The 1986 Act: Myths vs Fact

 

The 1986 Act: Myths vs Facts In a special article written by Barbara Loe Fisher and published today with supporting documents, she summarizes the efforts of Dissatisfied Parents Together (DPT), which later established the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), to advocate for federal legislation that prioritized vaccine safety and provided legal options for parents of vaccine-injured children to care for their children’s life long needs.. The 1986 Act marked a crucial moment in history, one that highlighted the reality that government recommended vaccines carry significant risks, which can be greater for some individuals than others, and that our nation must make it a priority to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths. A major accomplishment of the 1986 Act was to put pressure on federal agencies to license a less toxic acellular pertussis vaccine (DTaP) for babies in 1996 and to replace the oral polio vaccine with an inactivated polio vaccine that cannot cause vaccine strain polio paralysis. Dispelling major myths about the 1986 Act, Fisher clarifies that the law did NOT grant a total liability shield to pharmaceutical companies, doctors, and other vaccine administrators. She addresses the controversial 2011 Supreme Court decision in Bruesewitz v Wyeth, explaining how the Court majority ignored the Act’s legislative history and effectively handed vaccine manufacturers a total liability shield - even if there was evidence a company could have made a vaccine less harmful. She describes the betrayal of parents’ trust by Congress, federal health officials and medical trade after the law was passed and the Act’s safety and compensation provisions were gutted, seriously damaging the spirit and intent of the original Act. Past Is Prologue - Lessons Learned Don't miss this insightful exploration of the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act and implications for lessons learned that impact decisions being made today about how to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths and protect informed consent rights when it comes to vaccine policy and law. Click the link below to read the article "Clearing Up Myths About the 1986 Act with Facts" and to watch the important interview with Barbara and Del on “Highwire."

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1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act: MYTH vs. FACT  We are sharing exclusive insights into the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, shedding light on its history, myths, and what really happened back in the early 1980s when for five years the pharmaceutical industry tried to blackmail Congress into giving vaccine manufacturers total liability protection from childhood vaccine injury lawsuits. NVIC’s co-founder and president Barbara Loe Fisher sets the record straight in a powerful interview with Del Bigree on the "Highwire” Jan. 4, 2024 at 2 pm EDT. Groundbreaking Legislation Highlights Vaccine Injuries and Deaths  The 1986 Act, signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on Nov. 14, 1986, was groundbreaking legislation in which government acknowledged that federally licensed and recommended childhood vaccines mandated by states for school attendance can and do injure and cause the death of a minority of children. The 1986 Act included vaccine safety informing, recording, reporting and research provisions, as well as created a federal vaccine injury compensation system alternative to filing a product liability lawsuit against drug companies or suing negligent physicians for medical malpractice. The story of how a small group of parents of DPT vaccine injured children managed to protect the legal right to sue drug companies and doctors for childhood vaccine injuries and deaths, while working to secure safety provisions in the US mass vaccination system and also offer vaccine injured children an administrative compensation system alternative to a lawsuit, is a competing one.

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