‘Maybe We Ought to Look at This System’: Senate Hearing on Vaccine Injuries Sparks Talk of Reforms
U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Ron Johnson broke "new ground" Tuesday at a subcommittee hearing on vaccine injury when they criticized liability protection for the pharmaceutical industry.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a staunch vaccine supporter, said he was “heartbroken” after hearing parents recount how their once-healthy children were injured or killed by vaccines.
The parents’ testimony, delivered during Tuesday’s U.S. Senate hearing, “Voices of the Vaccine Injured,” did little to sway Blumenthal from his belief that vaccines are “safe and effective” — but the gut-wrenching stories did lead the senator to suggest he may be willing to look into the issue of whether pharmaceutical companies should be held liable for injuries caused by their products.
“Maybe we ought to look at this system,” said Blumenthal, referring to the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which established a government compensation program for people injured by vaccines while granting legal immunity to vaccine makers.
Since 1986, the only recourse parents have had if their child was injured is to file a claim through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) — a bureaucratic labyrinth that rejects nearly half of all claims.
Blumenthal, ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which held the hearing, said the parents’ testimony “makes me want to do something.”
After his remark sparked applause, he quickly added: “I’m not promising anything. So you might want to hold your applause.”
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), subcommittee chair, organized the hearing — the second this year to focus on vaccine injuries.
Children’s Health Defense (CHD), which provided background for the first hearing, helped organize Tuesday’s hearing. CHD Chief Scientific Officer Brian Hooker, and Polly Tommey, program director for CHD.TV, both of whom have children injured by vaccines, were among the parents who testified Tuesday.
Johnson and Blumenthal were mostly at odds during the first hearing, which focused on myocarditis risks associated with COVID-19 vaccines.
However, the senators broke “new ground” Tuesday by addressing topics of possible collaboration, said CHD CEO Mary Holland, who attended both hearings. “Most remarkably, both senators criticized liability protection for the pharmaceutical industry,” Holland told The Defender.
Blumenthal, who worked as a prosecuting attorney before holding public office, said he wasn’t suggesting “what should be done about it,” but he did acknowledge that the liability shield is problematic for the vaccine-injured. He said he is “extremely suspicious” when an industry is given liability protection.
Johnson and Blumenthal also discussed co-sponsoring a bill to ban direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical ads and the need to reform the VICP, which is run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
While not committing to specifics on the liability protection issue or on reforming the VICP, Blumenthal did agree during Tuesday’s hearing to co-sponsor a bill with Johnson banning television advertising of pharmaceutical drugs, including vaccines.
Johnson told Blumenthal his team is in the “exploratory phase” of drafting legislation to address the failure of the VICP program.
On June 30, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in an interview with Tucker Carlson that he’s bringing in staff to “revolutionize” VICP. Kennedy didn’t provide details, and HHS hasn’t yet announced any changes to the program.
In 2024, 30 U.S. House representatives co-sponsored a bill that would end the broad protection from liability for injuries resulting from vaccines listed on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Childhood and Adolescent Immunization Schedule. The bill has yet to go up for a vote.
Johnson and Blumenthal did not mention the House bill.
‘Platform to those individuals and families who have been abandoned’
Emily Tarsell, whose daughter, Christina Tarsell, died at age 21 after getting Merck’s Gardasil HPV vaccine, was one of the witnesses.
She told The Defender the hearing was a “monumental step toward publicly acknowledging serious risks from vaccination and embracing, rather than gaslighting,” the vaccine-injured.
“The public has been misled and misinformed about the risk and benefits of the HPV vaccine,” she said.
Dr. Robert Sullivan, an anesthesiologist injured by a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine, and Krystle Cordingley, mother of Corbyn Cordingley, who died at age 1 after getting a flu vaccine, also testified Tuesday.
Hooker described how his son, Steven, developed multiple conditions, including severe autism, after receiving childhood vaccinations. Tommey told a similar story about how her son, Billy, developed autism after receiving a measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine.
Both parents said their sons, who are now adults, will never be able to live independently.
Johnson said the hearing’s purpose was “very simple … to give a platform to those individuals and families who have been abandoned; their injuries and suffering dismissed and forgotten.”
Two other witnesses, Eric Stein and Serese Marotta, spoke about a family member who died after getting the flu.
‘When will enough be enough?’
Hooker said his son, now 27, “will never pay taxes … hold a job … play baseball … write a poem … go out on a date … he is a prisoner in his own body.”
Hooker tried for 16 years to get compensation through the federal vaccine injury compensation program, but received “absolutely no relief whatsoever.”
Tarsell also attempted to pursue justice through the program after her daughter’s death.
“After eight years of litigation, HHS conceded by preponderance of the evidence that Chris died from her HPV vaccinations,” she said.
Tommey said she heard thousands of accounts of vaccine injury from people across the U.S. during CHD’s “Vax-Unvax” bus tour.
There were “over 12,000 signatures on those two buses of death, death, death,” Tommey said. “When will enough be enough?”
Many vaccine-injured kids now require 24-hour care, according to Tommey.
“Who is going to look after our children when we, the parents, are no longer around?” she asked. “This is a national crisis that must be addressed.”
CDC staff allegedly destroyed data linking MMR shot to autism risk
Later in the hearing, Hooker testified that CDC staff allegedly destroyed evidence showing a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.
Hooker said that in September 2002, William Thompson, Ph.D., a CDC senior scientist, gave him CDC data that showed African American boys who got the MMR vaccine on time at age 1 were over three times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than those who got the shot at 3 years old.
According to Hooker, Thompson told him that CDC staff involved in the study, including Colleen Boyle, Ph.D., and Dr. Frank DeStefano, were ordered to destroy the data.
Blumenthal called the destruction of documents “absolutely abhorrent.”
“It should be investigated and pursued, condemned … I think we can all agree on that point,” Blumenthal said.
Tarsell told The Defender she hopes the hearing will result in “real change,” including holding “Pharma accountable for injuries and deaths from their products.”
Watch the hearing here:
Related articles in The Defender
Well done. Let's keep the pressure on. Everyone who speaks out on this important issue is a hero.
This was an amazing hearing. I was there, in the front row. Was a truly historic day!