Dan Burton: “we had a situation a few years ago where on the homeland security bill at about 11 o'clock at night, they stuck language…”

“we had a situation a few years ago where on the homeland security bill at about 11 o'clock at night, they stuck language in the bill which prohibited class action lawsuits against the manufacturers of thimerosal, which is a preservative that is in vaccines, and 50 percent of it is ethyl mercury. We have hundreds of thousands of kids that have been damaged by ethyl mercury in vaccines. It is called thimerosal. The language in this bill, and I want to read it to you, says, ``No punitive damages may be awarded against the manufacturer or distributor of a medical product, or a supplier of any component or raw material of such medical product, based on a claim that such product caused the claimant's harm where,'' and it goes on. The way I read this, these people who have been damaged, and we have been fighting for years to get them the ability to get money from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund, one of the negotiating things that we have had is the language that is being put in this bill that is going to stop that. What this means simply is that if this passes with this language in it, the way I understand it, those people, those thousands and thousands of people that have children that have been damaged by thimerosal, mercury, in vaccines will have no recourse, and they cannot get any restitution out of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund the way it is right now. I do not know how this got in here, but I can tell you right now, this is not good.…”