The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case on whether a Pennsylvania family can proceed with their 15-year-old litigation against a drug maker whose vaccine, they allege, caused severe brain damage in their daughter. http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_670704.html
The nation’s highest court will hear the case, of Robalee and Russell Bruesewitz against Wyeth, during its term that begins in October.
The couple, of Mount Lebanon, Pa., charge that their daughter Hannah, 18, started having seizures shortly after getting her third vaccination with the diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus vaccine. The suit alleges that Hannah changed from being a healthy baby to being an individual who will need lifelong care.
Wyeth, now part of Pfizer, took the verson of the tetanus vaccine that allegedly caused Hannah’s brain damage off the market in 1998.
A tangle of litigation ensured. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year agreed with a lower court ruling that said a 1986 law barred the Bruesewitzes from suing. That’s because a so-called vaccination court had already been set up to handle claims and compensate those hurt by the vaccine.
But even though Wyeth-Pfizer won in the circuit court, it wants the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, as does the Obama administration, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
