This is the sort of thing that can make a progressive anti-government
Vaccine Injury Claims Face Grueling Fight
Victims increasingly view U.S. compensation program as adversarial and tightfisted.
By Myron Levin
Times Staff Writer
November 29, 2004
Like good moms everywhere, Janet Zuhlke made sure her kids got their shots.
This proved disastrous for her daughter, Rachel. She was a healthy 5-year-old until a brain injury triggered by a routine vaccination left her mentally retarded, physically handicapped and legally blind.
A single mother raising three daughters in Satellite Beach, Fla., Zuhlke needed help with the enormous costs of Rachel's lifetime care. So she brought a case in a federal tribunal set up to handle vaccine injury claims.
There, opposing lawyers hired expert witnesses to prove that Rachel's injuries weren't vaccine-related. When that failed, they balked at paying for costly medicines her doctors said she badly needed.
The Zuhlkes finally won — but it took more than 10 years.
"I thought it was very cruel," Zuhlke said. "People were very aware of the fact that my family was suffering."
The lawyers who opposed the Zuhlkes were not working for a vaccine company but the Justice Department. Government attorneys fought relentlessly to defeat a mother who thought she was doing the right thing by getting her daughter a government-mandated vaccine.
