9/16/05
Protect the Health and Freedom of American Citizens! Require Safe Vaccines! Keep Informed Consent!
Dear Senator,
We the undersigned groups, representing thousands of citizens, have grave concerns about S 1873, The Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act of 2005. We strongly urge its defeat.
While it is important to have a response to biological, nuclear, and chemical attacks and natural pandemics, this legislation removes the remaining small amount of liability that is left of manufacturers after the inception of the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Act (NVIC). Now anyone injured by a vaccine or drug during an emergency has lost the unalienable right to trial by jury. They must appeal to the Secretary of Health and Human Services for redress of grievances, when it is this same fallible human being who has the sole power and authority to determine:
Given that the CDC has admitted that physicians actually report only one to ten percent of vaccines reactions, two of three people are turned away from the current NVIC system, and that the government actively fights the remaining cases against parents of vaccine injured children now, we see the system proposed in this bill as completely insurmountable for individuals.
In addition, only the manufacturers have the right of judicial review for any decision unfavorable to them. Citizens harmed or killed by potentially contaminated products, as happened with the 2004 flu vaccine, or untested products, have no recourse if they are turned down by this system. This bill will remove any remaining incentive for manufacturers to produce safe and effective products.
Besides having no liability for potentially untested and unsafe vaccines and drugs that could be mandated via state emergency health powers laws, the pharmaceutical companies will receive billions of dollars in taxpayer funded grants to research and produce these same products. This system is rigged completely in favor of manufacturers whose profits are in the billions but whose record of producing safe and effective products is horrendous – witness the swine flu vaccine, rotavirus vaccine, mercury in vaccines, Vioxx, Baychol, suicide inducing antidepressants for children, etc. The individual citizen not only has no protection from harm or death due to bad products, but also has to foot the bill for these products’ development and for the costs of their harm if by some miracle a case is accepted!
Besides removing liability from the manufacturers, S. 1873 sets up a vaccine and drug bureaucracy called the Biomedical Research and Advanced Development Agency (BARDA) that openly involves pharmaceutical manufacturers as board members, while only mentioning consumers as optional members of advisory committees. This bureaucracy and the products it develops are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act; open meeting laws, or cost accounting standards. Consumers, if injured by vaccines or products developed through this agency, cannot find out what is in the products or any available information on safety or efficacy.
Why would Congress and the American people want to abdicate their duty to uphold the Constitution and unalienable rights, respectively, to an agency and private entities that have made so many mistakes? These mistakes include poor public health and pandemic judgment (SARS and swine flu); ineffective vaccines (correct strain of influenza every seven years; influenza vaccine does not work in elderly, young children, and even healthy adults); and unsafe vaccines (injuries and deaths from swine flu vaccine and contamination), not to mention killing and injuring thousands with dangerous and ineffective drugs? Please reject S 1873.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Eagle Forum
Rutherford Institute
U.S. Bill of Rights Foundation
Natural Solutions Foundation
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons
Mltiracial Activist
Alliance for Human Research Protection
International Center for the Study of Psychology and Psychiatry
Oakland County Conservatives
Gun Owners of America
EdWatch
Michigan Republican Assembly
For more information on the Liberty Coalition, visit www.libertycoalition.net
