The Homeland Security Bill had some words injected into it to immunize vaccine makers against the threat of lawsuits. Apparently, pharmaceutical manufacturer Eli Lilly and Company needed such protection, being the target of a massive class-action suit on behalf of autistic children whose parents believe they were brain-damaged from the mercury (thimerosol) added to vaccine as a preservative.

A lot of people have complained, and been told the offensive two paragraphs would be removed from the 475-page legislation in January.  Well, January's here and so far, the clause that seems to suggest that suing a company for damages provides aid and comfort to terrorists is still in there. 

For those of you who haven't yet read up on this issue, here are a couple of accounts from The New York Times and The Washington Post:

           By Jonathan Weisman
            Washington Post Staff Writer
            Thursday, November 28, 2002; Page A45

It amounted to only two paragraphs at the end of a 475-page bill to create the Department of Homeland Security. But the brief provision -- designed to shield vaccine makers such as Eli Lilly and Co. from lawsuits seeking billions of dollars for families of autistic children -- has generated a whirlwind of controversy and a mystery as to its origin.

The paragraphs appeared just days before the House was to vote on the legislation. House Republicans rammed the bill through during Congress's "lame duck session" and sent it to the Senate, where Democrats, demoralized by the Nov. 5 election results, could not to stop it.

And so, with little debate, Congress granted broad legal protection to the makers of Thimerosal, a preservative in childhood vaccines that has been circumstantially linked to rising rates of autism and pediatric developmental problems. It seemed a lobbying coup for Lilly and its allies. Yet, strange to say in Washington, no one seems to want to take credit.

Pharmaceutical lobbyists, Eli Lilly representatives and lawmakers with the most knowledge of the Thimerosal issue have denied any role in the provision's last-minute appearance. Now, White House budget director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., a former Lilly executive, is the latest person to formally deny a part. He did so in a sharply worded response to an accusatory letter by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.).

Daniels said the provision was not approved or developed by the White House Office of Management and Budget, adding:  "I also want to make clear that I personally had no involvement whatsoever with these provisions. I spoke to no one about these provisions, either inside the administration or outside the administration. . . . I did not have any communications with anyone from Eli Lilly regarding the issue. Indeed, I had not even heard of Thimerosal until I received your letter, which is not surprising because Eli Lilly stopped making Thimerosal a decade before I began working there and the lawsuits appear to have been filed after I left."

Since the provision's appearance, some Democrats and trial lawyers have charged that it represented a timely payback for the pharmaceutical industry's financial support in the midterm elections. "President Bush and conservative Republicans are going to give the pharmaceutical companies whatever they ask for," said Michael Williams, an Oregon lawyer who represents several families of autistic children and believes billions of dollars could be at stake.

Under the provision, a raft of Thimerosal lawsuits will be redirected from state courts to the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which caps damages and sharply limits who can file suits against vaccine makers. Proponents say the provision merely closes a loophole, which had been exploited by trial lawyers claiming that Thimerosal was a vaccine "contaminant" not subject to existing legal regulations. If action was not taken, advocates say, the lawsuits could have driven vaccine makers out of business.

The provision was drafted more than a year ago by Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) as part of a broader bill to revise the vaccine program. That bill, which Frist had hoped to begin action on next year, includes measures favoring plaintiffs as well as manufacturers. It would raise the cap on damages, extend the statute of limitations for filing suit and allow the parents of autistic children to sue on their behalf.

An aide to retiring House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) said Armey's staff put the Thimerosal provision in with no prodding from the pharmaceutical industry or the White House. 

But several corporate lobbyists said that is not credible. Whoever was responsible had to have detailed knowledge of the legal issues, had to know Frist had drafted the larger bill, and had to understand exactly which provision applied to Thimerosal because the brand name does not appear in the text. Two sources said an official at the Department of Health and Human Services gave the final approval, a statement that HHS spokesman Bill Pierce adamantly denied.

What is clear is that as recently as two months ago, lobbyists for Lilly and other drug makers were on Capitol Hill trying to get the entire Frist vaccine bill inserted into the homeland security legislation. But, the lobbyists said, they were as surprised as anyone when the two-paragraph item was included.

One senior Republican Senate aide said a member of Frist's staff received a call  just days before the House passed the homeland security bill, saying he had heard a rumor that the Thimerosal provision was included. The Frist aide said the lobbyist was confusing that provision with another measure to protect makers of smallpox vaccines. The next day, the aide said, Frist's staff found the Thimerosal provision in the bill as they scanned it in the Senate cloakroom.

"We don't know how it became part of the House bill," said Rob Smith, a Lilly spokesman. "We didn't know it was part of the bill, and it was a surprise to us."

The provision could be the lobbying coup of the 107th Congress. A series of ongoing academic studies should be able to conclude within the next three years whether Thimerosal, a mercury-based additive, can be scientifically linked to an upswing in autism, Williams said. Absent the two-paragraph provision, such a conclusion could open the legal floodgates. 

Yet corporate lobbyists who might be expected to crow about saving their clients potentially billions of dollars have stayed mum. That may be in part because the deed was done rather clumsily, one lobbyist said. The provision was not even hidden. Instead, it was simply tacked on at the end of the bill. That has brought down a wave of unwanted publicity on vaccine makers, especially Lilly, the inventor of Thimerosal.

"They didn't even make an effort to be clever about it," the lobbyist said.

            By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
 
 

                     WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 — Lobbyists for Eli Lilly & Company, the
                     pharmaceutical giant, did not have much luck when they made the rounds
                     on Capitol Hill earlier this year, seeking protection from lawsuits over a
            preservative in vaccines. Senator Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee, tucked a
            provision into a bill that went nowhere. When lawmakers rebuffed a request to slip
            language into domestic security legislation, a Lilly spokesman said, the company gave
            up.

