{"id":522,"date":"2010-10-14T22:16:34","date_gmt":"2010-10-15T04:16:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cerebral-palsy-medicalmalpractice.com\/blog\/?p=522"},"modified":"2010-10-14T22:16:34","modified_gmt":"2010-10-15T04:16:34","slug":"supreme-court-ponders-vaccine-lawsuit-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cerebral-palsy-medicalmalpractice.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/supreme-court-ponders-vaccine-lawsuit-case.html","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Ponders Vaccine Lawsuit Case"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p>The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this week heard arguments\u00a0on\u00a0to what degree vaccine manufacturers should face liability lawsuits.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<p>The case being debated,\u00a0Bruesewitz v. Wyeth,\u00a0is attempting to test whether federal law protects vaccine makers from some kinds of product-liability lawsuits in state courts.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052748703440004575548041027835592.html\">http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052748703440004575548041027835592.html<\/a><\/p>\r\n<p>The test case involves a Pennsylvania\u00a0family\u00a0that claims it should be able to sue Pfizer\u00a0&#8216;s Wyeth unit, claiming that the vaccine maker could have put a\u00a0safer vaccine on the market but chose not to\u00a0do so.\u00a0The family claims that its daughter,\u00a0Hannah Bruesewitz, wound up with a seizure disorder after being\u00a0innoculated when she was six-months-old with DTP, a combination diptheria, tetanus and pertussis\u00a0(whooping cough) vaccine made by Wyeth.<\/p>\r\n<p>Hannah is a teenager now, and has\u00a0severe developmental problems. She needs care for the rest of her life, her family claims.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/10\/13\/business\/13bizcourt.html?ref=us\">http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/10\/13\/business\/13bizcourt.html?ref=us<\/a><\/p>\r\n<p>During Tuesday&#8217;s arguments,\u00a0some of the high court&#8217;s justices expressed concern that\u00a0if more kinds of lawsuits are permitted against vaccine makers, that companies may opt to exit the vaccine market.<\/p>\r\n<p>But other justices apparently didn&#8217;t quite buy the\u00a0vaccine manufacturer&#8217;s arguments.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<p>The Bruesewitz family filed for compensation for their daughter\u00a0through a vaccine program that is administered by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which rejected the claim. The family then sued in state court, and an appeals court last year found\u00a0that such a suit wasn&#8217;t allowed under the\u00a0National Childhod Vaccine Injury\u00a0Act.<\/p>\r\n<p>That 1986 law set up a compensation system for\u00a0vaccine-injury claims, shielding drug makers from some suits.\u00a0The law said that a drug manufacturer was not liable and could not be sued if an injury caused by\u00a0a vaccine was the result of &#8220;unavoidable side effects.&#8221;<\/p>\r\n<p>The $64,000 Question that the Supreme Court\u00a0will have to decide\u00a0is what did Congress mean by &#8220;unavoidable side effects.&#8221;<\/p>\r\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this week heard arguments\u00a0on\u00a0to what degree vaccine manufacturers should face liability lawsuits.\u00a0 The case being debated,\u00a0Bruesewitz v. Wyeth,\u00a0is attempting to test whether federal law protects vaccine makers from some kinds of product-liability lawsuits in state courts.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052748703440004575548041027835592.html The test case involves a Pennsylvania\u00a0family\u00a0that claims it should be able to sue [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[324,449,450],"class_list":["post-522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-vaccine","tag-vaccine-case-before-supreme-court","tag-vaccine-lawsuits"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cerebral-palsy-medicalmalpractice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cerebral-palsy-medicalmalpractice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cerebral-palsy-medicalmalpractice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cerebral-palsy-medicalmalpractice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cerebral-palsy-medicalmalpractice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/cerebral-palsy-medicalmalpractice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":531,"href":"https:\/\/cerebral-palsy-medicalmalpractice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522\/revisions\/531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cerebral-palsy-medicalmalpractice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cerebral-palsy-medicalmalpractice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cerebral-palsy-medicalmalpractice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}