Vaccine Makers Helped Write Frist-Backed Shield Law

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Vaccine Makers Helped Write Frist-Backed Shield Law

 

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050906O.shtml

 

By Bill Theobald

The Tennessean

Monday 08 May 2006

 

E-mails reveal private meetings.

 

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.

 

 

--

 

 

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