Dennis Kucinich: “Wake up, America. In addition to giving away the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to the oil companies, the Defense…”

“Wake up, America. In addition to giving away the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to the oil companies, the Defense appropriations bill is rumored to contain a massive holiday gift to the pharmaceutical industry in the form of liability immunity for pandemic vaccines. The liability is not the reason for vaccine shortages, especially in the case of avian flu. This giveaway will not result in increased vaccine production. Why does Big Pharma want these liability exemptions? Because there is reason to doubt the safety of at least one of these vaccines. Chiron, the same company which allowed contamination of half of last year's flu vaccine supply, is hoping to use MF59 in an avian flu vaccine. MF59 is a compound that contains squalene, which is on the short list of potential causes for the chronic debilitating illnesses experienced by our veterans of the first Persian Gulf war. At a minimum, this issue must be debated in front of the American people, not slipped in behind closed doors into this large bill. I urge my colleagues to reject this liability immunity. ____________________”