Vaccine makers helped write Frist-backed shield law.

May 9, 2006

Monday, 05/08/06 Vaccine makers helped write Frist-backed shield law E-mails reveal private meetings (Courtesy CLG News)http://www.legitgov.org/flu_oddities.htmlBy BILL THEOBALDTennessean Washington Bureau WASHINGTON — Vaccine industry officials helped shape legislation behind the scenes that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist secretly amended into a bill to shield them from lawsuits, according to e-mails obtained by a public advocacy group. E-mails and documents written by a trade group for the vaccine-makers show the organization met privately with Frist's staff and the White House about measures that would

give the industry protection from lawsuits filed by people hurt by the vaccines. The communications were made public in a report released this week by the group Public Citizen. Its study follows a February story in The Tennessean that Frist, along with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., ordered the vaccine liability language inserted in a defense spending bill in December without debate and in violation of usual Senate practice. The group, called the Biotechnology Industry Organization, wanted such language in the bill, the e-mails reflect. http://www.ashlandcitytimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060508/NEWS02/605080356/1291/MTCN01 "Our ideal is not the spirituality that withdraws from life but the conquest of life by the power of the spirit." - Aurobindo.

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