Wyeth Collegeville Pa | Blog: Tile Hill College Of Further Education

On February 22nd 2011, the United States Supreme Court ruled to uphold the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program’s decision in the Bruesewitz vs. Wyeth case. The Bruesewitz family claimed that the third dose of the diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus vaccine their daughter Hannah received in 1992 was defective and therefore caused her seizures and developmental delays. They contend the producer was liable because a safer version of this vaccine existed but was not produced. The family's prior claims to National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP) had been denied.

Antonin Scalia wrote the Court’s majority opinion stating “We hold that the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act preempts all design-defect claims against vaccine manufacturers brought by plaintiffs who seek compensation for injury or death caused by vaccine side effects.” There were two dissenting opinions; Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who suggested that by not providing specific language on the subject, Congress didn’t intend to exempt manufacturers from all possible suits and Justice Sonia Sotomayor who worried that without the possibility of lawsuits there wouldn’t be sufficient motivation to remove harmful vaccines.

Preventing a deluge of product liability claims

The NVICP provides compensation for certain vaccine injuries and protects vaccine makers from lawsuits. It was put in place by Congress in 1986 “to protect vaccine manufacturers, whose numbers had declined sharply,” according to Paul Offit, Chief of Infectious Diseases and Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The fear was “a return to the pre-vaccine era when hundreds of thousands of children were routinely hospitalized for, permanently harmed, or killed by vaccine-preventable disease,” he adds.