What Bruesewitz v. Wyeth Means for American Families

[Guest guest]

excellent analogy

http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/03/what-bruesewitz-v-wyeth-means-for-american-families.html#more

What Bruesewitz v. Wyeth Means for American Families

By Louise Kuo Habakus and Holland, JD

Imagine your child was hit by a reckless driver and catastrophically

injured. Cognitive impairments, seizures, problems with walking, eating,

talking – you name it. You find out who the driver was, and you sue

the driver for damages – but you can only sue in a “special driving

court.” Cases in this court usually take years, sometimes more than

a decade. For ten years, you and your child struggle to make ends

meet to pay for all the healthcare bills. Finally, the special

court issues a ruling. Against the weight of the evidence, without

affording you discovery or a jury of your peers, you lose. You’re out on

your ear, even though the driver has a massive insurance policy for just

such accidents.

You dust yourself off and sue the driver in a regular court, because you

have that right by statute – and the regular court says, “No, the special

court is good enough for you; no regular courts for those injured by

reckless drivers.” So you appeal that decision to the court of

appeals, and you lose; and then you appeal again to the U.S. Supreme

Court, and you lose again. For almost twenty years, you’ve been

fighting just to get fair compensation, only to learn that the Supreme

Court would rather protect reckless drivers than your innocent

child.

If you re-write the first sentence to “imagine that your child was

injured by a badly designed, federally-recommended vaccine,” you have the

essence of the Bruesewitz v. Wyeth decision that the U.S. Supreme

Court handed down last month. Hannah Bruesewitz, as an infant, suffered

catastrophic seizures and brain injury within hours of a

diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus vaccine that was pulled from the market

several years after her injury because it was insufficiently safe.

Hannah has devastating injuries from which she will never recover.

Her family had no choice but to go to the Vaccine Injury Compensation

Program, a very “special court” if ever there was one. The family

litigated there for ten years, losing a case that common sense, science,

and decency say they should have won. This week, the U.S. Supreme

Court tells them that there is no court – no court in the land –

that may hear their case. The Supreme Court tells the family this

when the relevant law, the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act,

provides for recourse to civil court.

This Supreme Court decision is a betrayal. It betrays American

parents and children. This is not what the 1986 law provides, and

it is not just. No parents should be compelled to subject their

children to “unavoidably unsafe” medical interventions, which are

mandated by every state in the country as a requirement for school

admission, and then have no direct recourse against the manufacturers

when the products could have been made far safer, as was the case in

Bruesewitz v. Wyeth. This decision violates the intent of

Congress and appears to be a policy decision to shield the U.S.

government and the pharmaceutical industry from the prospect of real

trials seeking to prove that federally recommended, mercury-containing

vaccines caused autism in some children.

This travesty of justice likely spells the end of the U.S. vaccine

program as we’ve known it. Vaccines carry grave risks.

Parents vaccinate their children believing that the government will

compensate them if their child is “injured in the line of duty” as they

uphold the public health. Yesterday’s Bruesewitz decision changes

all that. If your child is injured, the Supreme Court states that

You’re On Your Own (YOYO). This is like the doctrine of caveat

emptor, buyer beware, only infinitely harsher. Parents have no

real choice when it comes to state-mandated vaccination—if they refuse,

no daycare, no schools, and sometimes even no medical care for their

children. So it’s not just buyer beware. It’s “families have

no civil rights when it comes to childhood vaccines.”

With Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, the Supreme Court has fired a

metaphorical shot across the bow. Parents are now likely to think

twice about vaccines. They will weigh their rights more carefully,

including their rights to religious, philosophical and medical exemptions

from vaccination mandates.

The Supreme Court has violated the social contract. We urge

Congress to step in, overrule the Supreme Court’s misguided decision, and

restore the right of civil suit. But in the meanwhile, when it

comes to federally recommended, state-mandated vaccines, remember --

YOYO.

The writers are co-editors of Vaccine Epidemic: How Corporate

Greed, Biased Science, and Coercive Government Threaten Our Human Rights,

Our Health, and Our Children. Habakus is the director of the

Center for Personal Rights and Holland is Research Scholar, NYU School of

Law.

Sheri Nakken, former R.N., MA, Hahnemannian

Homeopath

Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Washington State, USA

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