FW: Vaccination Victims Denied

[Guest guest]

An Excerpt from an article by the Cincinnati Enquirer

Monday, August 31, 1998

by Hanchette and Sunny Kaplan

Gannette News Service

Some lawyers experienced at bringing claims are so frustrated with the

federal program they are threatening to abandon it and return to the

practice of suing doctors and the companies that make the vaccines.

" We're going back to war, " said Boston attorney Hugo, who has

handled more than 300 vaccine injury cases. " I think the vaccine program

is an abysmal failure. It is an uncertain, slow, horrible system that is

broken. "

But Mr. Balbier insisted the program does not unnecessarily delay

claims.

" We have every interest in trying to have these cases adjudicated as

quickly as possible, " he said. " The program has been extraordinarily

successful on that level. It takes an average one to two years to get

through the system from the time a claim is filed. "

If families go through the courts, he said, it could take seven to eight

years.

Lawyers for petitioning parents also complain that the government seeks

to reduce claims by trying to push them into quitting the vaccine-injury

practice. They say the government slows payment of fee awards, disputes

expenses as small as taxi fares to court and is making it ever harder to

win compensation by constantly redefining the rules.

The program's Vaccine Injury Table, designed by pediatricians,

neurologists and immunologists as a definitive guide to speed cases by

lessening the scientific burden of proof in areas of cause and effect,

has been narrowed by FEDERAL ADMINISTRATORS.

To win compensation, it used to be enough to demonstrate certain timely

symptoms. But three years ago, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY (HHS)

DONNA SHALALA, according to critics, GUTTED the injury table associated

with the MOST REACTIVE OF CHILDHOOD VACCINES: the DPT shot.

DPT stands for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (or whooping cough). Of

$916 million awarded in compensation since the start of the program,

$739 million, or 81 percent , has been for DPT cases. Scientists say the

culprit in DPT reactions is the pertussis portion of the inoculation,

mainly because it is made from the killed whole cells of pertussis

bacteria.

MS. SHALALA RAISED THE BAR ON STANDARDS of DPT VACCINE INJURY by

deleting seizure and shock collapse disorders, making anaphylactic

reactions occur within four hours of the shot, and drastically

redefining evidence of acquired brain damage or brain inflammation to a

stupor that persists for at least 24 hours and requires hospitalization.

MS. SHALALA'S LITTLE-PUBLICIZED REVISIONS have touched off a drumfire of

protest from family advocates and those who represent vaccine-damaged

kids.

" The DPT kids are going to start losing by the trainload, " predicted

California lawyer Dodd, one of the more active lawyers for

parents and children making vaccine-related claims in the program. " The

new standards are very difficult to meet. You have to have, basically, a

child in a coma within 72 hours. "

Clifford Shoemaker, A Virginia attorney who has represented close to 100

petitioning parents and children, said, " The changes in the compensation

program have made it extremely difficult for these people to prevail.

Changing all those definitions after the law was written is just

ridiculous. "

Vaccine injury lawyers appealed MS. SHALALA'S CHANGES immediately to the

U.S. Court of Appeals, claiming she did not have authority to change the

injury table. The court ruled in MS. SHALALA'S FAVOR, giving the HHS

SECRETARY BROAD POWER TO MAKE MEDICAL DECISIONS IN THE FUTURE.

Barbara Fisher, founder of the Virginia-based National Vaccine

Information Center, a group of parents and health advocates concerned

about vaccine safety, thinks MS. SHALALA changed the rules because the

huge agengy felt too many awards were being made for DPT injuries and

deaths. and " each award is an acknowledgement the vaccine can kill and

injure (The program now has a compensation pot of $1.3 billion and

Balbier, program director, says, " There is far too much money

coming in. " - note:

sounds like the HHS are like that character in Dicken's book who

cried " Baa Humbug! " ). "

MS. SHALALA refused repeated GNS requests to answer specific questions

about the program and vaccines, instead issuing an endorsement of

childhood vaccinations....

In publishing the changes in the Federal Register, MS. SHALALA indicated

she made them " to reflect the latest scientific knowledge, " because the

original injury table " was out of step with the state of medical

knowledge. "

The National Vaccine Information Center, vaccine inkury lawyers and some

doctors say MS. SHALALA is the one scientifically out of step.

" They make the table more restrictive when the data was becoming less

restrictive, " Dr. Mark Geier, a land geneticist frequently called as

a medical expert for petitioners, told GNS.

Dr. J. , the former Food and Drug Administration research

virologist who first labeled the notorous swine flu vaccine dangerous in

1976 and was fired by the FDA for his trouble, said HHS changed the DTP

injury table because " there were so many cases of pertussis-induced

encephalitis being won. "

The changes, he told GNS, " were all political-not scientific, but

political. "

Criticism of the compensation program evolve into a lively public policy

debate. A concerned Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who as chairmaman

helped mold the compensation system, told GNS that if he still chaired

that panel, he would have oversight hearings quickly.

" thr whole idea of the system was to show through a no-fault process

that an injured child would be compensated generously and easily, " he

said. " We wanted to err on the side of compensating kids. "

Mr. Waxman said he will recommend to the subcommittee's chairman, Rep.

Bilirakis, R-Fla., that he have hearings on the program and the

vaccine injury table. " I had hoped this program would be successful, and

if there are problems, I want to find out about them, " he said.

Mr. Bilirakis said he would consider hearings after reviewing more

detailed informationon the situation.

Note: There is a picture of a father and his son in the beginning of the

article and underneath it says: " Larry Gray of Harrah , Okla., feeds his

son , 9, through a tube in his stomach. In August 1993, he

won a ruling that the DTP vaccine was to blame. So far, Mr. Gray has

received no compensation. "

Real people with real cases feeling pain. Does our Government care or

have compassion. NO!

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