posted June 10, 2006 09:04 PM         

For immediate release
Wednesday, October 19, 2005

CONGRESS SET TO PASS LAW ELIMINATING LIABILITY FOR VACCINE INJURIES

Washington, 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 that they are forced by government to take, whenever federal health officials declare a public health emergency.

The legislation's architect, Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), Chairman of the HELP Subcommittee on Bioterrorism and Public Health Preparedness, told the full HELP Committee yesterday that the legislation" creates a true partnership" 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, insuring that no evidence of injuries or deaths caused by drugs and vaccines labeled as "countermeasures" will become public.

Nicknamed "Bioshield 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-TN), Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Mike Enzi (R-WY), and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg (R-NH), 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 Bioshield 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 accountable 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 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 insure 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 liability? 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. http://www.909shot.com/PressReleases/101905Burrbill.htm

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Anyone know if this actually passed? I can't believe it was even proposed!

posted June 10, 2006 09:06 PM         

NVIC condemns the disgraceful behavior of those in the Senate who used under-handed tactics in late December to ram unjust liability protection for drug companies through Congress. Many NVIC supporters took positive action in December after NVIC issued a call to action to try to defeat the massive lobbying effort by drug companies and pro-forced vaccination lobbyists to remove access to the judicial system when federal health initiatives result in vaccine injuries and deaths. It is clear that the only way they could defeat us was to lie and deliberately corrupt the legislative process. To more fully understand why they did what they did, read the letter NVIC sent to Senate staffer, Robert Kadlec, M.D. protesting the liability shield legislation for Big Pharma which President Bush has signed into law.

HONEST LEADERSHIP ACT

2/15/06 Jurist
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2006/02/vaccine-liability-law-
changes-proposed.php

Congressional Democrats on Wednesday introduced legislation that would roll back some of the limited liability provisions for vaccine and drug manufacturers in times of public health or bioterror emergency. A group of 21 US Senate and House Democrats led by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) said in a letter describing the proposed Responsible Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act of 2005 that current provisions were too broad and could be abused by manufacturers to avoid liability despite gross negligence or criminal action. They also said provisions defined health emergencies too broadly and left injured people with no compensation.

Limiting liability for vaccine and drug manufacturers has been strongly supported by President Bush and by Sen. Bill Frist. The current law was passed as part of HR 2863, a defense bill passed in December 2005. [Jurist 2-15-06] http://www.909shot.com/Liabilityshield.htm

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I guess we have to always be prepared to believe the unbelievable about people.

posted June 10, 2006 09:46 PM         

Also, please explain to me, if you can, why parents need to sign a waiver/consent form to not hold others responsible for any possible adverse reactions to the vaccines in order to have their children vaccinated if they are considered so utterly safe by the medical establishment and legally required (unless you are fortunate enough to be granted an exemption)? You see, I don't need to sign a consent form to have my child be adminstered tylenol ... and even that has been shown to cause liver damage over time. Nor do I need to sign a consent form to have my child be adminstered antibiotics ... even though they wreak havoc with a human's healthy intestinal flora. In fact, the only time I need to sign any consent forms for my child to receive any medical procedure is when my child's life and health (knock on wood) are in serious jeopardy. But yet, regardless of that insidious consent form, vaccines are considered safe enough for our children to be forcibly removed from our custody due to "neglect" or for "security" reasons and administered vaccines against his/her and our will? Please, please make sense of this for me. I'm pleading with you!

As a mother, I'm very concerned about allowing my child to be injected with the ingredients listed in vaccines. Can we prove with 100% certainty that vaccines are (1) safe (2) effective and (3) absolutely necessary? Can we prove with 100% certainty that any decrease in communicable diseases is the undeniable result of vaccinations and that greatly improved sanitation standards have not made a serious dent in the figures?

I want my child to be healthy. I want my child to be safe. And I want to see the actual unarguable proof that vaccines are good for my child's health and that they are completely safe. Otherwise, how can we be obligated to have them be vaccinated?

posted June 11, 2006 05:59 PM           

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"WHATEVER the soul longs for, WILL be attained by the spirit"

"Love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation"

posted June 12, 2006 09:54 PM           

Ditto what Eleanore said btw. I'd truly appreciate a pro-vaccine viewpoint. I won't attack anyone, scouts honor. I'm trying awfully hard, in fact, to play devil's advocate with myself. I could just use a little help.

And if anyone would care to play devil's advocate on the subject of circumcision I'd love to hear that too.

posted June 16, 2006 03:41 PM         

Measles Vaccine Undeniably Linked to Autism


The vaccine strain of measles virus has been found in the guts of 85 percent of autistic children in a New York University School of Medicine study.

The finding renews concerns that the triple combination vaccine of measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) given to children may not be entirely safe.

In the study, biopsies of gut tissue were performed on 82 autistic children who had serious intestinal inflammation. Seventy of these showed evidence of the measles virus.

Similar results were found by Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who found the measles virus in the guts of 12 autistic children in 1998, and pathologist John O'Leary in 2002.

In the UK, over 2,000 parents say their children were developing normally until they received the MMR vaccine when they were 12-18 months old. Afterward, the children developed autism. Some theorize that the virus may pass through the gut and into the bloodstream, from which it is able to attack the brain.

Mainstream scientists maintain that there is no evidence linking the MMR vaccine to autism, however, in the UK concerns regarding MMR's potential side effects have driven vaccination rates to as low as 70 percent.

Association of American Physicians and Surgeons May 30, 2006

Times Online.co.uk May 29, 2006

Telegraph.co.uk May 29, 2006

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Dr. Mercola's Comment:

For longtime readers of this site, you will not be at all surprised about this association as I have been mentioning it on this site for nearly nine years.

However, to many new readers this probably sounds like medical heresy. If you recently started exploring natural medicine I implore you to take a few deep breaths, calm yourself and carefully and objectively examine the evidence. Avoid the temptation to dismiss this as a bunch of rubbish because experts you trust say otherwise.

The vaccine issue is one of the most controversial topics in medicine and typically one of the last positions a conventionally trained physician will relinquish once they carefully study the issue. I know that was true for me and my views of Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, one of the major pioneers in this area.

Like most physicians I viewed him as a dangerous ignorant quack who clearly did not understand what he was talking about and whose views were putting innocent children at risk.

However, as I learned more about the risks of vaccines, and began to see hundreds of brain-injured children in my own practice who had been damaged by vaccines, my views changed quite dramatically. I actually regret never having met him before he died, as he worked out of the University of Illinois, which is where I graduated from.

Dr. Mendelsohn was a brave man who dared to tell the truth and stood up to the conventional system to protect kids from the harm that vaccines were causing. He wrote an excellent book, How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor, that is still available today. It can help you sort through the vaccine mess if you are still in the exploration phase and just aren't sure if vaccines are useful or harmful yet.

So I urge you to not make the same mistake I did 20 years ago and quickly dismiss this issue because it conflicts with what you were taught. For your sake and, more importantly, for the sake of your precious children, please examine this issue very carefully before you pass a harsh judgment on this important issue.

posted June 17, 2006 10:50 AM           

My goodness, I missed you.

How's things?

I receive Dr Merola's daily e-mails too. I think I might have missed that one though. Does anyone know the percentage of children that receive the measles vaccine? In other words, if 85% of all children get the vaccine, then the study wouldn't prove anything.