A Dangerous Time for America’s Children: Part II

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has shown disdain for vaccines. Here is one legislative measure that would drive vaccine makers out of the business.

The best way to eliminate vaccines in this country would be to revisit events in the early 1980s, when vaccines were almost driven off the market. Here’s what happened.

The modern American anti-vaccine movement was born on April 19^th, 1982, when a local NBC affiliate in Washington, DC, aired a one-hour documentary titled DPT: Vaccine Roulette. The film opened with a reporter standing in the middle of a newsroom, staring straight into the camera. Her tone was grim, her voice unwavering. “DPT,” she said, “the initials stand for diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus…For more than a year we have been investigating ‘P’: the pertussis portion of the vaccine. What we have found are serious questions about the safety and effectiveness of the shot.”

The next image was that of a baby screaming: a needle jabbed into her arm. “It’s a fact of life,” said the reporter. “All children must get four DPT shots to go to school. Shots we are told will keep our children healthy…But the DPT shot can also damage to a devastating degree.” To the sound of a beating heart, the screen filled with images of children with severe mental and physical handicaps, withered arms and legs, gazing at the ceiling, drooling, seizing. “The controversy isn’t really over the fact that [brain damage] happens,” said Thompson, “but how often it happens and whether it happens often enough to deem the vaccine more dangerous than the disease itself.” Vaccine Roulette aired two more times in Washington, D. C. and nationally on The Today Show; within weeks, magazine, newspaper, and radio stories amplified its impact. Thousands of parents chose not to vaccinate their children.

It was only the beginning. In 1981, one year before Vaccine Roulette, three lawsuits were filed against vaccine makers. By the end of 1982, lawyers had filed 17 lawsuits; during the next four years, they filed 41, 73, 219, and 255. The amount of money requested by plaintiffs increased exponentially from $25 million in 1981 (one year before Vaccine Roulette) to $414 million in 1982, $655 million in 1983, $1.3 billion in 1984, and $3.2 billion in 1985. In response, pharmaceutical companies increased the prices of their vaccines and scrambled to get liability insurance. In 1984, the amount claimed in lawsuits exceeded DTP sales of pertussis vaccine by 20-fold. In 1985, despite a near doubling of the price of the vaccine, the amount claimed exceeded sales by 30-fold.

The results were predictable. Pharmaceutical companies abandoned vaccines. In 1980, eighteen companies made vaccines. Within only a few years, four remained. Realizing that American children might soon be denied life-saving vaccines, the federal government stepped in. On October 18^th, 1986, legislators passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. One month later, President Ronald Reagan signed it into law. The Act contained the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which included a list of compensable injuries possibly caused by vaccines.

The purpose of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act was to allow children to be compensated for vaccine harms without having to go through the expensive process of suing in state courts; to protect pharmaceutical companies from frivolous litigation; and to encourage vaccine makers to continue to research and produce new vaccines. The government had taken the burden of litigation off the backs of vaccine makers and put it on its own. Despite some misgivings, the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act saved vaccines.

Of interest, despite the claims of Vaccine Roulette, many studies soon found that the pertussis vaccine didn’t cause permanent brain damage. Unfortunately, the results of those studies came far too late to save vaccine makers. If Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants to dismantle the current vaccine program, all he would have to do would be to eliminate the protections afforded by the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, and subject vaccines to the slings and arrows of outrageous civil litigation—a financial gold mine for personal injury lawyers but a devastating blow to public health. This would require the cooperation of Congress, but it’s possible. Then we will be right back to where we were forty years ago.