March 9, 2011

Seth Mnookin is Offended and Repulsed by Parents Who Want to Make Their Own Vaccine Decisions, and Thinks That They are "Total Assholes"

Additionally, he notes that 10 children died last year from pertussis, but fails to mention that 39 children died following their pertussis containing vaccines last year. (Update: CDC wonder has apparently updated their numbers since I checked last. it is up to 41 deaths according to the VAERS database. And that is the lowest death count from it since 1989. Apparently the drop in pertussis vaccine is saving lives in total. 42 in 2009, 76 in 2008, 82 in 2007... 126 in 1994, 148 in 1993... Is Mnooking weeping for the more than 1,750 children who have died from this vaccine since 1989? Thanks to Vaccination News for updating me.)



All this in a speech on How to Communicate with Anti-Vaccine Parents at American University's School of Communication.

March 8, 2011

SCD Conference at The Gottschall Autism Center

I am attending the "When the Belly is the Beast: How Intestinal Health Impacts Brain and Behavior" conference at The Gottschall Autism Center in MA on April 1.

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that going SCD (after being GFCF for two years) was a HUGE boost for my baby.

They are having some delicious speakers like Martha Herbert, and Dr. Alessio Fasano. Any Mainers who wanna skate on down with me, lemme know.

March 7, 2011

Drug Firms Need You To Fully Vaccinate Now More Than Ever

If you won't vaccinate for the sake of your kids, then good god man... do it out of pity for Pfizer and Sanofi. Profits are down and going to drop like a stone soon, and Japan just dropped two of their vaccines because they killed 4 children.

Good news for Merck though... even though 93 girls have died after Gardasil, the US FDA still doesn't give a damn. Thank god for corruption and revolving doors... am I right fellas?




Japan drops two vaccines after four deaths
Published: March. 6, 2011 at 11:46 PM
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TOKYO, March 6 (UPI) -- Japan's Health Ministry says it has suspended use of two vaccines after four children died after receiving them, Kyodo News reported.

Sources told the Japanese news agency the ministry decided Friday to stop administering the Hib vaccine to prevent bacterial meningitis and a vaccine to protect against streptococcus pneumoniae.

So far, no direct causal relationship has been established between the vaccines and the children's deaths, but the ministry intends to convene an expert panel in the coming days to look into the issue, the sources said.

The four fatalities were a 3-month-old girl in Kawasaki who died Feb. 20, a 2-year-old boy in Takarazuka who died Tuesday, a 1-year-old girl in Nishinomiya who died Wednesday and a 6-month-old girl in Kyoto City who died Friday.

Some of the children had underlying illnesses and others did not.

Kyodo said all four children received a vaccine against streptococcus pneumoniae manufactured by Pfizer Inc., based in New York, and all but the girl in Nishinomiya received ActHIB, made by Sanofi Pasteur Inc., based in Lyon, France.

Except for the boy in Takarazuka, all also received a mixed vaccine against diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus the same day they received other vaccines.

Millions of doses of the vaccines have been administered in Japan in recent years.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2011/03/06/Japan-drops-two-vaccines-after-four-deaths/UPI-43921299473201/#ixzz1Fy5o7dlp

Drug Firms Face Billions in Losses in ’11 as Patents End

By DUFF WILSON

At the end of November, Pfizer stands to lose a $10-billion-a-year revenue stream when the patent on its blockbuster cholesterol drug Lipitor expires and cheaper generics begin to cut into the company’s huge sales.

The loss poses a daunting challenge for Pfizer, one shared by nearly every major pharmaceutical company. This year alone, because of patent expirations, the drug industry will lose control over more than 10 megamedicines whose combined annual sales have neared $50 billion.

This is a sobering reversal for an industry that just a few years ago was the world’s most profitable business sector but is now under pressure to reinvent itself and shed its dependence on blockbuster drugs. And it casts a spotlight on the problems drug companies now face: a drought of big drug breakthroughs and research discoveries; pressure from insurers and the government to hold down prices; regulatory vigilance and government investigations; and thousands of layoffs in research and development.

Morgan Stanley recently downgraded the entire group of multinational pharmaceutical companies based in Europe — AstraZeneca, Bayer, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Novo Nordisk and Roche — in a report titled “An Avalanche of Risk? Downgrading to Cautious.” The analysts wrote, “The operating environment for pharma is worsening rapidly.”

