Georgia Court Blocks Family From Vaccine Lawsuit
10 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // May 17th, 2011 // 8:17 am
Citing a US Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that federal law shields vaccine makers from product-liability lawsuits filed in state courts, the Georgia Supreme Court has reversed a closely watched and controversial 2008 ruling that a family could sue Pfizer’s Wyeth unit (read the opinion here).
At the time, the Georgia Supreme Court upheld an earlier decision by the Georgia Court of Appeals, which allowed the Ferrari family to pursue charges that thimerosal, the mercury-based preservative, caused their son to develop neurological problems. This was the first appellate court in the nation to hold that the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Compensation Act does not preempt state law.
The 1986 law says that a vaccine maker should not be held liable in a civil action if an injury was caused by unavoidable side effects, “even if the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings.” The provision bars lawsuits in state courts, except for claims alleging a manufacturing defect or a failure to warn.
The Ferrari case prompted protests from the vaccine industry and numerous groups, including the US Chamber of Commerce, which argued federal law preempts state law and vaccine makers should not confront a hodge podge of state laws across the country (back story). Seven other states had sided with vaccine makers.
This past February, however, the US Supreme Court ruled 6 to 2 against the parents of another child who sued Wyeth in Pennsylvania. The court decided the 1986 law specifically preempts lawsuits against vaccine makers because the same law established a special vaccine court that spares manufacturers from the cost of defending against such lawsuits (read this).
vaccine pic thx to lulu on flickr
doc
Other pharmaceuticals are subject to a hodge podge of state laws. Oh but vaccines don’t make pharmaceutical companies money! So we must spare them the cost of defending lawsuits alleging their pharmaceutical maimed children.
The former head of the CDC works for Merck in the vaccine division. During her tenure in charge of the CDC, Gardasil was approved. Merck sold more than 1 billion dollars worth of vaccine the 1st quarter. Tax dollars paid most of that bill. Gardasil which according to the 2 Merck funded trials FUTURE 1 and FUTURE 2, reduces abnormal Paps by 15% in an international cohort of women average age 20. Around the same time ACOG releases updated PAP recommendations stating we should no longer perform screening PAPs in women 20 or younger because there is virtually no chance of benefit and a proportionately high chance of unnecessary treatments which are expensive scary and harmful. We are giving short term protection to a viral infection which poses no risk to the target age group which happens to have government funding for all recommended vaccines. There has never been a study showing a cervical cancer reduction with Gardasil because it’s highly unlikely after 30 years of study that a benefit would emerge.
Prevnar was the top selling pharmaceutical for Wyeth for at least 2 years. It has been shown that serotype 19A was brought forth by the serotype replacement phenomenon created by Prevnar. The 2 pre licensing trials showed no mortality benefits, meningitis or pneumonia reduction benefits but a significant reduction in IPD (invasive pneumococcal disease). In high risk populations such as the AK native children, the benefits were already being eroded 3 years into the study demonstrating rapid serotype replacement.
Blockbuster vaccines backed by government regulators riding the revolving door. A special vaccine court to protect pharmaceutical companies from injured patients.
Like shooting fish in a barrel aint it?
SFM
Justice Sotomayor got it right in the Bruesiwitz dissent . . .
Expect to see more vaccines mandated and added to the already bloated schedule.
SFM
Oops - Bruesewitz
Observer
By interesting coincidence,we find a story today where this Georgia court and Bill Gates seem to share a common view of a subject.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43049595/ns/health-infectious_diseases/
Who would expect that?
Justice in MI
Given that there are, what, 12-15 vaccines covered by the “vaccine court,” the argument that this could serve as a model for preemption in pharma more generally does not seem “robust.”
vince
The vaccine model is the best of marketing.Get government to mandate the product based on the opinion of experts who either go back and forth between industry and government agencies and industry than prevent damaged kids from getting a day in court…..
yo
There are very few drugs that cure a disease. You could even argue that there are no drugs that are cures. They may relieve symptoms as in an allergy medication. They may prolong your life a little like so many chemo drugs. Yes, they kill bugs as in antibiotics. But mostly they manage diseades, think diabetes, heart failure, hypertension, glaucoma, etc.
Vaccines, the standard childhood ones, like MMR, hepetitis A & B, etc. actually prevent disease. Vaccines are the only public health intiative that has actually worked and worked well. Before these vaccine thousands of children died each year from things like mumps and thousands more were cripled prior to a polio vaccine. So in the grand scheme of things vaccines work. This is why vaccine manufacturers and developers are protected to a certain degree. If they weren’t protected they wouldn’t be making the stuff and we all would be in a worse place. Don’t kid yourselves.
Salient point
yo-Thanks for pointing this out. Those of us who are old enough to have parents who grew up with kids who had polio seem to have a different perspective on vaccines from today’s young adults, who are much more cavalier about this subject.
Evelyn Pringle
Seven years ago, I kind of agreed with Yo and Salient above. That was before I investigated the vaccine program and learned what a racket it had become. I was picturing the way it was when I was a kid, and my kids were born, and got a few vaccines, spaced out, and they didn’t really seem to cause many problems, that I ever heard about anyway.
But when I saw how many vaccines they were now forcing parents to give their children, beginning on the day of birth, and how many infants were getting multiple doses of various vaccines in one office visit, with many shots for diseases I’d never heard of a child contracting, I decided to investigate thoroughly and it didn’t take long to figure out how Big Pharma had turned the mandatory vaccine schedule into a gigantic profiteering racket.
Even if people don’t care about all the kids who are being injured, and some killed, I would think people would want to consider who is going to end up paying to care for all these children, many disabled for life and requiring very expensive medical treatments.
For autistic children, even if their parents can manage them while they are kids, will they be able to when they are adults? And those parents are not going to live forever - but autistic kids might live to a ripe old age.
The fact is, us tax payers are going to end up footing the bill because the politicians, and I include members of the Supreme Court in that category, are in the pocket of Big Pharma.
Check out the statistics on awards from the vaccine court. That whole system is a sham and it’s only going to get worse after the Supreme Court ruling because now they know they can get away with murder and families have no remedy.
Salient point
Where’s the evidence linking vaccines with autism? An extraordinary amount of research–a lot of it taxpayer-funded, by the way–has been committed to establishing this link. Hasn’t happened.
Autism is so devastating that parents whose lives have been turned upside-down by it have been manipulated into chasing a bogeyman by charlatans with their own agendas.