Legislation grants lawsuit immunity to health-care workers from lawsuit liability

INDIANAPOLIS -- Indiana's hospitals and health-care workers would be shielded from lawsuits over adverse reactions to the smallpox vaccine under legislation passed by a House committee Tuesday.\nThe House Judiciary Committee voted 8-1 in favor of the smallpox-liability legislation. It now heads to the full House.\nThe bill previously passed in the state Senate.\nThe Bush administration has asked states to inoculate emergency-room workers and emergency responders in case of a germ-warfare attack with smallpox.\nIndiana resumed smallpox vaccinations Feb. 11.\nThe vaccine can have serious side effects, and several Indiana hospitals have refused to participate in the vaccination program until liability questions are answered.\nThis bill offers hospitals, doctors, nurses and emergency responders immunity from civil lawsuits if any patient they vaccinate suffers an adverse reaction.\nSome committee members said they were concerned about news that three health-care workers nationwide have died of heart problems after receiving smallpox vaccinations and others were sickened, the Daily Journal reported.\nThe U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised states to temporarily suspend vaccinations for people with heart disease or multiple risk factors.\nHealth officials don't know if the smallpox vaccine is to blame, but 10 states have suspended smallpox vaccinations pending investigation of the heart cases.\nIndiana has not suspended the vaccinations.\nTuesday's committee hearing came a day after the U.S. House of Representatives defeated a bill to create a compensation fund for smallpox-vaccination victims.\nA similar measure has stalled in the U.S. Senate.\nSmallpox, a disease with at least a 30 percent fatality rate that causes blisters and a high fever, was thought to be wiped out in 1980. But the threat of bioterrorist attacks using the virus has raised it back into the public spotlight.\nThe last smallpox case in the United States was in 1949, and routine vaccinations ceased in this country in 1972.