Act Now to Prevent Another Eli Lilly Rider Giveaway to Vaccine Makers

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Act Now to Prevent Another " Eli Lilly Rider " Giveaway to Vaccine Makers

 

 

Senate Leadership Will Force Language Protecting Drug Companies By

Inserting Provision in Appropriations Conference Report

 

 

DRUG COMPANY IMMUNITY LEGISLATION WILL

BE INSERTED INTO KEY LEGISLATION THIS WEEK

 

 

A-CHAMP AND EAGLE FORUM HAVE UNITED

TO FIGHT THE DRUG COMPANY PRAPAGANDA MACHINE

IN A SERIES OF FULL PAGE CAPITOL HILL ADS.

 

 

THE SENATE RETURNS THIS WEEK AND NEEDS TO HEAR FROM YOU!

 

 

For weeks Senators Frist, Gregg and Burr have engaged in a massive PR

campaign promoting the need to extend blanket liability protection for

the pharmaceutical industry. These " Pharma-friendly " Senators aim to

insert language giving liability protection to drug companies into a

'must pass' Appropriations bill conference report--Congress's

spending bill. The Senate leadership has employed fear and

intimidation to muscle support for their unconstitutional language

that would give unnecessary immunity from liability to the drug

companies. By inserting the liability protection provisions into the

Appropriations Conference Report the Senate leadership will force

other Senators who want Congress's spending bill approved to vote for

liability protection--even though liability protection is unnecessary,

places Americans at risk and undermines the Seventh Amendment to the

U.S. Constitution which preserves every American' right to a trial by

jury.

 

A-CHAMP's full page 'Open Letter to Congess' will appear in

Congressional Daily on Monday and Tuesday, December 12 & 13, in Roll

Call on December 13, and in The Hill on December 14. Watch for our

email containing our Open Letter.

 

WE NEED YOU TO BACK UP OUR MESSAGE BY SENDING YOUR OWN MESSAGE TO

CONGRESS. PLEASE SEND AN EMAIL, SEND A FAX AND MAKE A PHONE CALL.

 

You may use A-CHAMP's automated messaging system by clicking the " Take

Action' button or by sending a fax, or making a phone call to your

Senator or Representative. (Contact information for key Senators is

listed below.)

 

STOP THE LATEST CHEAP LEGISLATIVE TRICK THAT AIMS TO GIVE LARGE

CORPORATIONS UNFAIR AND UNNECESSARY LIABILITY PROTECTION

 

CALL. FAX. and SEND AN EMAIL THROUGH OUR AUTOMATED SYSTEM.

 

FAX & TELEPHONE Numbers of key legislators are Listed Below. Call and

send faxes to them and send emails to your Senators and Congressman

through our system.

 

WITH YOUR HELP, WE CAN SWARM WASHINGTON WITH PHONES CALLS TO PROTECT

VACCINE-INJURED CHILDREN'S RIGHTS!!

 

* Get on the phone ASAP!!!

 

* Our ONLY defense is to prevent any liability protection language

from being inserted in the Appropriations bill!

 

* Tell the legislators listed below plus your own Senator and

Representative that they must not support any of the bills that take

away your child's rights and that you demand that drug companies not

be rewarded for ignoring safety.

 

* Remind your legislator that constituents are watching their

actions closely. We will remember who supports the children, and who

supports vaccine manufacturers. Our legislators cannot have it both

ways—they are either for our injured children, or they are against them.

 

 

 

 

We need everyone possible to get involved—in-laws, neighbors, friends,

and anyone else you can think of. Send this action alert to everyone

in your address book. This is their best chance. WE MUST STOP THEM!

 

We will send out updates on the situation on Capitol Hill as we

receive them.

 

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Dear _________:

 

I respectfully request that you act to protect the rights of

vaccine-injured children by opposing the unfair liability immunity

giveaway proposed for drug companies.

 

There are ten or more bills pending in Congress that contain language

that severely limits the rights of children injured by vaccines. I am

shocked to learn that one of these provisions may be slipped into

proposed legislation – the Appropriations Bills Conference Report- in

a manner similar to the provisions snuck in the dead of night into the

Homeland Security bill in 2002. If any of these provisions is enacted,

a vaccine-injured child's right to have his or her day in court will

be unnecessarily and unfairly taken away. Enactment of this

legislation will be a dark day for the tradition of fair play and

equity in the American justice system, not to mention that such action

will violate the Seventh Amendment's preservation of every American's

right to a jury trial.

