The Editors of Scientific American weighed in on scam perpetrated on the public by our congressional lawmakers. “No one–not Eli Lilly, not administration officials, not committee members who oversaw the bill–will admit to having inserted the vaccine rider. It just appeared, a Thanksgiving miracle for drugmakers.”
So we have a law that noone ever saw or ever wrote appearing in a bill that the President signed! Maybe he didn’t read it either so he won’t admit to have seen it. Alas, the Scientific American editors say it best (and they are supported by the National Institute of Medicine on the possible link between vaccines and autism):
“Critics may gripe about whether the new Homeland Security Act fights terrorsim well, but no one can say it doesn’t do a great job of protecting drug companies from autistic children.
A short provision at the end of the act, added quietly just days before its passage, exempts Eli Lilly and other firms from direct civil litigation over whether vaccine additives cause autism. Parents suing on behalf of their autistic children are shunted to a federal “vaccine court,” where damages are capped. Conveniently, in late November 2002 the Justice Department also requested that the court seal documents relating to hundreds of the lawsuits, complicating the cases for plaintiffs.
Ever since these shameful developments became public, they have drawn bipartisan scorn. Beyond the provision’s offensiveness as political pork, it is harmful to lifesaving vaccination efforts.
Worries about childhood vaccines and autsim stretch back for years. Studies suggess that rates of autism may have as much as tripled in the past decade. Autism’s first symptoms often emerge around age two, shortly after most infants start to receive vaccinations against measles, whooping cough and other illnesses. Because the number of vaccinations that children receive has also skyrocketed, concerned parents sought a linkage, and they found one in thimerosal, a mercury compound used as a preservative in many vaccines. Some symptoms of autism resemble those of mercury poisoning.”