A bill recently introduced in the US Senate, the "Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act of 2005" aims to shortcut the testing procedures for new vaccines and drugs in case of a pandemic and to protect vaccine makers from legal liability in case the drug causes adverse reactions.

The National Vaccine Information Center has called the bill "a drug company stockholder's dream and a consumer's worst nightmare." NVIC also has an action page with information and a link to the bill's text, as well as the names of Senate committee considering the bill.

Senator Richard Burr, describing the bill to Committee members said that the legislation "creates a true partnership" between the federal government, the pharmaceutical industry and academia to "walk the drug companies through the Valley of Death" in bringing a new vaccine or drug to market.

The bill gives the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services the sole authority to decide whether a manufacturer violated laws mandating drug safety and bans citizens from challenging his decision in the civil court system.

A government agency the bill proposes to set up - the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency - is to promote advanced research and development of drugs and vaccines in response to bioterrorism and natural disease outbreaks. The agency is to be protected from prying eyes by a specific exemption from the provisions of the Freedom of Information act.

The current Bird Flu Propaganda Epidemic may well be providing the perfect excuse to pass such a bill, while a pervasive press hysteria stokes the pharmaphilic fervor that seems to have gripped legislative councils not only in the US these days. A decision seems to have been made to prop up the failing pharmaceutical paradigm on health at any cost, even overriding safeguards and legal rights to challenge administrative decisions.

It is mind boggling to see how the option of strengthening immune response in a natural way has been completely abandoned in favor of propping up the drug companies' business with disease.

Here is the alert:

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Vaccine alert from National Vaccine Information Center
(www.nvic.org)

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

CONGRESS SET TO PASS LAW ELIMINATING LIABILITY FOR VACCINE INJURIES

Washington, D.C. - The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is calling the "Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act of 2005"(S. 1873), which passed out of the U.S. Senate HELP Committee one day after it was introduced "a drug company stockholder's dream and a consumer's worst nightmare." The proposed legislation will strip Americans of the right to a trial by jury if harmed by an experimental or licensed drug or vaccine that they are forced by government to take, whenever federal health officials declare a public health emergency.