Richard H. Hughes, IV, Member of the Firm in the Health Care & Life Sciences practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, was quoted in The New York Times, in “The $8 Billion Children’s Vaccine Fund Kennedy Would Oversee,” by Christina Jewett and Sheryl Gay Stolberg. (Read the full version – subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt:
When President Bill Clinton worked with a bipartisan Congress to enact a federal program to guarantee vaccines for poor children, they agreed that the authority over buying shots from drug makers should rest with the health secretary. The bill’s drafters did not consider that an extremely vocal critic of childhood vaccines would emerge as a nominee for the role. …
Some of the program’s defenders worry that just talking about the vaccines program might put it in jeopardy if Mr. Kennedy takes charge.
“Folks are very nervous about speaking these things out loud because they don’t want them to happen,” said Richard Hughes IV, a lawyer who represents vaccine makers and is a lecturer at George Washington University. “But these are things that could very well happen.”