The same concerns apply to drug giants in the United States. They are all struggling with research failures as they scramble to replace their cash cows, like Pfizer’s multimillion-dollar gamble on a replacement for the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor, which failed miserably in clinical trials. Drug companies cut 53,000 jobs last year and 61,000 in 2009, far more than most other sectors, according to the outplacement company Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

“This is panic time, this is truly panic time for the industry,” said Kenneth I. Kaitin, director of the Center for the Study of Drug Development at Tufts University in Medford, Mass. “I don’t think there’s a company out there that doesn’t realize they don’t have enough products in the pipeline or the portfolio, don’t have enough revenue to sustain their research and development.”

While industrywide research and development spending has nearly doubled to $45 billion a year over the last decade, the Food and Drug Administration has approved fewer and fewer new drugs. Pfizer and Eli Lilly had major setbacks last year in once-promising Alzheimer’s drug experiments. Merck discontinued one of two major clinical trials testing its top acquisition from its merger with Schering Plough, a blood thinner that caused dangerous amounts of bleeding in some patients.

Drug company executives have begun addressing the calls for reinvention.

“We have to fix our innovative core,” Pfizer’s new president, Ian C. Read, said in an interview recently. To do that, the company is refocusing on smaller niches in cancer, inflammation, neuroscience and branded generics — and slashing as much as 30 percent of its own research and development spending in the next two years as its scientists work on only the most potentially profitable prospects.

Consumers should see a financial benefit as lower-cost generics replace the expensive elite drugs, but may suffer in the long term if companies reduce research and do not produce new drugs that meet the public’s needs.

“You don’t lay off R&D if it’s just a cycle,” says Erik Gordon, a clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan business school who follows the pharmaceutical industry. “That kills progress.”

The federal government is also concerned about the slowing pace of new drugs coming from the industry. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, recently proposed a billion-dollar drug development center at the agency.

“We seem to have a systemic problem here,” Dr. Collins said, adding that government research efforts were intended to feed the private sector, not compete with it.

Mr. Read of Pfizer says new products can replace some but not all of the patent losses.

“The hurricane is making landfall,” said Jeremy Batstone-Carr, an analyst at Charles Stanley Securities, but he added that Pfizer is among several drug companies giving solace to shareholders by returning money through stock buybacks and dividends. Pfizer’s best asset, he said, is its $20 billion stockpile of cash. Yet since 2000, Pfizer’s and Merck’s share prices dropped about 60 percent, while the Dow rose 19 percent.

Several of the drug titans have bought competitors with newer products to fill their own sales gaps, essentially paying cash for future revenue as their own research was flagging. In the last two years, Pfizer paid $68 billion for Wyeth, Merck paid $41 billion for Schering-Plough, Roche paid $46 billion for Genentech, and Sanofi-Aventis paid $20 billion for Genzyme.

Henry G. Grabowski, a professor of economics and director of the Duke University program in pharmaceutical health economics, likened the recent pharmaceutical megamergers to those that occurred in the banking and telecommunications industries when they were hit by financial shocks in the 1990s.

But he warned that this wave would not guarantee significant research developments in the long term.

“It’s never been shown that these big horizontal mergers are good for R&D productivity,” Dr. Grabowski said. “I’m in a show-me mode that they get you any real advances other than some short-term cost efficiencies that wear out.”

As they move beyond the blockbuster model, companies are refining their approach toward personalized medicines and forming more partnerships. Using genetic or other tests, the plan is to sell new drugs not to millions and millions of people, but to those who would most clearly benefit.

Still, the industry faces intense pressure from generic competition and has tried every tactic to ward it off, including extended-release versions of the same medicine and new pills that combine two ingredients. But 75 percent of all prescriptions in the United States are now low-price, low-profit generic drugs.

At the same time, pharmaceutical companies are being urged by managed care and government health programs to cut prices and improve reimbursement terms for their most profitable pills.

That follows similar practices in Europe, where Germany and the Britain, among other countries, are all increasing pressure for lower drug prices.

“Europe is an ugly place to do business today and will be in five years’ time,” Christopher A. Viehbacher, chief executive of the French drug giant Sanofi-Aventis, said in an interview.

