Posted on 08/25/2002 7:06:30 PM PDT by Incorrigible
Friday, August 16, 2002
By LINDY WASHBURN
Staff Writer
A New Jersey girl whose mental development stopped at 2 months old after a routine immunization has received a $4.7 million settlement from a national trust fund.
More than $3 million of the award will go to an annuity that will pay for the child's care as long as she lives. Its payout could exceed $61 million if she lives to 71, said Mindy Michaels Roth, the Glen Rock attorney who brought the case in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
The payment to the girl, now 9 years old but with the mental ability of a 2-month-old, comes from the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, funded by a 75-cent tax on each vaccination. Congress created the fund in 1986, at a time when a growing number of lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers was driving them out of the marketplace, and more parents were choosing not to immunize their children because they feared harmful side effects.
"It removes a tremendous weight as to how we'll care for [our daughter] financially,'' said the girl's father, who lives in Central Jersey and asked that the family not be identified. "As finite human beings, we die. Who's going to care for her? This eliminates that burden'' because her eventual care in a nursing home is provided for, he said.
Congress established the program to stabilize the supply of vaccines and free money for research on safer alternatives.
The program also created a less expensive method to resolve claims outside the normal court system.
Since its inception, the fund has settled more than 5,500 claims, and awarded nearly $1.4 billion. Awards range up to $9.1 million. This year's average has been $800,000.
The fund provides compensation for injuries from all vaccines mandated by the federal government: diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (DTP); measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR); polio, hepatitis B, chickenpox, and H. influenza Type B.
This month, the pneumococcal vaccine was added to the list, and it became easier for parents whose babies suffered a bowel blockage following the rotavirus vaccine to secure compensation. Injuries from smallpox and anthrax vaccines are not covered by the fund.
Legislation is also pending, Roth said, to consider autism as a possible vaccine-related injury.
Some people believe the rising incidence of autism is partly attributable to the growing number of vaccines administered before a child's immune system is mature. In particular, they cite the mercury used as a component in some vaccines as a possible toxin.
However, a recent Institute of Medicine report concluded there was insufficient evidence to accept or reject a link between thimerosal, a mercury component in some vaccines, and autism and other developmental and neurological disorders.
Of the 4 million children each year who receive multiple vaccines, about 10,000 adverse reactions are reported to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Most of those reactions are minor, but about 15 percent report incidents of hospitalization, disability, life-threatening illnesses, or death. Those reports do not prove the vaccine caused the problem, however.
The Central Jersey girl, the youngest of four children, was a bright, healthy 2-month-old when she visited a pediatrician in September 1993, her mother said. While there, she was given a vaccination for diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (DTP).
Eleven hours later, her mother noticed odd eye movements as she changed the baby's diaper. She put the baby to bed and went to sleep, she said. When she awoke the next morning, she realized her daughter hadn't cried for her 3 a.m. feeding.
She found the baby "red in the face, foamy at the mouth, and having difficulty breathing,'' the mother said. The baby didn't have a fever, however, and the pediatrician advised her to keep an eye on the situation.
The baby was very lethargic, her parents said. Later, as her father held her in his arms, she started to shake - the first of many seizures. As the seizures increased, she was hospitalized.
"It was very frightening,'' the girl's mother said.
At first, neither the family nor the doctors connected her problems with the vaccination. "It's a highly emotional state,'' the father said. "It takes time to wrestle with this. ... There are all sorts of different distractions.''
At first, they didn't know her condition would be permanent. Health-care professionals tried to give them hope.
Only through careful questioning did the parents learn the likely long-term prognosis for their daughter. They hoped that her condition would not be permanent, but they realized they had to plan as if it were.
When a pediatric neurologist told them he believed the girl's problems were linked to the vaccine, he suggested they might seek compensation from the fund. That was when they learned the urgency of filing such a claim.
The fund operates with strict time limits, and the family said it spoke publicly to help make others aware of the potential for compensation and its timetables.
A child injured by a vaccine must file a claim within three years after the first symptoms appear.
The family of a child who dies must file within two years of the death.
No lawsuits concerning vaccine injuries can be filed in a civil court, the law says, until after a claim has been filed with the vaccine compensation program and the litigant has decided to reject its award.
As a result, the number of lawsuits filed against vaccine manufacturers has plunged since the fund's inception: four suits against DTP makers in 1997, compared with 255 in 1985.
In New Jersey, four attorneys are listed by the Court of Federal Claims for filing vaccine-related claims with the program. Roth and her partner, Drew Britcher of Britcher, Leone & Roth, are two of them.
"People need to know to get to the fund,'' Roth said. "They have this child. They have huge medical bills.
They'll be capped-out on their insurance. There is a place to go. If you don't go there, you aren't going to go anywhere. You will be dismissed from state court, and have no recourse.''
