Pharmaceutical Immunity - Editorials

 

  Advocates for Children's Health Affected by Mercury Poisoning
“By Parents, For Our Children”

BREAKING NEWS

Congress Passes Legislation Giving Immunity to Drug Companies

Congressional Leadership uses Raw Political Muscle and

Parliamentary Trickery to Get Unprecedented Legislation Passed.
 

Take Action to Tell Your Senator that you favor REPEAL of the Immunity Legislation
 

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Leading Newspapers Around the Country Oppose Drug Company Immunity
 

Straight Reporting of the Story can Sometimes Be Very Telling

A March 22, 2006 Editorial in the Youngstown, Ohio Vindicator, "Tort reformers resort to back-room deals and bureaucratic coups" gets the story straight in criticizing legislators who are abusing the political process to intimidate the judiciary. The Vindicator recalled its opposition in Dec. '05 to Sen. Frist's and Rep. Hastert's use of legislative muscle and trickery to attach vaccine manufacturer immunity provisions to an unrelated defense bill. The Vindicator decried Sen. Frist's failed support of the "Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency" included in S. 1873 which may be back on the Senate's agenda this Spring. That provision would place a veil of secrecy over the HHS Secretary's newly granted authority to give selected medical interventions, including vaccines, protection from civil lawsuits. Now the Editors see another, even greater, threat to public safety in the Administration's plan to give the FDA preemptive authority over drug labeling laws. The Vindicator says the new rules "...would pre-empt state prescription drug product liability laws despite Congress and the courts' refusal to grant them such power." The Editors rightly decry the influence wielded by moneyed pharmaceutical lobbyists that undermines transparency in the political process and shifts political power to the Federal government.  The Vindicator condemns the pharmaceutical lobby that "appears to be buying protection from consumer lawsuits any way that it can."

Thanks to the Vindicator for speaking the truth about the the disturbing trend by our current Federal Administration to take power away from the states, and the People, and giving it to Federal agencies that are under the influence of the pharmaceutical lobby. Read the Vindicator Editorial by clicking HERE.

In a Newhouse News Service report of December 26, 2005 (not an editorial) published in the Newark Star Ledger a vaccine industry spokesperson made a very revealing admission. According to the report, "Len Lavenda, a spokesman for vaccine maker Sanofi Pasteur of Swiftwater, Pa., said the liability exemption is needed because manufacturers can't secure liability insurance for bird-flu vaccines. Insurers regard such products as uncharted territory, he said. Without insurance, 'We'd be asked to put the company's entire economic future on the line to produce the vaccine, and we're not willing to do that,' Lavenda said."

Even insurance underwriters believe that the avian flu vaccines are too risky. But our legislators think it is appropriate to shift the risk to the American people and their kids, in the interest of protecting vaccine manufacturers.

The lack of a compensation program will likely doom this plan because, like the smallpox plan of a few years ago, Americans will realize that the vaccine program poses health risks that are too great.  "Erin McKeon, associate director of governmental affairs for the American Nurses Association, said liability exemptions were partly to blame when other vaccination programs stumbled. 'Look at how the smallpox vaccination program went in 2003, when the president tried to vaccinate half a million health care workers, but really ended up with less than 40,000 because there was no compensation program,' McKeon said."

Thus, the recent legislation, passed as part of an unrelated defense bill, is so ill-conceived that it likely won't achieve its supposed purpose of protecting Americans. And according to Newhouse News Service, Sanofi Pasteur had already entered into a $100 million contract to produce the bird flu vaccine before the immunity provision was enacted. So perhaps vaccine manufacturers were willing to take the risk after all, and the immunity legislation, that puts Americans at risk, was unnecessary.

To read the Newark Star Ledger Newhouse News Service report of December 26, 2005 click here.

