A bill that advanced Wednesday in the Iowa House would require pharmaceutical manufacturers to waive legal immunity for vaccines distributed in Iowa. (Photo via Getty Images)
An Iowa House subcommittee advanced a bill Wednesday that would prohibit vaccines from being distributed and administered in Iowa unless the vaccine manufacturer waives legal immunities.
Medical students, practitioners and advocates said the measure could prevent some vaccines from being available in Iowa, and could contribute to a rise in the spread of diseases like measles that can be prevented through vaccinations.
House File 712 would require vaccine manufacturers to affirmatively waive any immunity from suits over injuries arising from “a design defect of the vaccine,” including immunity granted by the federal National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. The 1986 law established the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) as a way to provide no-fault compensation to individuals and families who were injured by childhood vaccines.
Supporters of the bill said the federal vaccine injury compensation program did not grant compensation to victims often and took years to make decisions. Sonya Swan, who supported the legislation, read a letter she said was from another Iowa family with a child who suffered a vaccine injury.
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“Vaccine adverse events are not rare and far too common, and no other industry enjoys the complete liability protection awarded to vaccine manufacturers,” Swan said. “When an injury occurs, families like mine — my friend’s — are left holding the bag financially to support and help their injured child with very little help.”
The CDC reported that from 2006 to 2022, there were 12,593 petitions adjudicated in court regarding the VICP for over 5 billion doses of covered vaccines distributed in the U.S., and that of those, 9,124 petitions received compensation. This means for every 1 million doses of vaccination distributed, approximately one individual received compensation through the program, according to the February VICP monthly statistics report.
Jack Ohringer, a medical student at the University of Iowa, said the legislation would “open the floodgates for unfounded vaccination injury claims,” leading vaccine manufacturers to either raise the cost of vaccines or stop distributing vaccines in Iowa. He said this issue is why the national vaccine injury compensation program was created in the 1980s, as a way to ensure that victims in these cases would be compensated without significantly hindering the access to vaccines by the larger public.
“That can be, you know, adjusted and improved, but they’ve given out billions of dollars in vaccine settlements,” Ohringer said. “They are doing something. They are making a significant impact. That is the route that this should be done under. Pharmaceutical companies need those protections in order to continue to keep vaccines accessible to everyone.”
Tom Cope with the Iowa Society of Anesthesiologists also expressed concerns that the bill would restrict access to vaccines in the state and limit Iowans’ ability to choose the best health care options for themselves. He also said problems with VICP should be addressed federally, not through state legislation.
“It seems like the issue that’s been identified as a problem on the federal level,” Cope said. “There’s a concern that the current system on the federal level doesn’t work. The solution (to) that should be made at the federal level, not here in Iowa.”
Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, D-Ames, said vaccines were the “greatest medical advancement in history” and echoed the sentiment by some advocates that issues with the national vaccine injury compensation program should be addressed on the federal level. She pointed to the February death of a child in Texas from measles — the first measles death in a decade — as a reason why the state needs to ensure that vaccines are readily accessible.or
“There was a child this year who died from measles, unnecessarily,” Wessel-Kroeschell said. “And I just cannot believe that we would pass a bill that would lead to more children dying of measles.”
Rep. Charley Thomson, R-Charles City, said “things are generally not all good or all bad,” and supported the legislation moving forward to continue the conversation on whether state action could help solve problems with the federal compensation system for vaccine injuries.
“While vaccines are a tremendous medical advance, there has to be some control for toxic products that get into the stream of commerce,” Thomson said. “The federal system, pretty clearly, is not working right now. If there’s a state solution to a broken system on the federal level, let’s see if we can find it. But let’s not make the problem worse in the meantime.”
More bills advance with vaccine restrictions
The House legislation is one of multiple vaccine-related bills to be discussed this week. A Senate subcommittee approved a bill Monday that would prohibit gene-based vaccines from being administered in Iowa, with health care providers being subject to a misdemeanor charge and fine of $500 for each violation of the measure.
The Senate Health and Human Services Committee approved several bills Wednesday addressing concerns about vaccines, including:
Senate File 6 would require K-12 and post-secondary schools — private and public – and child care facilities to include information about exemptions to vaccine requirements in all communications about immunizations to a parent or guardian, as well as publishing the information on school websites and in registration information. Democrats on the committee said schools already do this and the legislation was unnecessary. But the bill manager, Sen. Dennis Guth, R-Klemme, said some Iowans had told him parents were being misinformed about vaccine exemptions.
Senate File 128 would require vaccine information on medical examiner’s reports on the deaths of all children age 3 or younger. The date of the last immunization or immunizations received by the child would have to be included on the report, under the bill. Democrats said the bill was redundant, as child deaths are already investigated, and that such legislation contributes to vaccine hesitancy. Guth said the bill would provide more transparency “in an area where so many are so quick to deny correlation or causation.”
— Kathie Obradovich contributed to this report.
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