In the United States, Mr. Viehbacher said generic drugs were taking over the primary care market, leaving the best growth potential in specialty markets and in emerging nations like China, Brazil and Indonesia.

Even in those markets, health systems will not be the profit centers that the United States has been. China, emerging this year as the third-largest pharmaceutical market behind the United States and Japan, plans to cut hundreds of drug prices by an average of 40 percent.

The drug industry has long said that Americans fueled the research engine, spending much more per capita on prescriptions than in any other nation, and paying the highest prices for prescribed medicines.

Drug industry lobbyists have beaten back Democratic proposals to set prices at the lower levels of nations like Canada or to allow Medicare to directly negotiate prices. The industry, by supporting President Obama’s health care overhaul, capped its contribution at $90 billion over 10 years in return for the promise of up to 32 million newly insured customers starting in 2014.

The new law also contains a major threat to drug industry profits in a little-known section that would allow centralized price-setting. Beginning in 2015, an independent board appointed by the president could lower prices across the board in Medicare unless Congress acted each year to overrule it. Medicare pays more than 20 percent of the nation’s retail drug bills.

The industry has also been unsettled by the scores of fraud, bribery and kickback cases involving conduct that federal investigators contend have added billions to the nation’s drug bill. The penalties have been stiff, and the settlements steep.

In 2009, Pfizer paid the largest criminal fine in the nation’s history as part of a $2.3 billion settlement over marketing drugs for unapproved uses. Some analysts say larger fraud and foreign bribery cases will come. The drug companies are responding with extra-careful sales training and vows to restrain marketing zeal. But the change in corporate culture could cost them: internal documents show some of the companies have profited spectacularly from seeking federal approval of a new drug for a limited use, then marketing it far more widely off label.

Other changes are afoot that will no doubt affect the bottom line. They include growing restrictions on gifts, fees and trips to influence doctors to use their products; curbs on the ghost writing of medical journal articles and a push for more disclosure of negative study results. As the golden age of blockbuster drugs fades, so are some of the marketing excesses of the past two decades — the tactics that helped bring in immense profits.

Some analysts see the industry’s decline as an investment opportunity. They say drug stocks are good buys because of low price-to-earnings ratios, which typically reflect industry decline or investor pessimism, and high dividend yields averaging more than 4 percent a year.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: March 7, 2011


An earlier version of this article misstated the status of some drug trials involving a blood thinner. Merck discontinued one trial, but another trial continues, although some patients have been removed from the study.

March 4, 2011

Alms for the Poor

UPDATE: THANK YOU MY WONDERFUL READERS! The goal was reached Saturday night! It totaled $1,151.15. Thank you so much for helping my little guy's recovery along! His birthday is this Friday and you guys have blessed him with a wonderful birthday present. Thank you for your love.

Now we can finally afford that surgery to get the Nerf Darts removed from his head.


As I am sure you can imagine, the social stigma has been terrible for him.  ;)

Original post:
I come to you to entreat you to give to the needy. Me.

We we finished a really productive round of HBOT for Chandler in Jan, and I wanted to start a new course of treatment in March only to come face to face with the fact that I have spent the last six months writing and not working, so the $$ is not there to start. I have not focused on monetizing the blog, which I probably need to do, or on making any of my writing pay in any way, which I probably also need to do. If for no other reason, so that I can do more of it. So I think that I will just to a little fundraising directly at my readers.

I want to raise $1,000. Not tax-deductable or anything. You are basically just giving me cash and saying, "thanks for neglecting your family's needs to write all this stuff that I wish I never needed to know in the first place.... have some money."

So if my writing has been of help or encouragement to you over the years, please consider dropping a little sumpin' sumpin' in the tip jar.

All proceeds go to my baby's brain and belly. And perhaps a Green & Black's Chocolate Bar with Almonds for mommy.





I was going to find one of those donation counters that had a little progress bar that goes to $1,000 or a thermometer or something, but I am to lazy. So no fun graphics.

I would ask Bill Gates for a scrap from his foundations 33.5 billion dollar table, but... well you know.

Oh... and if anyone wants to buy ad space, let me know.

Thanks in advance. I love my readers.

March 2, 2011

February 26, 2011

Death At SeaWorld

Intrepid reporter, David Kirby, again gives voice to the voice less in his upcoming book, Death at SeaWorld. He was interviewed this morning on Fox & Friends about the death of Dawn Brancheau's at the jaws of the killer whale Tillikum.

