court case footnotes

[Guest guest]

67. See, e.g., Parke- & Co. v. Stromsodt, 411 F.2d. 1390, 1392 (8th Cir.

1969) ($500,000 award); Tinnerholm v. Parke, & Co., 411 F.2d. 48, 50

(2d Cir. 1969) ($651,758 award); Sterling Drug, Inc. v. Yarrow, 408 F.2d 978,

980 (8th Cir. 1969) ($180,000 award). Under the Swine Flu Vaccination alone,

4,000 claims totalling $2.95 billion have been filed. Of these 4,000 claims,

$1.91 billion have been denied, $115 million (for a total of $6.24 million)

were settled before litigation and $241 million (for a total of $22 million)

were settled only after litigation was initiated.

68. See v. Wyeth Labs., Inc., 399 F.2d 121, 129 (9th Cir. 1968); See

also Stuart , Product Liability: The New Morass, N.Y. TIMES, Mar. 10,

1985, § 3, at 1. A report by the American Medical Association indicated that,

in actuality, only 1 in 312,500 doses of whooping cough vaccine causes brain

damage, 1 in 1,000,000 doses of measles vaccine causes brain damage, and 1 in

3.2 million doses of polio vaccine causes paralysis, mostly due to

unvaccinated adults coming into contact with vaccinated children. Safety and

the Second Best, supra note 33, at 285 n.35 (citing Philip M. Boffey, Vaccine

Liability Threatens Supplies, N.Y. TIMES, June 26, 1984, at Cl).

69. One commentator has stated:

[C]hildhood vaccine products liability cases have radically altered the

vaccine market, as many manufacturers have simply been forced to discontinue

production. As of 1984, only Merck, Sharp & Dohne continued to produce the

measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, and only Lederle and Connaught

produced the polio and DPT vaccines . . . a government interagency task force

estimated that one out of every six manufacturers had eliminated at least one

product line as a result of liability concerns . . . imilarly, in 1978,

manufacturers refused to market an already developed influenza vaccine due to

liability fears.

Rosenfeld, supra note 52, at 196-97 (citing Vaccine Injury Compensation,

1984: Hearings on H.R. 556 Before the Subcomm. on Health and the Environment,

98th Cong., 2d Sess. 140, at 86-87 (1984); Wilkinson, Who Benefits

from Product Tort Reform? You Do, 60 HOSPITALS 86 (1986); Diane B. Lawrence,

Strict Liability, Computer Software, and Medicine: Public Policy at the

Crossroads, 23 TORT & INS. L.J. (1987)).

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