Vaccine makers helped write Frist-backed shield law

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Monday, 05/08/06

Vaccine makers helped write Frist-backed shield law

E-mails reveal private meetings

 

By BILL THEOBALD

Tennessean 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.

 

" At Senator Frist's staff's request, this morning, BIO (Tom and I)

participated in a meeting with three other industry representatives

(Sanofi and an outside counsel who works for both Pfizer and Roche, I

believe), administration staff (HHS, DoJ and WH Leg Affairs), and Liz

Hall to further discuss liability, " BIO official Dave Boyer wrote in a

November e-mail obtained by Public Citizen.

 

In a written statement, Frist spokeswoman Amy Call stated that the

senator had promised publicly to include the vaccine liability

protection in the defense spending bill. She did not address the issue

of the influence of industry lobbyists.

 

The statement points out that the Public Citizen board includes

prominent trial lawyers and liberals. " Trial lawyers oppose these

provisions because it will strip them of the ability to line their

pockets at the expense of the American public, " Call said.

 

Frist and the White House reached out to the industry, according to

the communications cited by Public Citizen, and Boyer, chief lobbyist

for the industry group, was asked to provide an analysis of draft

legislation.

 

The group asked that the legislation make clear that a vaccine maker

could only be successfully sued if " willful misconduct " on its part

were proved. The law includes that standard and says a company is

protected from claims of negligence or recklessness.

 

The analysis, which Public Citizen quoted from, included BIO's

concerns that the draft bill would have still allowed people hurt by

vaccines to get jury trials.

 

" The lack of any restriction on jury trial is problematic, " the

analysis said. " Where injured parties have no other avenue for relief,

juries are likely to find ways to award damages. "

 

In another e-mail, Boyer described a meeting in which a deputy of Bush

strategist Karl Rove said it was " important to the President that a

bill move this year, " and said " they had invited industry to discuss

what they understood to be a few key remaining points " of contention.

 

" The intimacy of this, we think, is quite unusual, " said Joan

Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, about the relationship between

the organization's lobbyists, Frist and the Bush administration. " We

think it is an interesting case study of how the inside operation

works in Washington. "

 

In a January interview with The Tennessean, Frist denied the vaccine

liability provisions were added improperly. Later, when others

challenged his version of events, Call simply restated Frist's

commitment to protecting people from a bioterror emergency.

 

Frist and other backers say the law is needed to boost the number of

vaccine makers. Vaccine shortages during last year's flu season along

with fears of a pandemic of bird flu or a bioterror attack have

prompted interest in building up the country's lagging vaccine

industry. The legal protections kick in only when the secretary of

health and human services declares a public health emergency.

 

Alan Eisenberg, executive vice president for the Biotechnology

Industry Organization, said the group's " staff acted with the utmost

integrity and professionalism, as they do on all issues. "

 

" BIO staff regularly comment on proposed legislation from, and meet

with, Democrat and Republican lawmakers and their staffs alike all the

time, " Eisenberg said.