Washington, DC—The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which represents 60,000 pediatricians, along with several other health organizations, filed an amici curiae (friends of the court) brief with the U.S. Supreme Court asking that it overturn a recent decision by the Georgia Supreme Court that would allow cases alleging injury from childhood vaccines to be decided by state juries, threatening the no-fault system enacted by Congress in the mid-1980s.

The amici curiae brief is available here.

Congress enacted the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Compensation Act of 1986 to protect the small number of children injured by vaccines and to safeguard the nation’s vaccine supply. Leading up to passage of the legislation, vaccine-related lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers had spiked, and the rising litigation threatened to halt necessary production of life-saving vaccines. The recent ruling in American Home Products Corp. v. Ferrari would reverse the intentions set forth in the Act.

“If this decision is allowed to stand, it could lead to the very same crisis that Congress sought to prevent in passing the original legislation. There is a genuine threat to our nation’s public health if manufacturers abandon or consider abandoning the production of vaccines. This decision would set our country back decades, and have deadly consequences for our children,” says Stephan E. Lawton, JD, FAAP, co-author of the amicus brief.

“The public health benefits of childhood vaccines cannot be overstated. Multiple life-threatening and debilitating infectious diseases have been eliminated or nearly eliminated because of vaccines. The enormous benefits of vaccination vastly outweigh the small risk of injury,” says David T. Tayloe, Jr., MD, FAAP, AAP president.

In filing the brief, the AAP strongly stands by the current no-fault system, and urges the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the ruling by the Georgia Supreme Court.

Co-author of the brief was Hogan & Hartson, L.L.P., a Washington, DC law firm. Other organizations that joined the AAP in the brief include: American Academy of Family Physicians, AAP Section on Infectious Diseases, American College of Osteopathic Pediatricians, American Medical Association, American Public Health Association, Every Child By Two, Immunization Action Coalition, Infectious Disease Society of America, Pediatric Infectious Disease Society, and the Vaccine Education Center at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.