Bush has ties to drug maker

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Wednesday, January 04, 2006 10:23 AM

Bush has ties to drug maker

 

 

The Man Behind The Vaccine Mystery

http://www.lovepeoplenotmoney.com/cached/thimerosol.cbs.html

 

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12, 2002

 

Rep. Dick Armey, R-Texas, says he's behind a provision in the homeland

security bill that protects Eli Lilly and Co. (CBS/AP)

 

 

Quote>

 

" It's a matter of national security. We need their vaccines if the

country is attacked with germ weapons. "

House Majority Leader Dick Armey

 

(CBS) It's been a mystery in Washington for weeks. Just before

President Bush signed the homeland security bill into law an unknown

member of Congress inserted a provision into the legislation that

blocks lawsuits against the maker of a controversial vaccine

preservative called " thimerosal, " used in vaccines that are given to

children.

 

Drug giant Eli Lilly and Company makes thimerosal. It's the mercury in

the preservative that many parents say causes autism in thousands of

children - like Mary Kate Kilpatrick.

 

Asked if she thinks her daughter is a victim of thimerosal, Mary

Kate's mother, Kathy Kilpatrick, says, " I think autism is mercury

poisoning. "

 

But nobody in Congress would admit to adding the provision, reports

CBS News Correspondent Jim Acosta - until now.

 

House Majority Leader Dick Armey tells CBS News he did it to keep

vaccine-makers from going out of business under the weight of mounting

lawsuits.

 

" I did it and I'm proud of it, " says Armey, R-Texas.

 

" It's a matter of national security, " Armey says. " We need their

vaccines if the country is attacked with germ weapons. "

 

 

Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., isn't buying it. The grandfather of an

autistic child, Burton says Armey slipped the provision in at the last

minute, too late for debate.

 

" And I said, 'Who told you to put it in?' " He said, 'No, they asked me

to do it at the White House.' "

 

Critics say the Bush family and the administration have too many ties

to Eli Lilly. There's President Bush's father, who sat on the

company's board in the 1970's; White House budget director Mitch

Daniels, once an Eli Lilly executive; and Eli Lilly CEO Sidney Taurel,

who serves on the president's homeland security advisory council.

 

Officials at the drug giant insist they did nothing wrong. " No one,

not our CEO, not myself, not anyone who works with me asked the White

House to insert this legislation, " said Eli Lilly spokeswoman Debra

Steelman.

 

But Kathy Kilpatrick and her husband Michael argue that the thimerosal

provision is not designed to protect the nation, but rather to protect

Eli Lilly.

 

Asked what he'd say to a congressman who came forward and admitted he

was responsible for inserting the provision, Michael Kilpatrick says,

" I would ask him if he knew he was protecting mercury being shot into

our kids. "

 

Kathy Kilpatrick asks, " Why would anyone want to save Eli Lilly on our

children's backs? "

 

Because Armey is retiring at the end of the year, some say the

outgoing majority leader is the perfect fall guy to take the heat and

shield the White House from embarrassment.

 

It's a claim both the White house and Armey deny.