A U.S. Supreme Court decision has just given drug companies total liability protection for injuries and deaths caused by government mandated vaccines. The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) called the decision a "betrayal" of the American consumer.

In a 6-2 decision, the Court majority voted to reject substantial evidence that current law was fully intended to protect an American's right to sue a pharmaceutical corporation for injuries that could have been prevented if the company had elected to make a safer vaccine.

The court decision leaves parents with no way to hold vaccine makers accountable and no feasible way to get compensation for the injuries suffered by their children; furthermore, the decision removes all financial incentive for multi-national drug companies to make vaccines as safe as they can be.

According to EON:

"Hannah Bruesewitz was brain injured by DPT vaccine as a child but she was denied compensation by the U.S. Court of Claims, which administers the federal vaccine injury compensation program created by the 1986 Act that has turned away two out of three plaintiffs.

Her attorneys then sued in civil court, providing evidence that Wyeth-Lederle had the technology to produce a less reactive, purified pertussis vaccine but declined to do so."

The Supreme Court ruled against Hannah's family. Hannah, now 19, showed no symptoms of a seizure disorder before the vaccination, and a multitude of tests haven't indicated any other cause.

Seizure disorders used to be listed on the Vaccine Injury Table, which is used by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, but the listing was removed a month before the Bruesewitzes originally filed a vaccine injury petition in April 1995.

Guest Commentary by Barbara Loe Fisher

On February 22, 2011 the U.S. Supreme Court shielded drug companies from all liability for harm caused by vaccines mandated by government when companies could have made a safer vaccine. 1

From now on, drug companies selling vaccines in America will not be held accountable by a jury of our peers in a court of law if those vaccines brain damage us but could have been made less toxic. 2

If you get paralyzed by a flu shot or your child has a serious reaction to a vaccine required for school and becomes learning disabled, epileptic, autistic, asthmatic, diabetic or mentally retarded, you are on your own. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

From now on – unless we stand up and draw the line on vaccine mandates - the government can legally use police powers to force every American to get hundreds of vaccinations or be punished while those, who are hurt by vaccination, can be more easily swept under the rug and left to fend for themselves. 17 18 19 20

Big Pharma Blackmailed Congress in 1982

To understand how this happened, we have to turn the clock back to 1982. That is when four big drug companies (Merck, Wyeth, Lederle, Connaught) blackmailed Congress by threatening to stop selling vaccines in America unless a law was passed giving them complete immunity from prosecution. 21

The pharmaceutical industry knew they were in big trouble because the old, crude whooping cough vaccine in the DPT shot was causing brain inflammation and death in many children; 22 the live oral polio vaccine was crippling children and adults with vaccine strain polio; 23

Americans were filing lawsuits to hold drug companies responsible for the safety of their products.

On February 23, 2011, one day after the Supreme Court blocked lawsuits against drug companies for failing to make vaccines safer, they cleared the way for lawsuits against car manufacturers for failing to make seat belts safer. 24

Civil Liability is a Consumer Protection

Civil liability is a consumer protection. In the past, civil liability has protected us from wealthy tobacco corporations selling cigarettes that were once endorsed by doctors and the U.S. government. 25 26

Civil liability has protected us from defective cars and toys and food and drugs that have passed federal licensing and safety standards. 27 28 29 30

Civil liability put pressure on drug companies to develop and license a less toxic pertussis vaccine in 1996. 31 Civil liability put pressure on federal health agencies to replace use of a contaminated, neurotoxic polio vaccine that can paralyze people with one that cannot. 32

Parents in 1980's Opposed Total Liability Shield

Thirty years ago the wealthiest and most powerful industry lobbying on Capitol Hill and in state legislatures – the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry - tried very hard to get total liability protection for every vaccine that government regulates, recommends and mandates.

