Vaccine Maker Wins In High Court

摘要

The U.S. Supreme Court came down firmly on the side of a vaccine manufacturer last week, ruling 6-2 with one abstention that the parents of a teenager who was apparently seriously injured by a vaccine she was given as a baby aren't entitled to sue the maker, Wyeth. The parents of Hannah Bruesewitz argued that she had received a "scientifically outmoded" DTP (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis) vaccine that Wyeth had decided not to update. But Antonin Scalia and five other justices concluded that the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which sought to protect manufacturers from excessive liability claims while preserving a family's right to be compensated for vaccine injuries, did not intend for companies to be liable for such so-called design defects.