Immunity sought as avian flu shadow approaches

[Guest guest]

" Zeus " <info

Immunity sought as avian flu shadow approaches

Sat, 15 Oct 2005 13:14:35 +0100

 

 

 

A prominent vaccine developer and researcher with the

University of Tennessee gave the show away on CNN's Lou Dobbs show

October 10, 2005 when he told Dobbs that the vaccine manufacturers

were not interested in supplying a vaccine for the predicted flu

pandemic unless the U.S. government would protect them from liability

suits. That should tell you just how safe these shots really are

when the insurance companies won't touch them.

 

This is not new about Big Pharma unable to get liability insurance

for their vaccines... That is why Congress assumed liability for the

mandatory childhood vaccine program in 1987.

Between 1988-1995, the US Government has paid out a WHOPPING

$57,589,828.07 to individuals and families of individuals who were

killed or maimed by vaccinations

http://www.hrsa.gov/osp/vicp/monthly_stats_post.htm

 

If the underwriters won't offer liability coverage, why should anyone

take a chance on these shots?

 

 

 

 

http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Business/101205_vaccine.html

 

Immunity sought as avian flu shadow approaches

By Jim Snyder

 

Rising worry about a bird-flu pandemic is reviving drug-company hopes for

legal protections to produce vaccines.

 

The debate once centered on preparations for a terrorist attack that

released deadly strains of anthrax or smallpox. But the administration and

lawmakers are now rushing to prepare for a global flu outbreak that

medical

experts say is almost sure to happen.

 

The Senate already has approved an amendment offered by Sen. Tom Harkin

(D-Iowa) that added $3.9 billion to the military spending measure to

prepare for the flu. The money will be used to stockpile medications to

combat the flu.

 

Lobbyists from pharmaceutical companies say a critical component of any

effort is immunity from lawsuits if a vaccination causes harm.

 

Without new legal safeguards, pharmaceutical companies are unlikely to

produce vaccines, a business that offers little reward but a lot of risk,

lobbyists say.

 

" Vaccines are not Viagra, " said John Clerici of McKenna, Long and

Aldridge,

which represents Sanofi Pasteur, a French company that has a

vaccine-manufacturing plant in Pennsylvania, and other pharmaceutical

companies.

 

" You aren't going to make a huge amount of money making vaccines. "

 

This month, the Department of Health and Human Services awarded Sanofi a

$97 million contract to develop a new type of flu vaccine.

 

But a deterrent for wider participation among the industry is the

potential

liability, which Clerici said is huge because the number of people who

would use a vaccine in a global outbreak likely will reach in the hundreds

of millions.

 

The debate over liability protection pits two rival lobbying powers

against

one another once again: drug companies and trial lawyers.

 

The Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA) opposes " efforts by

some

in Congress and their friends in the pharmaceutical industry to use the

threat of outbreak as means to provide big giveaways to special

interests, "

said ATLA spokeswoman Chris Mather.

 

The association instead favors reforming the Vaccine Injury Compensation

Program, which set up a federal, court-like process through which alleged

victims of vaccination could seek financial compensation.

 

Created in 1986, the program has settled 1,200 vaccine claims worth $1.2

billion as of 2004. But it has come under criticism for being too slow in

giving victims redress.

 

Recent battles over liability protection were fought as Congress debated

Project Bioshield, an effort by the White House to develop " medical

countermeasures " to biological and chemical terrorist attacks.

 

After liability protection for makers of thimerosal, a vaccine component

some say may be linked to a rising incidence of autism, was attached

to the

2002 homeland-security bill in the dead of night - it was later removed -

Congress had little appetite to attach liability protections to Bioshield

when it passed the act in 2004.

 

But as the so-called bird flu spreads around the globe, though it has

killed relatively few humans, Congress and the administration have taken

new interest in vaccine development.

 

Last week's news that the 1918 pandemic that killed at least 50 million

people was a mutated avian strain transferable by human-to-human contact

has provided additional momentum.

 

Several lawmakers have introduced bills or are drafting them to

improve the

system for producing and distributing vaccines - both for flu

outbreaks and

biological attacks.

 

Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), for

example, last week introduced the Influenza Vaccine Security Act.

 

The bill's provisions include shifting the liability from pharmaceutical

companies to the federal government for " personal injury or death

resulting

from the manufacture, administration or use of qualified pandemic

influenza

technologies. "

 

Mather said ATLA was still reviewing the bill. Chiron, the flu-vaccine

maker, is listed as a supporter of the bill.

 

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who is chairman of the Senate Health

Committee's Bioterrorism and Public Health Preparedness Subcommittee, has

said he will introduce a broad measure next week to prepare for a

bioterrorism or flu outbreak.

 

Doug Heye, a spokesman for Burr, said the bill, which is still being

drafted, is likely to borrow from a bill already introduced by Sen. Judd

Gregg (R-N.H.) that provides drug companies with liability protection.

 

" We need to provide incentives to companies to bring drugs and vaccines to

the marketplace, " Heye said.

 

Participation in Bioshield has so far been disappointing. Congress made

available $5.6 billion to drug companies to develop new drugs or vaccines.

But Clerici said only three contracts, worth a total of around $1 billion,

have been awarded.

 

Drug companies have " not participated at a level anticipated after

Bioshield, " Heye acknowledged.

 

But Mather noted news reports suggesting more companies are interested in

producing vaccines, even without liability protection.

 

Executives from pharmaceutical giants like GlaxoSmithKline and Wyeth have

announced investments in vaccine production facilities, Maher said.

 

forwarded by

Zeus Information Service

Alternative Views on Health

www.zeusinfoservice.com

[Guest guest]

>>>>>>>>>>>>>4 million doses, out of 87 million

made, were discarded<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< That means 83 million doses of the Flu

Vaccine was sold last year....The government adds a .75 tax on every vaccine

that goes into a fund for vaccine injurys....Just for one year from the flu

vaccine brings in 62 and 1/4 million!!!!!!!!!! The government is making a

lot of money from these vaccines... Remeber this is just from the Flu

vaccine.

 

Donna

 

On 10/15/05, califpacific <califpacific wrote:

>

> " Zeus " <info

> Immunity sought as avian flu shadow approaches

> Sat, 15 Oct 2005 13:14:35 +0100

>

>

>

> A prominent vaccine developer and researcher with the

> University of Tennessee gave the show away on CNN's Lou Dobbs show

> October 10, 2005 when he told Dobbs that the vaccine manufacturers

> were not interested in supplying a vaccine for the predicted flu

> pandemic unless the U.S. government would protect them from liability

> suits. That should tell you just how safe these shots really are

> when the insurance companies won't touch them.

>

> This is not new about Big Pharma unable to get liability insurance

> for their vaccines... That is why Congress assumed liability for the

> mandatory childhood vaccine program in 1987.

> Between 1988-1995, the US Government has paid out a WHOPPING

> $57,589,828.07 to individuals and families of individuals who were

> killed or maimed by vaccinations

> http://www.hrsa.gov/osp/vicp/monthly_stats_post.htm

>

>