The National Autism Association, Autism United, A-CHAMP, AutismOne and a number of other organizations are filing a “friend of the court” brief to support the request that the Supreme Court step in to resolve this issue and uphold the right of a vaccine-injured child to go to civil court.  The Third Circuit’s interpretation of the law is not what the law says and it’s not what Congress intended.  Congress created the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program as an alternative to a lawsuit, not an exclusive remedy.
 
Because state laws compel vaccination, it is essential that industry and government have real incentives to produce the safest vaccines possible.  To achieve such incentives, Congress drafted a law to ensure that the vaccine injured have access to civil court in cases of design defect, criminal fraud, gross negligence and when vaccine court offers too little compensation or none at all.  In the Bruesewitz case, after many years, Vaccine Court offered Hannah Bruesewitz no compensation at all for her disability and seizure disorder that developed shortly after her third DPT shot.  Vaccine Court is not even empowered to hear her claim that the DPT vaccine she received was defective, although two children died and sixty-five reported adverse reactions from her vaccine lot.  The Third Circuit has ruled that vaccine manufacturers have blanket immunity against design defect claims under the 1986 law.
 
We are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the appellate court’s flawed decision and to uphold the lawful rights of vaccine-injured children.  Under the 1986 law, an injured child has the right to a day in court so that a jury can decide, based on the evidence, whether a manufacturer’s vaccine design caused the child’s injury.
 
We are seeking additional organizations – autism-related and not – to sign this “friend of the court” petition.  The draft amicus brief is HERE; the draft petition for Bruesewitz is HERE. Our deadline for signatures is Tuesday, September 1, 2009 at 12:00 noon. 

If you would like to sign on, please write to [email protected] and include the name of your organization, address, phone and a brief description of your organization, including who makes up the membership and how many people it represents; we will send you a confirmation.

Mary Holland, Esq. is a founding member of the Elizabeth Birt Center for Autism Law & Advocacy and is the Director of the Graduate Legal Skills Program at New York University School of Law.  She contributed reports on the Omnibus Autism Proceeding to Age of Autism in 2008.  Educated at Harvard and Columbia Universities, Mary has been an advocate in the public and private sectors. She researches and writes on legal issues related to autism and vaccines.