The only difference is that three decades ago, government officials were ordering doctors to give children 23 doses of 7 vaccines and, today, that direct order is up to 70 doses of 16 vaccines. 33 34

The parent co-founders of the National Vaccine Information Center worked with Congress back in the early 1980's and we refused to support any legislation that would legally let the pharmaceutical industry completely off the hook. 35

1986 Law: Pharma Liability Was the Safety Net

Parents successfully argued that, if Congress was going to give drug companies partial liability protection through the creation of a federal vaccine injury compensation alternative to a lawsuit, then language had to be written into the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 that protected a citizen's right to sue drug companies when federal compensation was denied, or the company had the technological ability to make a vaccine less toxic but refused to do it. 36

Continued civil liability was the safety net for American consumers in that law. Continued civil liability was the leverage that gave some financial incentive for drug companies to make vaccines safer and gave some political incentive for government officials to award federal compensation to the vaccine injured. 37

Now, six activist Supreme Court judges have ripped the liability safety net from the U.S. mass vaccination system and written Big Pharma a blank check by deliberately ignoring the language and legislative history of the 1986 Vaccine Injury Act. Only Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg, in an accurate and brilliant dissenting opinion, stood up for the people. 38

Every American Pays Surcharge on Every Vaccination

Now it will be much easier for employees in government health agencies and the U.S. Department of Justice and the Vaccine Court to deny vaccine victims federal compensation, which 308 million Americans pay for through a surcharge on each one of the annual flu shots and the dozens of doses of vaccines public health officials say we all should get. 39

There is $3 billion dollars waiting to be awarded in the Vaccine Injury Trust Fund, which has already been raided by federal agencies dragging vaccine victims through years of litigation and looking for ways to deny vaccine risks. 40

130 Vaccinations from Birth to Death

The Supreme Court has now given the drug industry and evangelistic doctors a green light to lobby legislators to require every American, who lives to be 78 years old, to get more than 130 doses of government recommended vaccines starting on the day of birth through the last year of life. 41

That does not include use of any of the hundreds of new vaccines now being developed by drug companies with government approval that will be required in the future - whether those vaccines are necessary or not; whether the vaccines work or not; whether the vaccines are dangerous or not and whether the people want to use the vaccines or not. 42 43

This is not public health.

This is exploitation of a captive people by a pharmaceutical industry seeking unlimited profits and by doctors in positions of authority, who have never seen a vaccine they did not want to mandate.

It is a drug company stockholder's dream, a health care consumer's worst nightmare and a prescription for tyranny.

Americans Forced to Get More Vaccines than Anyone in World

Americans are required by law to use more vaccines than any other nation in the world. In no other country – not in Canada, 44 the United Kingdom, 45 Australia, 46 New Zealand, 47 the Netherlands, 48 Germany, 49 Japan 50 or in any other country – are citizens subjected to mandatory use of dozens of doses of vaccines under the threat of being denied a public education and health insurance and employment. 51 52

There is no other word for this but tyranny.

Vaccines are Pharmaceutical Products

Vaccines are pharmaceutical products that carry a risk of injury or death, a risk that can be greater for some than others. If a vaccine is effective, then those choosing to use that vaccine will have nothing to fear from those who make another health care choice.

If a vaccine is not effective, then consumers are being asked to take two risks: a risk they will be harmed and a risk the vaccine will not work at all.

That is not a product that should be legally required, especially when doctors cannot predict ahead of time who will be harmed by a vaccine and there is no civil liability for the company selling it, the person giving it or the government official mandating it.

* No liability?
* No accountability?
* No mandates.

Stand Up for Health Freedom!

If corporations are in business to make money; if doctors can make mistakes; if judges can get it wrong; if what is considered scientific truth today can turn out to be not true tomorrow; and if nobody is held accountable in the civil justice system for vaccines that could have been made safer, then now is the time for all Americans to stand up for health freedom in this great nation of ours.

There is no freedom more fundamental than the human right to be free to decide what risks we are wiling to take with our lives or our children's lives.

Join NVIC: Help Us Help You

Please join with the non-profit National Vaccine Information Center, the largest, oldest and most experienced vaccine safety and informed consent watchdog in America.

Help us help you stand up for your right to know and freedom to choose which vaccines that you consider necessary, safe and effective enough to use.

Help us defend every American's right to seek justice in a civil court of law when vaccines cause harm - or do not work - so that reactive and ineffective vaccines are forced off the market.

Protect Vaccine Exemptions in Your State

Vaccine laws are state laws. Sign up for our free Advocacy Portal at http://www.NVICAdvocacy.org that will teach you how to participate effectively in the democratic legislative process and defend vaccine exemptions in your state laws.

Educate your elected representatives about why it is so important to include strong consumer protections and informed consent rights in all public health laws.