Wampum

The unnotable death of infamous legislation...

“Ding Dong, The Frist Bill's Dead!”

So opens a letter in this morning's Shafer Autism Report (via email). For those of you unclear on the what is known simply in autism circles as "The Frist Bill", you might be more familiar with it's other more descriptive title, the "Eli Lilly Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Bill" or the "Big Pharma Campaign Contributors Payback Bill". In it's second incarnation (the first died a lowly death as well, never making it out of committee), Frist's bill was attached in the middle of the night by still unnamed operatives to the Homeland Security Bill late last Fall. While the HLS bill passed, a small number of Republican Senators, my own included, extracted promises from Congressional leaders to remove certain provisions, the Eli Lilly-Thimerosal clause included, in the first legislation of the new Congress in January. While that promise was kept, Senate Majority leader Bill Frist was not giving up; he submitted the provision, along with other equally nefarious ones, in a new bill. While Frist was able to get Senate Republicans to back his plans for big Pharma, the House, surprisingly, isn't going along with it, and refuses to consider the changes Frist would make to the Vaccine Injury Compensation Act (VICA).

So it looks as if it's truly dead, at least for now.

In other VICA news, according to the same SAR article, things seems to be looking in up for plaintiffs in many Thimerosal/VICA cases: "This summer, the appellate court expanded the statute of limitations for the autism cases saying they were unique and the current statute too restrictive. Court said that the clock should start the first time a doctor mentions something, not upon the first impression." This is critical, as many families miss the current 36 months statute of limitations for filing claims to the NVICP, as diagnosis of autism, and correlating that diagnosis to a cause, can often take more than three years. Also, The 5th Circuit refused to review the Louisiana case in which it had previously been determined that thimerosal manufacturers such as Lilly are not indemnified under VICA. Also, the cases belong in state, not federal, court.

I want to thank again everyone who has helped in this fight, particularly those of you who called, faxed and generally pestered your legislators over the past ten months. It's hard to believe that Wampum was essentially born out of this struggle and that so much time has now passed. But it's wonderful to know that such activism can have an effect on the governance of this country, even when the victories appear so small and insignificant. They aren't to all of us.

Posted by MB Williams at September 19, 2003 02:10 PM | TrackBack