Tom Walker/Washington Bureau Chief
Washington D.C., Nov. 29 - The government's strategy for fighting bird flu includes doing everything possible to keep it from becoming a pandemic in the first place.
President George W. Bush has said, "The best way to deal with it is to isolate and contain it in the region in which it begins."
In case that fails, Congress is working up a $7 billion plan to encourage production of potentially life saving vaccines.
But critics are now taking aim at a part of the plan they say would also give drug makers sweeping new protection from lawsuits, protection they say goes beyond bird flu.
"A couple of cases of measles could be considered an epidemic that then would be covered under this legislation." Barbara Loe Fisher runs the watch-dog group National Vaccine Information Center that she founded after her son developed learning disabilities she believes were related to childhood vaccine.
She and other critics of the pharmaceutical industry, including Indiana Congressman Dan Burton, are gearing up to oppose the liability provisions.
President Bush and others say the number of makers of vaccine has plunged, largely because of fear of lawsuits. And they argue that without protection companies won't make the drugs.
But there is growing opposition from groups, including the politically powerful Association of Trial Lawyers, that say
fear of pandemic should not close the courthouse door to those injured.
"Certainly when it happens to you or to a loved one," says Fisher, "when you're the one that gets hurt, things look very different."
This is shaping up as a bitter struggle that could have an impact on drug makers like Eli Lilly and Company that don't make vaccines, but could be ramping up production of other medicines that might be needed in a bird flu pandemic.
Legislation drafted by Republicans would only allow lawsuits against makers of pandemic vaccines if there were willful misconduct.
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