Mary Holland Discusses Bruesewitz v. Wyeth and Vaccine Epidemic on Fox & Friends

GlaxoSmithKline Vaccine Sales Employees on How Unethical GSK Is

Occasionally I pop over to CafePharma.com, online hang out for pharma worker bees, and look at the vaccine discussion there. I thought I would share this one with you. Someone pops in and asks what it is like to work for GSK in vaccine sales.

Note this description of the ethical atmosphere at GlaxoSmithKline (maker of the UK MMR vaccine and chief tormentor of Andrew Wakefield):

Actually, if you are a sadist who enjoys inflicting misery on others and you can get a management job GSK is a pretty good gig.

If you want to be tagged as management material, be sure to emphasize any illegal and / or unethical conduct at previous companies. That is a HUGE plus at GSK these days. Also, any examples of behaviour dehumanizing others is important - rapes, war crimes, etc.

Good luck.




  #1  
Old 12-05-2010, 09:34 PM
Anonymous
Posts: n/a
Default Vaccine Sales

Currently interviewing with your company for an Immunization Sales Specialist position; looking for CONSTRUCTIVE feedback on pros/cons of this position. Is there more career stability in this division vs. pharma?
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  #2  
Old 12-05-2010, 10:19 PM
Anonymous
Posts: n/a
Default Re: Vaccine Sales

The best thing you can do right now is run like hell and never speak with GSK again. GSK is a hell hole sweatshop. The only reason people are still employed by GSK is to qualify for retirement / severance / VRIF. There is no other reason to be at GSK right now.
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  #3  
Old 12-05-2010, 10:40 PM
Anonymous
Posts: n/a
Default Re: Vaccine Sales

Disagree with the above post. I am in the Vaccine Business Unit. We have had some difficult times as has almost every division and almost every company. All things considered its not a bad place to be.
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  #4  
Old 12-05-2010, 10:43 PM
Anonymous
Posts: n/a
Default Re: Vaccine Sales

Thanks for your reply I've kind of gathered this from all of the other threads I've read. I've heard about rumors of GSK acquiring Novartis vaccine division in the very near future...any chance this new entity would be worth entertaining?
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  #5  
Old 12-05-2010, 11:40 PM
Anonymous
Posts: n/a
Default Re: Vaccine Sales

If you have a thick skin and do not need to be praised for the work you do.
If you have a strong stomach for humiliation
If you can work hard everyday and still be thought incompetent by your boss.
If you can lived day to day wondering if you will have a job next month
If you dont mind feeling like an ax is ready to fall on your neck
If it is ok with you to sell products that might be dangerous
If riding with a micro-manager every 2-3 weeks is your idea of support
If you can stand to be considered a cog in a wheel and not a person

Then by all means---------------go to work for GSK
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  #6  
Old 12-06-2010, 09:11 AM
Anonymous
Posts: n/a
Default Re: Vaccine Sales

Actually, if you are a sadist who enjoys inflicting misery on others and you can get a management job GSK is a pretty good gig.

If you want to be tagged as management material, be sure to emphasize any illegal and / or unethical conduct at previous companies. That is a HUGE plus at GSK these days. Also, any examples of behaviour dehumanizing others is important - rapes, war crimes, etc.

Good luck.
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 12-07-2010, 12:48 PM
Anonymous
Posts: n/a
Default Re: Vaccine Sales

Unfortunately, this position isn't what it used to be.

Consider the state you're in, and how VFC Vaccines are supplied. If there's open access and choice for your accounts, you might have a good position.

Also consider how many groups there are, as this division just moved to account managers in many areas that are covering large purchasing groups. If your position has a lot of large private business, it might be fun. All the small accounts are getting passed to telesales, so watch out.

The biggest problem right now in this division is supply, and how it impacts the selling contracts. They aren't making allowances to customers for the shortages, and it's a problem.

They've "pharma-ized" this division as of Jan 2009, so it's a lot about metrics and less about sales.

