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Senate panel OKs smallpox measure
Compensates workers hurt, killed by vaccine
Sheryl Gay Stolberg, New York Times
Thursday, April 3, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?
f=/c/a/2003/04/03/MN296479.DTL
Washington -- With hospitals and health care workers around the country
refusing to join the Bush administration's smallpox vaccination program, a
Senate committee approved a measure on Wednesday to compensate
workers disabled or killed by the shots.
The 11-10 vote was along party lines on the Republican-backed measure
and came after the committee rejected several Democratic amendments
to make the bill more generous. Democrats vowed to fight for a more
expansive benefits package once the measure reaches the Senate floor.
"It's a tin-cup response to a major kind of health threat, and it insults first
responders in this country," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who
offered the amendments.
The measure is intended to encourage vaccination among health care and
emergency workers who might respond to an attack using the deadly
smallpox virus. The chief sponsor of the measure, Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H.,
said the measure was urgently needed.
"This is not a legal issue," said Gregg, chairman of the panel, the Committee
on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. "This is not a health issue. This
is a national security issue."
Gregg noted that the bill's $262,100 lump sum death benefit was the same
amount paid to police officers killed in the line of duty, and was more than
the $256,000 lump sum paid to a soldier who might be killed in battle in
Iraq.
But the measure is less generous than one defeated last week by the
House. While both the House and Senate measures would pay $262,100 to
those permanently disabled or killed from vaccination, the House bill caps
compensation for lost wages at that amount. The Senate cap is $50,000.
Smallpox was eradicated two decades ago. But many experts believe rogue
nations, including Iraq, continue to maintain illicit stocks of the smallpox
virus. Last year, after months of internal debate, President Bush
announced a voluntary program to inoculate as many as 439,000 doctors,
nurses and emergency workers who would be the first to respond if
terrorists obtain the smallpox virus and introduce it into the United States.
Kennedy said that so far, only 25,000 people had been vaccinated. That is
mostly because of fears about the safety of the vaccine, which is made
from a live virus that is a cousin to smallpox and can cause serious
complications and even death.
Ten states have suspended vaccinations, lawmakers said. Last week,
federal health officials announced that seven health care workers had
developed cardiac problems after being vaccinated, and that two of them
had died of heart attacks.
Calling the vaccination program "an absolute disaster," Kennedy predicted
that things would not improve if the Senate bill passed intact, leading to a
contentious exchange with Gregg, seated beside him.
When Kennedy described the measure as an insult to first responders,
Gregg shot back, "It's not an insult. It's a genuine attempt to try to address
the issue."
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback
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