Reuters: US Government Asks Court to Seal Vaccine Records:
WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) – Attorneys for the Bush Administration asked a federal court on Monday to order that documents on hundreds of cases of autism allegedly caused by childhood vaccines be kept from the public.
Department of Justice lawyers asked a special master in the US Court of Federal Claims to seal the documents, arguing that allowing their automatic disclosure would take away the right of federal agencies to decide when and how the material should be released. …
The court is currently hearing approximately 1,000 claims brought by the families of autistic children. The suits charge that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, which until recently included a mercury-containing preservative known as thimerosal, can cause neurological damage leading to autism.
Federal law requires suits against vaccine makers to go before a special federal “vaccine court” before any civil lawsuit is allowed. The court was set up by Congress to speed compensation claims and to help protect vaccine makers from having to pay large punitive awards decided by juries in state civil courts. Plaintiffs are free to take their cases to state courts if they lose in the federal vaccine court or if they don’t accept the court’s judgment.
The current 1,000 or so autism cases are unusual for the court. Because it received so many claims, much of the fact-finding and evidence-gathering is going on for all of the cases as a block.
NY Times: Justice Dept. Seeks to Seal Vaccine Papers
Lawyers for the families said they were outraged by today’s move. They said the government was trying to prevent families from obtaining damaging information about the preservative, which could later be used against drug companies in civil courts.
“We’re dealing with real injury to real children in a program that is funded by taxpayer dollars,” said Michael R. Hugo, a Boston lawyer. “It is unbelievable to me that the president of the United States, in the name of trying to help the drug industry, would put the interests of the drug industry over the interests of neurologically impaired sick children and their parents.”
Today’s move comes on the heels of another controversy involving thimerosal.
Congressional Republicans inserted a provision into the domestic security bill, signed into law on Monday by President Bush, that is intended to protect Eli Lilly, thimerosal’s manufacturer, from lawsuits over the preservative. The provision would force families to seek compensation through the vaccine court instead of civil courts.