Oh, and by the way, speaking of sales: you won't get paid on your sales...no one at GSK gets paid on territory sales anymore. Good luck.
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  #8  
Old 12-07-2010, 11:47 PM
Anonymous
Posts: n/a
Default Re: Vaccine Sales

I am in the vaccines business unit. It is a little more stable than pharma however, we have had our share of challenges. Just went through a really big cut in sales force so hopefully no big ones comming up again soon. Most reps are full line now which means you have quite a few products to learn both pediatric and adult.

Your life could be hell though if you are in a territory where you have lot's of big systems and your vaccines are not available on that groups formulary per say than you have no control also important to see if you have a lot of VFC.

Just do your homework and find out why the position is open and what the challenges are in that market before signing on the dotted line
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  #9  
Old 12-08-2010, 01:28 AM
Anonymous
Posts: n/a
Default Re: Vaccine Sales

those jobs are crap.
you are done and wont make 70 grand
history
from, a former vaccine mgr at gsk............dont fall for it.............fool
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  #10  
Old 12-12-2010, 10:29 PM
Anonymous
Posts: n/a
Default Re: Vaccine Sales

Lots of work, pressure and bullshit for little or no bonus. Negotiate the highest salary possible. Don't buy the bonus potential, it's a joke. Also be prepared to work lots of hours with little success. Your manager will feel a lot of pressure from above and it will all fall on the reps.

February 23, 2011

Pissed about Bruesewitz and Gates? Get to NYC to Protest on Thursday!

Since sending out my last email on the Supreme Court Ruling, I have been fielding emails and phone calls non stop.  It is now midnight.  It is clear that this community is horrified at what is being done to our children.

So here is your chance to make your voice heard NOW.  On Thursday in New York there will be a protest to tell the world just what we think about having our rights to civil process removed and how we feel about Bill Gates calling those who advocate for vaccine safety, "Child Killers".

And Wednesday, pick up a phone, call your Congressman, Senator and the White House and let them know LOUDLY that we will not stand for having our constitutional rights for redress be taken from us, or have our children be used as experimental subjects in a run away vaccine program that is not accountable for killing and maiming children.



Vebook_header
 

February 23, 2011

Press Conference at Microsoft NYC Headquarters on Feb 24

On Thursday, February 24 at 11:30 am, advocates, parents, and professionals will gather for a press conference at Microsoft's NYC headquarters at 1290 Avenue of the Americas (52nd Street and Sixth Ave, southeast corner).
Join us for a public display of anger. It is time for a protest that sends a strong and unequivocal message.
We reject Bill Gates's misguided rhetoric of intolerance against those who question vaccine safety. We demand an apology from Bill Gates for his irresponsible comments on national TV. All human beings, including parents whose children were injured and died from their vaccines, are entitled to speak out about vaccine safety and affirm that vaccination choice is a human right. No one, including our corporate leaders, should be permitted to publicly insult this right.

Vaccine Epidemic Authors Condemn Supreme Court Ruling in Bruesewitz v. Wyeth

Coming on the heels of a successful book launch event in New York City on Feb 18, which gathered over 300 people at the NYU School of Law, we were deeply disappointed yesterday morning to learn of the Supreme Court's ruling in Bruesewitz v Wyeth. The 6-2 decision forecloses civil lawsuits for vaccine design defects and further tilts the already unfair playing field of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which consistently decides against vaccine-injured famlies after years of venomous litigation.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a blistering dissent, in which Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined, arguing that the majority appears more concerned about shielding industry than about the welfare of our children, and more concerned with a policy to prevent tort cases alleging vaccine-induced autism from reaching civil court than with the statute's plain language.
Many safety and autism advocacy organizations have joined to express their condemnation, as reflected by the Coalition for Vaccine Safety's press release issued yesterday.

Microsoft Chairman Says Vaccine Safety Advocates Are "Killing Children"

Earlier this month, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates stated on a CNN interview with Dr. Sanjay Gupta that so-called "anti-vaccine efforts" -- which are, in truth, efforts to raise science-based concerns about vaccine safety -- "kill children."
Gates's expression of intolerance was directed at those who voice concern about the wisdom of current vaccination policy and defend their human right to vaccination choice. His statement went unchecked in the mainstream media. It is an undisputable fact that vaccines injure and cause death to some children. Those who fight for vaccine safety seek to lessen these injuries and deaths, not ignore them, as Bill Gates would have people do.
Please join the press conference to help break the silence of vaccine injury and to call attention to the human right to vaccination choice.
***
Vaccine_epidemic_-_cover_high_res

