Supreme Court rejects vaccine lawsuit

The justices of the US Supreme Court sit for their official photograph on October 8, 2010 at the Supreme Court .

/ TIM SLOAN/AFP/Getty Images

The Supreme Court today gave vaccine manufacturers greater protection from lawsuits by parents who say vaccinations harmed their children, ruling that Congress had blocked those types of claims against drug makers.

In a 6-2 decision, the justices said Congress had effectively shut the courthouse door to these lawsuits in 1986, when it created a special vaccine court designed to compensate victims of vaccine injuries.

The decision immediately was hailed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which said it would safeguard the nation's vaccine supply by protecting vaccine makers from potentially crippling legal liability--which could have driven manufacturers out of the vaccine market.

"Childhood vaccines are among the greatest medical breakthroughs of the last century," said the organization's president, Dr. O. Marion Burton. "Today's Supreme Court decision protects children by strengthening our national immunization system and ensuring that vaccines will continue to prevent the spread of infectious diseases in this country."

But it was a crushing defeat for the parents of Hannah Bruesewitz, who have waged a years-long legal battle after their daughter suffered a series of seizures when she got a routine DPT vaccination at her 6-month checkup.

The seizures caused Hannah severe brain damage. Today, 19 years later, her vocabulary is that of a toddler.

With Hannah facing a lifetime of constant care, the Bruesewitz's first filed a claim for compensation in the special vaccine court, under the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Congress, concerned that runaway jury verdicts would drive vaccine makers out of the market, created that program for families whose children suffer adverse reactions from vaccines.

When their claim was denied, they sued Wyeth, the vaccine manufacturer, arguing the DPT vaccination was defectively designed and that the company could have provided a safer vaccine.

"Someone has to be responsible for this," Robie Bruesewitz, Hannah's mother, said when the Court took up their case.

But courts ruled against them, holding that vaccine compensation program was the sole way to handle those types of lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers. And today, the Supreme Court agreed.

In a decision by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court said the special compensation program preempts lawsuits like the one filed by the Bruesewitz's, which allege vaccines were defectively designed. The program was designed to get those cases out of the courts--making it easier for parents to be compensated, while also protecting drug makers from outsized jury verdicts.

"Vaccine manufacturers fund from their sales an informal, efficient compensation program for vaccine injuries," Scalia said. "In exchange they avoid costly tort litigation and the occasional disproportionate jury verdict."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dissented. Justice Elena Kagan did not participate in the case because she worked on it before she joined the Court.

The vaccine protocol Hannah received injured 65 other children. In 1998, it was removed from the market.

But that was too late for Hannah.

"We should have been taking our daughter to college this fall," her mother told CBS News last October. "If she would have been a normally, typically developing child, she'd be going to college."

[jiggleybee]

There are actually 90 some deaths attributed to Gardasil and 22,000+ injuries. My daughter is one of the injured girls, happened 1/3 of this year. Imagine having a totally healthy child, no history of anything wrong with her ever, goes in for her 2nd gardasil shot, then 3 hrs later she's curled up on the couch in pain. Its been 11 weeks tomorrow and my daughter has been in chronic pain since, headaches, dizzyness, nausea, achy legs, pains in knees, stabbing chest pains, vomitting. She has up and down days, today for example she felt fairly good, then out of nowhere this evening had an episode that left her incapacitated for over an hour. Imagine a healthy child who has only been to school a handful of times in almost 3 months all because of a vaccine.
I'm not anti vaccine, I'm anti profiteering. What I've learned in the past 11weeks of my childs injury is that HPV is very treatable and in a lot of cases goes away on its own. HPV is NOT cancer, it can lead to cancer, but the number of people dying from HPV related cancer is lower than the number of girls being injured per year by the vaccine. Gardasil in NOT the same type of vaccine like the polo vaccine, the sole reason for Gardasil is profit.
The supreme court ruling fails to see that there are money hungry pharma companies out there that are more interested in their bottom line than the health of our children, as evident by the snake oil they sell called Gardasil.

[oyounggo]

lol... I heard japanese goverment already banned MMR vaccine... US is running by drug dealers

[shedhouserob]

I believe that after 2012 the democratic party will be no more! The control of voting, the Florida give to Bush per Jeb, Delay in Texas, the supreme court with it's corporate vote that we will have one party now and that will be Corporate, Republican party!!!

[ccgkill]

Educate Your Self

The FDA has never even spelled out in regulations the criteria it uses to decide whether a vaccine is safe and effective for its intended use.