 

As a voter who cares deeply about children injured by vaccines, I

oppose legislation that will provide unprecedented immunity to a

vaccine industry that has caused tragic injury to some children. Such

liability protection is unnecessary. There has been minimal number of

vaccine lawsuits over the past 30 years - current laws adequately

protect vaccine manufacturers. The apparent lack of vaccine

manufacturing capacity in our country is not due to lawsuits but to

other causes, such as the consolidation of pharmaceutical industry via

merger and market factors that pose economic barriers to vaccine

production. Liability concerns have little to do with vaccine

manufacturing problems — eminent public health experts like the NIH's

Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Walter Orenstein, formerly of the CDC's

National Immunization Program, have said so. Liability is not the problem.

 

In addition, representatives of biotechnology companies have through

the use of the latest technology that eliminates dangerous protein

contaminants vaccines can be produced more safely than through the

methods used by the major drug companies. These biotech companies say

that they do not need liability protection in order to move ahead to

manufacture the new generation of safe vaccines. Biotech firms using

new technology have sufficiently high confidence in the safety of

their product that they are not worried about lawsuits.

 

I urge you to place the interests of injured children above those of

the pharmaceutical industry. Along with many of voters across the

country, I am deeply concerned that should unnecessary liability

protection be enacted vaccine manufacturers will cease to have an

incentive to make their products safe. Lack of safety endangers all

Americans.

 

Please act to protect Americans and ensure that safety is our vaccine

programs highest priority.

 

Sincerely,

 

_____________

 

CALL ALL of these Senators (and one House Member) ASAP!!!

 

Senator Thad Cochran (MS) (Chairman) Phone: (202) 224-5054 Fax: (202)

224-9450

 

Senator Ted Stevens (AK) Phone: (202) 224-3004 Fax:(202) 224-2354

 

Senator Arlen Specter (PA) Phone: 202-224-4254 Fax: 202-228-1229

 

Senator Pete Domenici (NM) Phone: (202) 224-6621 Fax: (202) 228-3261

 

Senator Christopher Bond (MO) Phone: (202) 224-5721 Fax: (202) 224-8149

 

Senator Mitch McConnell (KY) Phone: (202) 224-2541 Fax: (202) 224-2499

 

Senator Richard Shelby (AL) Phone: (202) 224-5744 Fax: (202) 224-3416

 

Senator Judd Gregg (NH) Phone: (202) 224 – 3324 Fax: (202) 224 - 4952

 

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX) Phone: 202-224-5922 Fax: 202-224-0776

 

Senator Conrad Burns (MT) Phone: 202-224-2644 Fax: 202-224-8594

 

Senator Daniel Inouye (Ranking Member) (HI) Phone: 202-224-3934 Fax:

202-224-6747

 

Senator Robert C. Byrd (WV) Phone: 202-224-3954 Fax: 202-228-0002

 

Senator Patrick Leahy (VT) Phone: 202-224-4242 Fax: 202-224-3479

 

Senator Tom Harkin (IA) Phone: (202) 224-3254 Fax: (202) 224-9369

 

Senator Byron Dorgan (ND) Phone: 202-224-2551 Fax: 202-224-1193

 

Senator Richard Durbin (IL) Phone: (202) 224-2152 Fax: (202) 228-0400

 

Senator Harry Reid (NV) Phone: 202-224-3542 Fax: 202-224-7327

 

Senator Dianne Feinstein (CA) Phone: (202) 224-3841 Fax: (202) 228-3954

 

Senator Barbara Milkulski (MD) Phone: 202-224-4654 Fax: 202-224-8858

 

Senator Edward Kennedy (MA) Phone: 202-224-4543 Fax: 202-224-2417

 

Senator Olympia Snowe (ME) DC Phone: 202-224-5344 Fax: 202-224-1946

 

Senator Susan Collins (ME) Phone: 202-224-2523 Fax: 202-224-2693

 

Senator Debbie Stabenow (MI) Phone: 202-224-4822 Fax: 202-228-0325

 

Senator Lincoln Chaffee (RI) Phone: 202-224-2921 Fax: 202-228-2853

 

Senator John McCain (AZ) Phone: 202-224-2235 Fax: 202-228-2862

 

Senator Lindsay Graham DC Phone: 202-224-5972 Fax: 202-224-3808