If You Can't Be in NYC on Thursday, Buy a Book or Three

If you can't join us in NYC tomorrow, buy a few copies of Vaccine Epidemic and commit to loaning them or giving them to people who will read them. You can always donate a couple to your local library.
There is no "standing still." Either we move forward, or we fall behind.
It is a formidable act of advocacy to put copies of Vaccine Epidemic in people's hands. Knowledge is powerful. To open your eyes is to find your voice. And at just $14 each, it won't break the bank.
***
Please help us to spread the word. There are times when the very best way to be heard is to show up. See you in NYC on Thursday.

Louise Kuo Habakus

Mary Holland

p.s. For those who don't live in or near NYC, stay tuned... your time is coming, too!
***
Continue to hear about news updates and events about Vaccine Epidemic by clicking HERE to sign up. Unsubscribe HERE and you will be permanently removed from our list. And keep up with the very latest on the book’s website: Vaccine Epidemic.

February 22, 2011

SCOTUS Rules: If You Are Injured By A Vaccine, You Are On Your Own

The world has just changed.

The Supreme Court has just ruled that if you are injured by a vaccine, you have no right to sue anyone for it.

The only right you do have is the right to ASK the government to pay you for it.

And if they don't want to, you have no recourse and there is NO consequence for the government.

And the government rejects the vast majority of vaccine injury cases that people file.

There will be reams written about this to come, but for the moment, you need to understand that your government has removed your basic civil right to go to court if you are hurt or your child is killed by one class of medical products.

I cannot imagine that there will be any other reaction to this than parents everywhere declining vaccination on a wider and wider scale as they come to realize that this means, choosing instead to chance treatable viral illness over a life of poverty following a debilating vaccine injury.  When England removed the separate measles, mumps and rubella vaccines from the market, and their choice was MMR or nothing, mom's choose nothing.  

Which will mean that the next step for the vaccine pushers, and truly no one can deny that they are pushers at this point, will be to travel down the course that Offit has been telegraphing since last year and begin to use coercive measures on the public to FORCE vaccination.  We know that CPS has already used child removal, that schools have illegally denied entry and that even judges have ordered parents to vaccinate in complete violation of their own state laws.  So where is the Doctocracy going to take us from here?  

And when will we collectively, as a nation, yell STOP!

Because until we do... you have to understand...

YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN.

From the Coalition for Vaccine Safety:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:                                                     Contact: Robert Krakow, Esq.
                                                                                                   (917) 763-0063
                         
                                                                          rkrakow@krakowlawfirm.com                    
February 22, 2011                                                                    Mary Holland, Esq. (212) 998-6212
                                                                                                   (917) 743-3868
                                                                                                   coalitionforvaccinesafety@gmail.com   
                                                 
Court Protects Vaccine Manufacturers, Not Injured Children

Supreme Court Decides Bruesewitz v. Wyeth 6-2, Foreclosing Civil Lawsuits for Vaccine Design Defect 

New York, NY – The Coalition for Vaccine Safety (CVS) condemns the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Bruesewitz v. Wyeth to preempt all vaccine design defect lawsuits in state and federal civil court.  Quoting Justice Sotomayor’s dissent, the majority “imposes its own bare policy preference over the considered judgment of Congress.”  In the dissent, which Justice Ginsburg joined, Justice Sotomayor argues that the majority misreads the text, misconstrues the Act’s legislative history, and “disturbs the careful balance Congress struck between compensating vaccine-injured children and stabilizing the childhood vaccine market.”

The actual circumstances in Bruesewitz v. Wyeth illustrate why the Supreme Court’s decision is misguided.  Hannah Bruesewitz, hours after a diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus vaccine, developed catastrophic brain injury and a lifelong seizure disorder.  The only plausible explanation for the harm to Hannah was her vaccine.  Indeed, many other children were injured by the same vaccine lot, yet the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, the only court where Hannah could bring her claim, denied compensation after years of litigation.  Now the Supreme Court tells Hannah and her family that there is no courtroom in the country in which she can obtain justice and compensation for the years of care ahead that she needs.