                Now, in a Washington whodunit worthy of Agatha Christie, the provision has
            been resurrected and become law, as part of the domestic security legislation signed
            on Monday by President Bush. Yet in a city where politicians have perfected the art
            of claiming credit for deeds large and small, not a single member of Congress — or
            the Bush administration — will admit to being the author of the Lilly rider.

                "It's turning into one of Washington's most interesting parlor games," said Dave
            Lemmon, spokesman for Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan, who has
            promised to introduce legislation to repeal the provision. "There's a lot of guessing, a
            lot of speculation as to who did this."

                The provision forces lawsuits over the preservative, developed by Eli Lilly and
            called thimerosal, into a special "vaccine court." It may result in the dismissal of
            thousands of cases filed by parents who contend that mercury in thimerosal has
            poisoned their children, causing autism and other neurological ailments. Among them
            are Joseph and Theresa Counter of Plano, Tex., devoted Republicans whose party
            allegiance has run smack into family ties.

                The Counters' 6-year-old son, Joseph Alexander, was normal and healthy until he
            was 2, they say. Then he took an unexplained downward slide. Today, the boy
            struggles with words. He cannot zip his pants, snap buttons or tie his shoes. His
            parents say tests eventually showed that he had mercury poisoning, which they
            attribute to vaccines. They sued last year.

                "I know that our legislative system can be very, very messy at times," said Mr.
            Counter, a political consultant, who with his wife has spent many thousands of
            dollars on medical care and therapy for their son. "But for them to attempt this, in
            the dead of night? It disgusts me. This morning, I am ashamed to be a Republican."

                With lawmakers now scattered across the country, Washington is rife with
            speculation about who is responsible for aiding Lilly, a major Republican donor. During
            the 2002 election cycle, the company gave more money to political candidates, $1.6
            million, than any other pharmaceutical company, with 79 percent of it going to
            Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit research
            group that monitors campaign finances.

                Critics of the provision, mainly Democrats and trial lawyers, are quick to point
            out that the White House has close ties to Lilly. The first president Bush sat on the
            Lilly board in the late 1970's. The White House budget director, Mitchell E. Daniels
            Jr., is a former Lilly executive. The company's chairman and chief executive, Sidney
            Taurel, was appointed in June by President Bush to serve on a presidential council
            that will advise Mr. Bush on domestic security.

                The White House, however, has said that it did not ask Congress for the
            provision. Rob Smith, a spokesman for Lilly, said that the company's lobbyists "made
            absolutely no contact with Mitch or anyone in his office about this," and that Mr.
            Taurel "did not at any time ask" for any favors.

                "It's a mystery to us how it got in there," Mr. Smith said of the provision.

                Senator Frist has said it is a mystery to him as well. As the Senate's only
            doctor, he sought to include the provision in legislation that would promote the
            availability of vaccines. But the vaccine bill is stalled; Senator Edward M. Kennedy,
            the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the Senate health committee,
            opposes it. Mr. Frist's spokesman said he did not seek to have the provision included
            in the domestic security bill.

                On Capitol Hill, Congressional aides-turned-detectives have traced the
            emergence of the provision to the Veterans Day weekend. Flush from their party's
            victories on Election Day, and with a mandate from President Bush to pass a
            domestic security bill, Republican negotiators in the House and Senate holed up for
            three days in the Capitol to hammer out the details, said Richard Diamond,
            spokesman for the retiring House majority leader, Representative Dick Armey of
            Texas.

                One aide said the language mysteriously appeared in the House version of the bill
            in entirely different type than the rest of the measure, as though someone had
            clipped it out of Mr. Frist's legislation and simply pasted it in. Mr. Diamond said all the
            negotiators supported the move, but would not say who was responsible.

                "If you want to give somebody credit for it," he said, "Mr. Armey takes ultimate
            credit. It's his bill. We are happy to wrap ourselves around it, but Mr. Armey is not a
            doctor, like Senator Frist. He's the source of the language."

                Whether thimerosal is truly harmful is the subject of intense scientific
            controversy. Earlier this year, the National Academy of Sciences issued a report
            saying there was no scientific evidence either to prove or disprove a link between
            thimerosal and brain disorders like autism. But the academy did find that such a link
            was "biologically plausible," and so it urged pharmaceutical companies to eliminate
            thimerosal, which has already been removed from many vaccines, as quickly as
            possible.

                The Lilly rider closes a loophole in a 1986 law that requires victims to file claims
            with the vaccine court, which awards payments from a taxpayer-financed
            compensation fund, before going to civil court. But the law covered only vaccines
            themselves, not their ingredients, which meant people like the Counters could sue
            ingredient manufacturers like Lilly directly.

                While Washington debates the origins of the provision, families are fuming. Some
            say the government fund will do them no good, because they have missed the
            statute of limitations — three years from the date symptoms first appear — for filing
            claims. Scott and Laura Bono of Durham, N.C., say that while their son Jackson, now
            13, showed symptoms similar to autism six or seven years ago, it was not until
            August 2000 that they learned he had mercury poisoning. They filed suit just the
            other day.

               Aware of the controversy, lawmakers in both parties have pledged to alter the
            thimerosal rider, but are arguing about how to do so. While many Democrats want it
            repealed, Republicans have suggested that they may simply alter the language to
            apply to future cases only.

                "I'll believe it when I see it," said Mr. Waters, the Counters' lawyer.

                In the meantime, Mr. Smith, the Lilly spokesman, said his company would soon
            go to court to seek dismissal of the suits.

                That news made Theresa Counter cry.

                "It just makes me sick," she said. "I cannot tell you how devastating it is to think
            that we might have to start all over."