Vaccine makers' protection will be eliminated, Republicans say.

2003 FEB 5 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Republicans say they will reverse several favors to special interests in the Homeland Security law, including a much-criticized provision to limit lawsuits against vaccine makers.

House and Senate Republicans said they also would get rid of a loophole under which companies that locate overseas to avoid paying taxes could still compete for agency contracts and would revise language that gave one university, Texas A&M, special access to federal research money.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., who supported the original vaccine provision and said he still hopes to take up the issue later in 2003 in more comprehensive legislation, said he would include the special interest eliminations in a fiscal 2003 spending bill the Senate was scheduled to take up in January.

Objections to the last-minute inclusion of the provisions, led by Democrats and several Republicans, nearly blocked passage of the Homeland Security bill, a priority for the Bush White House in 2002.

The most controversial was the language shielding vaccine makers from lawsuits concerning the use of the compound Thimerosal by requiring that claims go through a special federal program that pays limited damages for vaccine-related injuries, rather than through courts.

Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. was the biggest manufacturer of Thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative once added to some childhood vaccines. The drug company said it had lobbied for the measure but had no role in its placement in the homeland security bill.

Parents of children with autism have filed lawsuits claiming that Thimerosal caused the children to develop the disease, and they strongly protested the limitations on their legal options.