The majority’s true intent appears to be to prevent several thousand tort cases claiming a link between vaccines and autism from reaching civil court to assert that a dangerous vaccine design, using mercury as a preservative, was defective.  Sotomayor writes that this concern, to shield manufacturers from litigation, “appears to underlie the majority and concurring opinions in this case.”

According to vaccine safety advocate Louise Kuo Habakus, “The Court is telling parents that they’re on their own.  Parents know that 4 out of 5 cases of vaccine injury do not get compensation in the misnamed Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.  The Supreme Court has slammed the courthouse doors shut.”  Because the federal government recommends 70 doses of 16 “unavoidably unsafe” vaccines, and states compel 30-45 doses for school attendance, this issue affects all children.

CVS calls for Congressional hearings and action to amend the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act to reinstate the right to sue for vaccine design defect in civil court.

For more information on Bruesewitz v. Wyeth and vaccine safety, visit www.coalitionforvaccinesafety.org.

Organizations supporting the Coalition for Vaccine Safety:

Age of Autism (www.ageofautism.com)
Autism One (www.autismone.com)
Autism Action Network (www.autismactioncoalition.org)
Center for Personal Rights (www.centerforpersonalrights.org)
The Coalition for Safe Minds (www.safeminds.org)
Elizabeth Birt Center for Autism Law and Advocacy (www.ebcala.org)
Generation Rescue (www.generationrescue.org)
National Autism Association (www.nationalautismassociation.org)
National Autism Association New York Metro Chapter (www.naanyc.org)
Talk About Curing Autism (www.talkaboutcuringautism.org)
Unlocking Autism (www.unlockingautism.org)  




National Vaccine Information Center Cites “Betrayal” of Consumers by U.S. Supreme Court Giving Total Liability Shield to Big Pharma

WASHINGTON--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), whose co-founders worked with Congress on the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 (PL-99-660), is calling yesterday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision giving drug companies total liability protection for injuries and deaths caused by government mandated vaccines a “betrayal” of the American consumer.
“The U.S. Supreme Court has removed all financial incentive for multi-national pharmaceutical corporations, which enjoy a $20 billion dollar business, to make vaccines as safe as they can be”
In a 6-2 decision, the Court majority voted to reject substantial evidence in the Act’s legislative history that the 99th Congress fully intended to protect an American’s right to sue a pharmaceutical corporation for injuries that could have been prevented if the company had elected to make a safer vaccine.
NVIC co-founder and president Barbara Loe Fisher, said “Parents of vaccine injured children, who worked in good faith with Congress in the early 1980’s on the 1986 law, have been betrayed by six American judges, who ignored congressional intent and threw victims of vaccine injury under the bus in order to give complete liability protection to a wealthy industry with a long history of hiding their products’ risks. They have removed the safety net we were promised. If we had known this day would come, we would have vigorously opposed any federal legislation that limited civil liability for drug corporations now making substantial profits from vaccines mandated by government.”
Hannah Bruesewitz was brain injured by DPT vaccine as a child but she was denied compensation by the U.S. Court of Claims, which administers the federal vaccine injury compensation program created by the 1986 Act that has turned away two out of three plaintiffs. Her attorneys then sued in civil court, providing evidence that Wyeth-Lederle had the technology to produce a less reactive, purified pertussis vaccine but declined to do so.
“The U.S. Supreme Court has removed all financial incentive for multi-national pharmaceutical corporations, which enjoy a $20 billion dollar business, to make vaccines as safe as they can be,” said Fisher. “This is a sad day for all Americans forced by law to use dozens of doses of vaccines or be barred from school or health insurance or employment. The only leverage left to American consumers to ensure that vaccines with the fewest health risks are produced is to oppose vaccine mandates and work to defendvaccine exemptions in all public health laws.”
The National Vaccine Information Center is a non-profit charity founded in 1982 to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths through public education. NVIC co-founders were responsible for inclusion of vaccine safety and research provisions in the 1986 Act, including theVaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, and for ensuring that the Act protected the right of those injured by vaccines to access the civil court system if they were turned down for compensation or offered too little to meet their lifetime medical care needs.
NVIC has been critical of the failure of the U.S. Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services to implement the 1986 law in accordance with legislative language, history and congressional intent. For more information, go to www.NVIC.org
Contacts
National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC)
Barbara Loe Fisher
President – Co-Founder
703-938-0342
www.NVIC.org