AutismActionNetwork: Supreme Court Ends Right to Sue in State Court for Vaccine Injury

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Supreme Court Ends Right to Sue in State Court for Vaccine Injury

Supreme Court: You're on Your OwnTake Action!Ends Right to Sue In State Court for Vaccine Injury The US Supreme Court issued a decision today that will protect vaccine manufacturers, but not children injured by vaccines. In Bruesewitz v. Wyeth the Supreme Court ruled that Americans do not have a right to sue vaccine manufacturers for injuries that are the result of defective design. No other product is shielded

from lawsuits based on design defects. Significantly, the court held that vaccines are “unavoidably unsafe†and therefore exempt from the usual approach to

product safety where unsafe design is presumed to be avoidable. The Court’s conclusion is worth repeating; the United States Supreme Court has held that vaccines are “unavoidably unsafe.†The immediate impact of this ruling is that the thousands of cases of injury due to exposure to thimerosal (mercury) in vaccines that are being dismissed by the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (the vaccine court) will not be able to go to state courts now, even though this right was the clear intention of the law that originally created the vaccine court. Please click on the Take Action Link to join us in sending an email to your representatives in Congress and ask them to revise the National

Vaccine Injury Compensation Act to allow citizens to exercise their previous right to access to the state courts for vaccine injuries and to explain why citizens in a Democracy can be

compelled to expose themselves and their children to products that are “unavoidably unsafe.†Below is the text of a press release from Coalition for Vaccine Safety on the court’s decision. The Coalition for Vaccine Safety submitted an amicus brief in support of the Bruesewitz family.Please send this message to friends and family and please post it to Facebook and other social networks, Court Protects Vaccine Manufacturers, Not Injured Children Supreme Court Decides Bruesewitz v. Wyeth 6-2, Foreclosing Civil Lawsuits for Vaccine Design Defect New York, NY – The Coalition for

Vaccine Safety (CVS) condemns the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Bruesewitz v. Wyeth to preempt all vaccine design defect lawsuits in state and federal civil court. Quoting

Justice Sotomayor’s dissent, the majority “imposes its own bare policy preference over the considered judgment of Congress.†In the dissent, which Justice Ginsburg joined, Justice Sotomayor argues that the majority misreads the text, misconstrues the Act’s legislative history, and “disturbs the careful balance Congress struck between compensating vaccine-injured children and stabilizing the childhood vaccine market.†The actual circumstances in Bruesewitz v. Wyeth illustrate why the Supreme Court’s decision is misguided. Hannah Bruesewitz, hours after a diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus vaccine, developed catastrophic brain injury and a lifelong seizure disorder. The only plausible explanation for the harm to

Hannah was her vaccine. Indeed, many other children were injured by the same vaccine lot, yet the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, the only court where Hannah could bring her

claim, denied compensation after years of litigation. Now the Supreme Court tells Hannah and her family that there is no courtroom in the country in which she can obtain justice and compensation for the years of care ahead that she needs. The majority’s true intent appears to be to prevent several thousand tort cases claiming a link between vaccines and autism from reaching civil court to assert that a dangerous vaccine design, using mercury as a preservative, was defective. Sotomayor writes that this concern, to shield manufacturers from litigation, “appears to underlie the majority and concurring opinions in this case.†According to vaccine safety advocate Louise Kuo Habakus, “The Court is telling parents that

they’re on their own. Parents know that 4 out of 5 cases of vaccine injury do not get compensation in the misnamed Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The Supreme Court has

slammed the courthouse doors shut.†Because the federal government recommends 70 doses of 16 “unavoidably unsafe†vaccines, and states compel 30-45 doses for school attendance, this issue affects all children. CVS calls for Congressional hearings and action to amend the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act to reinstate the right to sue for vaccine design defect in civil court. For more information on Bruesewitz v. Wyeth and vaccine safety, visit www.coalitionforvaccinesafety.org. Organizations supporting the Coalition for Vaccine Safety: Age of Autism (www.ageofautism.com)Autism One (www.autismone.com

)Autism Action Network (www.autismaction.org)Center for Personal Rights (www.centerforpersonalrights.org)The Coalition for Safe Minds (www.safeminds.org) Birt Center for Autism Law and Advocacy (www.ebcala.org)Generation Rescue (www.generationrescue.org)National Autism Association (www.nationalautismassociation.org)National Autism Association New York Metro Chapter (www.naanyc.org)New York Coalition for Vaccine Choice, (www.nycvc.org)Talk About Curing Autism (www.talkaboutcuringautism.org)Unlocking Autism (www.unlockingautism.org) Contact: Holland, Esq., coalitionforvaccinesafety@...

Krakow, Esq.rkrakow@...

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