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                                           SENATE JOINT MEMORIAL NO. 125

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State of Washington                              49th Legislature                              1985 Regular Session

By Senators Granlund, Kreidler and Talmadge

Read first time 2/8/85 and referred to Committee on Human Services and Corrections.

TO THE HONORABLE RONALD REAGAN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, AND TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE AND THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED:

          We, your Memorialists, the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Washington, in legislative session assembled, respectfully represent and petition as follows:

          WHEREAS, There is a pending shortage of DTP (diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis) vaccine and the shortage may continue for much of 1985; and

          WHEREAS, All school children in Washington state and in each of the other forty-nine states and the District of Columbia are required to be immunized by means of DTP vaccine; and

          WHEREAS, Prior to mass immunization programs pertussis struck as many as two hundred sixty-five thousand children each year with an annual death toll of over seven thousand five hundred lives; and

          WHEREAS, Diphtheria and tetanus also present ominous threats to the health and welfare of our children unless appropriate vaccines are available; and

          WHEREAS, The cause of the pending shortage of DTP vaccine is that the current litigation and tort liability environment has escalated the costs borne by manufacturers to such high levels that it is not cost efficient for these manufacturers to remain in the vaccine market; and

          WHEREAS, A vaccine-injury compensation bill is before the 99th Congress and provides for the establishment of a federal program to provide compensation for persons seriously injured by a mandatory pediatric immunization.  The federal program would be the exclusive remedy of persons injured by mandatory pediatric vaccines, foreclosing tort action by injured persons against those who manufacture, distribute, or administer vaccines; and

          WHEREAS, Passage of this bill would eliminate the cause of the pending shortage of DTP;

          NOW THEREFORE, Your Memorialists respectfully pray that the Congress of the United States enact the vaccine-injury compensation bill.

          BE IT RESOLVED, That copies of this Memorial be immediately transmitted to the Honorable Ronald Reagan, President of the United States, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and each member of Congress from the State of Washington.