Vaccines

Vaccines

For years, some children have had severe reactions to vaccines, including brain damage and death. The diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis vaccine (DTP), first sold as a combined product in the 1940s, is given to millions of children in the United States every year. Reports of seizure, paralysis, and death from the vaccine first appeared during the decade of its introduction, but it was not until the 1980s that studies showed that tragic adverse effects were not just one in a million. Vaccine cases also involve adverse reactions to polio, MMR, rubella, OPV, and HiB vaccines. These reactions may be due to medical negligence, inadequate product warnings, or defective batches of the product.

Recently, the Group has added mercury content of vaccines as one of its concerns. A bacteriocide, thimerosal, containing organic mercury at levels toxic to infants, was used in multi-dose packages of many maternal, infant, and early childhood vaccines on a rapidly increasing basis in the 1990s. Litigation over this heavy metal iatrogenic disaster will last many years. The Litigation Group will help to coordinate and communicate among lawyers whose clients have injury claims pending in the Vaccine Compensation Program in the Federal Claims Court.

Resources include a complete file of industry documents, trial transcripts, depositions of corporate representatives, Food and Drug Administration reports of vaccine reactions, journal and newspaper articles, and legal research.

Through a secure website, the Group will post copies of all available pleadings, and other documents from thimerosal cases, outlines of the scientific and medical literature, and links to websites and other sources of public information. The Litigation Group tracks all ongoing studies.

Meetings:

AAJ winter and annual conventions.

Membership:

Open to all Regular, Life, Sustaining, Leaders Forum, and President's Club AAJ members

Dues:

$50/attorney