Here's how the national press views the legislation.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel pulled no punches in its Dec. 19 editorial "Immunizing the Drug Makers." The Journal Sentinel got it right in saying that giving vaccine makers immunity makes no economic sense. It pointed to a recent study showing that lawsuits is not a problem for the vaccine companies and that our leading vaccine experts have said as much. We agree with the Journal Sentinel editors who said about immunity legislation that, "In short, this is bad medicine. And when it gets its chance, the Senate should spit it out." Thank you Journal Sentinel for speaking the truth. We could not have said it better. To read the full editorial click here for a pdf.

This report appeared in National Journal Congressional Daily, December 16, 2005:

“House and Senate Republicans are also haggling over avian flu funding.  House leaders are insisting on strong liability protections for vaccine makers before releasing roughly $3.5 billion to prepare for the pandemic, but Senate leaders are being pressed to include compensation for victims injured by vaccines.”

The Detroit Free Press on Dec. 16 weighed in on the debate in an editorial titled Vaccine Makers:

"Lawmakers serve people, not drug companies."

The editorial cautioned against secret efforts by Congressional leaders to slip liability protection for vaccine makers into a spending bill. The Detroit Free Press warned that,

"As panicky as Americans may some day become about getting vaccinated against bird flu, that urgency does not translate into walling off vaccine makers from lawsuits or invoking secrecy around medical research."

In the Detroit Free Press's view, giving immunity to the pharmaceutical companies as part of a plan to fight pandemics will likely hurt the nation's vaccine program more than help it. The Free Press editorial board acknowledged that the pressure of groups like A-CHAMP is having an affect on Congress:

"The vaccine shield was part of that plan; groups allied against it wonder whether some of the secrecy provisions also could get slipped into a spending bill." 

The editorial's concluding sentence summed up the situation best,

"Congress needs to remember that its first responsibility is to the health of people in this country, not to the companies that get contracts to help protect it."

You can read a pdf of the Detroit Free Press editorial by clicking here. The News & Observer of North Carolina also opposed the Senate leadership's legislative maneuvers in its editorial captioned "Wrong-way immunity" that you can read by clicking here.
 

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A-CHAMP is proud to announce a collaborative effort with Eagle Forum on behalf of children and families.  Full page ads titled Open Letter to Congress in Opposition to Pharmaceutical Liability Protection were published in all the Capitol Hill Congressional newspapers recently.

The ad, as featured below, appeared in The Congressional Daily (December 12 & 13), Roll Call (December 13), The Hill (December 14) and The Washington Times (December 15).
 

                                                           
 

Open Letter to Members of Congress
in Opposition to Pharmaceutical Liability Protection
 

Dear Members of Congress:

We are opposed to congressional efforts to secretly insert language that will hurt American families in a ‘must pass’ appropriations bill.  By doing so, you will take away families’ Constitutional right to hold manufacturers accountable when they distribute dangerous and defective drugs, including all vaccines.  

Instead of putting the safety of Americans first, proposed language would give immunity to drug companies that hurt Americans, even if the companies commit gross negligence, and would deny any compensation or remedy to those harmed.   

Cloaked in secrecy and without debate, the provision would remove a key incentive for the industry to produce safe, effective drugs and vaccines, and would turn all Americans, including our children, into guinea pigs.  

This maneuver crosses the line, and disregards the Constitution’s Seventh Amendment right to trial by jury and the safety of the American people. To provide total immunity from liability is unheard of in a free society and could make a pandemic worse by undermining public confidence and support for a vaccination program.  

We urge you to reconsider this dangerous proposal. You were elected to represent and protect the American public, not the special interest agenda of the pharmaceutical industry. 

                                       
Barbara Skurnowicz                                                                       Bobbie Manning
National Leader for Vaccine Information                                            Vice-President
Eagle Forum                                                                                  A-CHAMP

www.eagleforum.org                                                                       www.a-champ.org

Eagle Forum is a pro-family organization committed to defending Constitutional provisions regarding the protection of citizens from tyranny.  Advocates for Children’s Health Affected by Mercury Poisoning (A-CHAMP) was founded by parents who know first hand the personal, professional and financial devastation resulting when industry is absolved from responsibility when their products injure children.