Bill would insulate pharmaceutical firms from liability

[Guest guest]

Bill would insulate pharmaceutical firms from liability

 

06:42 PM PDT on Sunday, April 10, 2005

 

 

By ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.

 

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has buried a provision in

the " Protecting America in the War on Terror Act " to insulate the

pharmaceutical industry from liability for venal actions that may

have poisoned an entire generation of Americans.

 

Mounting evidence suggests that Thimerosal, a mercury-based

preservative in children's vaccines, may be responsible for the

exponential growth of autism, attention deficit disorder, speech

delays and other childhood neurological disorders now epidemic in

the United States.

 

Prior to 1989, American infants generally received three

vaccinations. In the early 1990s, public-health officials

dramatically increased the number of Thimerosal-containing

vaccinations without considering the cumulative impact of the

mercury load on developing brains.

 

Warning Issued

 

In a 1991 memo, Dr. Maurice Hilleman, one of the fathers of Merck's

vaccination programs, warned the president of the company's

vaccination division that 6-month-old children administered the

shots on schedule would suffer mercury exposures 87 times the

government safety standard (400 times the current U.S. government's

safe level). He recommended that Thimerosal be

discontinued, " especially when used on infants and children. "

 

Merck ignored Hilleman's warning and, for eight years, government

officials added seven additional shots for children containing

Thimerosal.

 

Mercury is a known brain poison, and autism rates began rising

dramatically in children who were administered the new vaccine

regimens. A decade ago the American Academy of Pediatrics estimated

the autism rate among American children to be 1 in 2,500. Today, the

CDC places the autism rate at 1 in 166, or one in 80 boys.

Additionally, one in every six children is now diagnosed with a

related neurological disorder.

 

In 1998 the CDC's lead Thimerosal researcher, Dr. Thomas

Verstraeten, complained to his colleagues in a secret memo that,

despite rerunning and rethinking the research, the links between

Thimerosal and autism " just won't go away. "

 

Secret Meeting

 

In 2000, CDC, FDA and pharmaceutical companies called a secret

meeting to review Verstraeten's findings. According to transcripts,

participants were alarmed about the undeniable link between the

mercury preservative and autism. Dr. Bill Weil told the group, " You

can play with (the results) all you want. They are statistically

significant. "

 

Dr. Richard Johnston acknowledged he feared his grandchild getting

vaccinated. But the group was most concerned with keeping the

findings secret.

 

Numerous animal, DNA, epidemiological and other studies point to

Thimerosal as the culprit in America's epidemic of neurological

disorders.

 

Autistic children have been shown to have higher mercury loads than

nonautistics, and there have been reports of significant

improvements in some brain-injured children by removing mercury from

their bodies.

 

Most of the symptoms of autism are similar to the symptoms of

mercury poisoning. Recently, scientists have been able to induce

autism in certain mice by exposing them to Thimerosal.

 

In a recent study, former FDA scientist Dr. Jill James uncovered a

scientific link that helps explain why Thimerosal injures some

children and not others. That study found that many autistic

children are genetically deficient in their capacity to produce

glutathione, an antioxidant generated in the brain that helps remove

mercury from the body, a harmless difference until the child is

exposed to large quantities of mercury.

 

Porter Bridges' experience is typical. In 1993, this healthy 4-month-

old slipped into a coma hours after receiving his vaccines.

 

Today, 11-year-old Porter is autistic, hyperactive and severely

brain damaged. He requires minute-to-minute supervision, is

frequently afflicted with violent seizures and is not yet toilet-

trained.

 

After a seven-year legal fight, the U.S. government acknowledged

that Porter was damaged by his vaccines. There are now 520,000

autistics in the United States with 40,000 new cases each year.

 

High Cost of Care

 

The cost of caring for autistic children is conservatively $40,000

annually. Families with children with autism and other neurological

diseases have filed more than 4,200 claims in the special

federal " Vaccine Court. " Some plaintiffs have also filed in trial

courts.

 

Some Drug Makers Act

 

Thimerosal defendants include Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Aventis,

Weyeth and Eli Lilly. Frist's newly proposed " anti-terror "

legislation would create insurmountable burdens of proof for

plaintiffs in these cases and forbid states from banning Thimerosal.

 

Drug makers wary of liability have reduced Thimerosal in children's

vaccines in recent years, with the exception of Chiron and Aventis'

pediatric flu vaccine. Mercury-laced vaccine stocks were given to

children until the end of 2003.

 

Thimerosal's inventor, Eli Lilly, donated $226,000 to Frist's

national Republican Senate Campaign Committee in 2002 and bought

5,000 copies of Frist's book on bioterrorism. Congress will vote on

Frist's bill in the near future.

 

Instead of demanding the immediate removal of Thimerosal from all

vaccines, and making the drug industry help defray the public and

private costs of caring for injured children, Frist's bill would

give the industry a free ride at public expense.

 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the chief prosecuting attorney for

Riverkeeper and a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense

Council.

 

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