Progress? Dem Senator Richard Blumenthal says vaccine industry should not be immune from prosecution.
Former Connecticut AG and now ranking member on Senate investigations committee says he'll co-sponsor bill to ban Pharma ads on TV
The dam hasn’t broken yet, but there’s a crack in the concrete.
This afternoon, at a Senate hearing on vaccine injuries, Democrat Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said that as a lawyer he’s “extremely suspicious” of legal immunity granted to any industry.
Blumenthal made the comment as the ranking member — the most senior Democrat — on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which is chaired by Sen. Ron Johnson, Republican from Wisconsin.
He spoke following the testimony of several people, including Brian Hooker and Polly Tommey of Children’s Health Defense, who’ve both had children who were severely injured by vaccines.
Blumenthal said he’d be interested to know whether any of the witnesses had tried to bring their cases before the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, to be heard in the so-called “Vaccine Court,” or whether they tried but got no relief.
“We had absolutely no relief whatsoever, neither were we allowed oral arguments,” said Brian Hooker, who’d testified that after 16 years, the case involving his son was thrown out.
“So, maybe we oughta look at this system,” said Blumenthal. “I am not suggesting what should be done about it. I don’t know whether you have legislation, Mr. Chairman, on this program…”
“We’re still in the exploratory phase here,” said Sen. Johnson in response.
Blumenthal responded: “I’m a lawyer, I’m very result-oriented and I am heartbroken to hear these stories. It makes me want to do something.”
Applause broke out in the hearing room immediately after he uttered these words, but Blumenthal quickly clarified: “I’m not promising anything. So you might want to hold your applause.”
Sen. Johnson then turned to him with a suggestion.
“How about we ban pharmaceutical ads on TV?” he said, and applause again broke out in the chamber. “I’ll co-sponsor that bill with you.”
“I’ve advocated it,” said Blumenthal, pausing for a second before he followed it with, “and you have a co-sponsor.”
Again, the room applauded.
Before he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010, Richard Blumenthal was the attorney general for the state of Connecticut for 20 years.
He reminded those at the hearing that as Connecticut’s attorney general, he was one of the leaders of the fight against the tobacco companies in the 1990s when 46 states sued, saying they were owed reimbursement for Medicaid expenditures for tobacco-related illnesses.
“When that industry denied that smoking caused cancer or any other disease — in fact, some tobacco manufacturers actually advertised that it was good for you to smoke — and they knew at the time, talk about destruction of records, that tobacco addiction, nicotine addiction, and smoking caused cancer,” said Blumenthal. “They knew it from their own experiments. They hid it. And then, they actually destroyed records. And that is one of the reasons that we won that set of lawsuits when people said no one could ever win, that in effect, they were immune. I don’t really think any industry should be immune from legal responsibility.”
He didn’t mention it, but as Connecticut’s attorney general he’d also launched an antitrust investigation into Lyme disease — specifically related to the guidelines for treating it, which had made it difficult for people suffering with Lyme disease to get effective treatment. It was a fight on behalf of victims and families suffering from ailments that had long been dismissed or minimized by the medical establishment and public health authorities. It’s hard to believe Blumenthal wasn’t reminded of this fight for victims of Lyme when he was listening to the witnesses talk about vaccine injuries that they or their children had suffered over years.
With Lyme, Blumenthal had mobilized the power of the state to fight on behalf of the injured, who had been ignored, discounted, censored and overall, not believed.
Is he about to do the same for the families of those injured or killed by vaccines?
Probably not. In his closing statement, Blumenthal said it’s undeniable that vaccines save lives and are safe and effective and that senators owe it to parents to stress the safety of vaccines. He also brought up gun safety and his bill to hold gun manufacturers legally accountable.
But the fact that he agreed to support a bill to ban all pharmaceutical advertising on TV marks a big change from just a few months ago when every Democrat senator on the Senate Finance Committee and every Democrat senator on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee voted ‘No’ on the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to become secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
As of 2015, pharmaceutical advertising amounted to 70 percent of all television advertising in non-election years, making it the lifeblood of the television industry and likely the reason no television channels have for years aired any criticism of vaccines or any information related to vaccine side effects.