WA****NGTON, D.C.-The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is
calling the "Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act
of 2005"(S. 1873), which passed out of the U.S. Senate HELP Committee
one day after it was introduced, "a drug company stockholder's
dream and a consumer's worst nightmare." The proposed legislation
will strip Americans of the right to a trial by jury if harmed by an
experimental or licensed drug or vaccine they are forced by government
to take whenever federal health officials declare a public health
emergency.
The legislation's architect, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Chairman of
the HELP Subcommittee on Bioterrorism and Public Health Preparedness,
told the full HELP Committee that the legislation creates a true
partner****p" between the federal government, the pharmaceutical
industry and academia to walk the drug companies "through the Valley
of Death" in bringing a new vaccine or drug to market. Burr said it
will give the Department of Health and Human Services "additional
authority and resources to partner with the private sector to rapidly
develop drugs and vaccines." The Burr bill gives the Secretary of
DHHS the sole authority to decide whether a manufacturer violated laws
mandating drug safety and bans citizens from challenging his decision
in the civil court system.
The bill establishes the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development
Agency (BARDA) as the single point of authority within the government
for the advanced research and development of drugs and vaccines in
response to bioterrorism and natural disease outbreaks such as the flu.
BARDA will operate in secret, exempt from the Freedom of Information
Act and the Federal Advisory Committee Act, ensuring that no evidence
of injuries or deaths caused by drugs and vaccines labeled as
"countermeasures" will become public.
Nicknamed "Bio****eld Two," the legislation is being pushed rapidly
through Congress without time for voters to make their voices heard by
their elected representatives. Co-sponsored by Republican Senate
Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), Senate Health, Education, Labor
and Pensions Committee Chairman Mike Enzi (R-Wy.), and Senate Budget
Committee Chairman Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), the legislation will eliminate
both regulatory and legal safeguards applied to vaccines as well as
take away the right of children and adults harmed by vaccines and drugs
to present their case in front of a jury in a civil court of law.
"It is a sad day for this nation when Congress is frightened and
bullied into allowing one profit-making industry to destroy the Seventh
Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing citizens their day in court
in front of a jury of their peers," said Barbara Loe Fisher,
president of NVIC. "This proposed legislation, like the power and
money grab by federal health officials and industry in the Homeland
Security Act of 2002 and the Project Bio****eld Act of 2004, is an
unconstitutional attempt by some in Congress to give a taxpayer-funded
handout to pharmaceutical companies for drugs and vaccines the
government can force all citizens to use while absolving everyone
connected from any responsibility for injuries and deaths which occur.
It means that if an American is injured by an experimental flu or
anthrax vaccine he or she is mandated to take, that citizen will be
banned from exercising the constitutional right to a jury trial even if
it is revealed that the vaccine maker engaged in criminal fraud and
negligence in the manufacture of the vaccine."
The federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is legally responsible
for regulating the pharmaceutical industry and ensuring that drugs and
vaccines released to the public are safe and effective. Drug companies
marketing painkillers, like Vioxx, and anti-depressants, which have
resulted in the deaths and injuries of thousands of children and
adults, are being held acountable in civil court while the FDA has come
under intense criticism for withholding information about the drugs'
dangers from the public. Since 1986, vaccine makers have been protected
from most liability in civil court through the National Childhood
Vaccine Injury Act in which Congress created a federal vaccine injury
compensation program (VICP) that offers vaccine victims an alternative
to the court system. Even though the program has awarded nearly $2
billion to victims of mandated vaccines, two out of three plaintiffs
are turned away.
"The drug companies and doctors got all the liability protection they
needed in 1986, but they are greedy and want more," said Fisher.
"And the federal health agencies want more power to force citizens to
use vaccines without having to worry about properly regulating them. If
the Burr bill passes, all economic incentives to ensure mandated
vaccines are safe will be removed and the American people are facing a
future where government can force them to take poorly regulated
experimental drugs and vaccines labeled as 'countermeasures' or go
to jail. The only recourse for citizens will be to strike down
mandatory vaccination laws so vaccines will be subject to the law of
supply and demand in the marketplace. The health care consumer's cry
will be: No liablity? No mandates."
The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) was founded by parents
of vaccine injured children in 1982. and co-founders worked with
Congress on the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. For more
information, go to www.nvic.org.
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