advisory Council.

    "Eli Lilly hired lobbyists and bought Congress," Dailey said. "Now they are given immunity from lawsuits. I would say that I have not seen justice done for these children yet."