The program, which operates with a special master, pays attorney fees regardless of whether the claim succeeds or fails. The fees are based on an hourly rate of $175, plus expenses - not a percentage of the settlement, as in malpractice cases. Awards for pain and suffering are capped at $250,000.
The child is the sole beneficiary of the award, not the family. If the child dies, the annuity established as part of the award reverts to the compensation fund.
Nine years after the Central New Jersey girl's DTP shot, she continues to suffer seizures and to be affected by swelling in the brain.
"In physical development, she's a 9-year-old girl,'' said her father, chuckling that she may turn out to be the tallest member of the family. Mentally, or cognitively, however, "her development was arrested at two months.''
She cannot control her own movements, and is blind. The family cares for her at home.
Among their first purchases from the settlement is a specially equipped van, with a ramp and space for her wheelchair.
The girl weighs 47 pounds; lifting her in and out of the car has become increasingly difficult.
The van hasn't arrived yet, her mother said, "but we feel better already, just having ordered it.''
Lindy Washburn's e-mail address is washburn@northjersey.com
Not for commercial use. For educational and discussion purposes only.
We need answers -- honest, scientific answers to what's going on here.
http://909shot.com/ and
http://www.tetrahedron.org/
Please, everyone remember you have the right to refuse treatment from your physician if you don't agree with his methods, my own pediatricians said this. (Which is why I like this husband and wife team.)
My youngest developed a knot on his leg and the leg stiff for several weeks from his 2nd dpt, he dragged his leg for over a month. I warned my son not to let them do it.
My daughter-in-law bless her heart is not one of those who can stand up to a doc very well she is a nurse's aide to use to taking orders from the medical profession. My son now takes Matthew for his DR appointments. They won't bully him.
There are doctors out there who realize the connection even to adult reactions. When my wife went quad the Neurologist asked almost daily about her vaccines especially if she had taken recent ones. He was thinking Gilliam Barre {SP} possible from flu shots but the respitory dysfunction wasn't there.
I also have two realitives who are sibilings to each other. As very young children {1970's} they developed Muscular Dystrophy symptoms but doctors could not label or identify the specific type. The doctors now suspect vaccines as the likely cause. The oldest is a pariplegic the younger one a quad. It hit the youngest one earlier in development.
My daughter-in-law bless her heart is not one of those who can stand up to a doc very well she is a nurse's aide to use to taking orders from the medical profession. My son now takes Matthew for his DR appointments. They won't bully him.
Sometimes in cases as this you have to stand on your principles even if it means standing alone. 8 months ago I found myself in conflict with about 5 doctors over some medications. I'm certain if I hadn't gotten some fast answers besides theirs and stuck to my gut feeling with what little information I had to fight with I would be a widower right now.
A reaction to a medication of any kind is just that. It is a reaction or rather a conflict that and no doctor can predict the extent of the next reaction despite what they say. I never raised kids from birth but the things I see being done to my grandkids by the so called experts is insane. They don't mind a bombardment of artifical nutrition but insist natural foods be avoided? Don't give them table food {blended} but by all means they must have an immune system altering vaccine before leaving the hospital? Common sense says stay away from some foods but I do have to wonder how we survived as a race without artifical nutrition for babies before these great minds rescued us? /Sarcasm
What a crock.
You can argue against anything you want, unless you hit a brick wall arguing with someone who has non-scientific adherence to his opinions.
Post 11 I think was another story. It involved Accute and Advanced Serotonin Syndrome which no less than 5 doctors including 3 attending ER and 2 shrinks missed. They didn't do their simple diagnostics of looking up the blasted medications which was Trazadone & Zoloft. One of the E.R. morons while she was comatose just stood their looking at her. The next hospital was more intersted in a patient dump. After she suffered through a relapse thanks to the drug being reintroduced I found out about the reaction on line. The attending still would not say it was so till I pointed out his own hospitals pharmacology professor wrote the paper.
Now our GP even knows that neither of us are to take so much as Robintusin or OTC cold medications containing Serotonin inhibitors. I had reactions to SSRI's myself the doctors ignored my complaints. I now realize the symptoms for what they were.
Look as for the vaccines? They need to be slowed down somewhat especially in kids. Like GailA posted one at a time and not a cocktail of all in one. Any sign of reaction should stop the vaccine. It means there is conflict. That was true when I was taking 4 years of allergy shots also. The doctor said if I have a reaction that was the end of the treatment my body was intollorant to the vaccine. They went as far as watching me for 30 minutes after treatment. If there wasn't a problem there wouldn't be a fund the whole mess would be thrown out.
Truth is vaccines are now being linked to such things as Autism. When problems like that start increasing as it seems they are in relation to the rise in numbers of vaccines then we need to see what's going on. Likely it is a matter that even waiting 3 months into development can solve or a spacing out of treatments. I don't want to see those diseases come back but I want the vaccines used in a manner that causes the least risk like i do any other medication.
Right?
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