Bill Frist
[pdf July 2006] Willful Misconduct: How Bill Frist and the Drug Lobby Covertly Bagged a Liability Shield
[Media Feb 2006] Hastert, Frist said to rig bill for drug firms
Who is Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), co-sponsor of Senate Bill 3?
[Media May 2006]
Vaccine makers helped write Frist-backed shield law
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert engineered a
backroom legislative maneuver to protect pharmaceutical companies from lawsuits,
say witnesses to the pre-Christmas power play.
The language was tucked into a Defense Department appropriations bill at the
last minute without the approval of members of a House-Senate conference
committee, say several witnesses, including a top Republican staff member......Trial
lawyers and other groups condemn the law, saying it could make it nearly
impossible for people harmed by a vaccine to force the drug maker to pay for
their injuries.
Deadly Immunity By ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. The drug companies are also getting help from powerful lawmakers in Washington. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who has received $873,000 in contributions from the pharmaceutical industry, has been working to immunize vaccine makers from liability in 4,200 lawsuits that have been filed by the parents of injured children. On five separate occasions, Frist has tried to seal all of the government's vaccine-related documents -- including the Simpsonwood transcripts -- and shield Eli Lilly, the developer of thimerosal, from subpoenas. In 2002, the day after Frist quietly slipped a rider known as the "Eli Lilly Protection Act" into a homeland security bill, the company contributed $10,000 to his campaign and bought 5,000 copies of his book on bioterrorism. The measure was repealed by Congress in 2003 -- but earlier this year, Frist slipped another provision into an anti-terrorism bill that would deny compensation to children suffering from vaccine-related brain disorders. "The lawsuits are of such magnitude that they could put vaccine producers out of business and limit our capacity to deal with a biological attack by terrorists," says Andy Olsen, a legislative assistant to Frist.