Please read the courts decision on this, there is some very important information in the decision.


http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-152.pdf

[shedhouserob]

The supreme court gets their orders from Corporate America so who believes in them Period.

[Scimajor]

""Someone has to be responsible for this," Robie Bruesewitz, Hannah's mother, said when the Court took up their case."

Well the law, and more importantly, science says that vaccines are not responsible. Look elsewhere for answers.

I find it amazing yet again that the decision from the Supreme Court was not unanimous. What? Are there two complete idiots sitting on the Supreme Court? I know it sounds harsh but these kinds of people are responsible for countless parents not vaccinating their children solely due to hysterical nonsense. How did this foolish case even make it this far?

Hey! My grandmother died shortly after consuming Dihydrogen Monoxide. Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide. It causes death!!!! Really, blaming vaccines for the girl's seizure makes just as much sense as my grandmother passing away due to the consumption of ..... water.

[ccdsswrkr08]

I do believe the vaccine had a part in the development of the seizures, but more than likely the child already had a predisposition to the seizures, or a mixture of body chemistry that is different from other children, which, when exposed to this particular vaccine, caused the adverse reaction. It's not like this happened to every child that was given the vaccine. I could understand sueing the company if they knew their vaccine caused seizures in every child it was given, but not in this case.

[djseavy]

"Someone has to be responsible for this." Unfortunately that's the prevailing attitude these days. Life does what it does, and not everything is somebody's fault. It's unfortunate that the girl is brain damaged. I'd be saying the same thing if it was my own daughter. The potential side effects are far outweighed by the benefits of vaccines. Without them, we'd still be battling polio, measles, small pox, ect. and our lifespan would be much shorter, not to mention the infant mortality rate would skyrocket.

[weslen1]

This is directly from the CDC page:
As of February 14, 2011, there have been 61 VAERS reports of death among females who have received Gardasil.
In the next paragraph it says there have been 2 deaths of MALES who were also attributed to Gardasil.

[jiggleybee]

There are actually 90 some deaths attributed to Gardasil and 22,000+ injuries. My daughter is one of the injured girls, happened 1/3 of this year. Imagine having a totally healthy child, no history of anything wrong with her ever, goes in for her 2nd gardasil shot, then 3 hrs later she's curled up on the couch in pain. Its been 11 weeks tomorrow and my daughter has been in chronic pain since, headaches, dizzyness, nausea, achy legs, pains in knees, stabbing chest pains, vomitting. She has up and down days, today for example she felt fairly good, then out of nowhere this evening had an episode that left her incapacitated for over an hour. Imagine a healthy child who has only been to school a handful of times in almost 3 months all because of a vaccine.
I'm not anti vaccine, I'm anti profiteering. What I've learned in the past 11weeks of my childs injury is that HPV is very treatable and in a lot of cases goes away on its own. HPV is NOT cancer, it can lead to cancer, but the number of people dying from HPV related cancer is lower than the number of girls being injured per year by the vaccine. Gardasil in NOT the same type of vaccine like the polo vaccine, the sole reason for Gardasil is profit.
The supreme court ruling fails to see that there are money hungry pharma companies out there that are more interested in their bottom line than the health of our children, as evident by the snake oil they sell called Gardasil.

[askagain]

Every medicine has possible side effects. Do we stop taking medicine because we may be the one in a hundred-thousand persons to suffer side effects? Everyone screams for tort reform until we get it. Then it becomes an infringement on our rights. Here are the choices. Put limits on what people can receive for injury or continue to allow ambulance chasers to grow rich while bankrupting corporations and putting people out of work. Now choose your medicine.

[powerintention]

16 years ago I remember my daughters pediatrician looking me in the eye and assuring me the vaccines were safe. Our fam,ily chiropractor who had ten children told me that he did not vaccinate his children because they vaccines were not safe. Medical professionals in hospitals often see children in hospitals who were not vaccinates who suffer and sometimes die from something as simple as chicken pox. Parents are gulited into vaccinations and told iuf they do not, they are not a responsible parent. May daughter is also a victim of vaccination injury with delays. The supreme court and the American Academy of Pediatrics can still allow Big Pharma in their pockets, but we as parents must stand up and assert our right to choose or not to choose vaccination based upon making an educated decision

[auntdedo]

I hurt for the parents as well of the victims of vaccine injury. Many Drs. have written of the dangers and are trying to caution parents to do the research before they vaccinate.To inject a deadly virus into someone, saying it will prevent them from further harm of any disease makes as much sense to me as a joke I heard once about the woman who was 'a little bit pregnant'.you can check out n.v.i.c.org, for starters.Please educate yourself, its your child and their life.thank you and may God help us.