Frist’s Ties to Drug Firm Face Test in New Senate

WASHINGTON —  The expected Senate majority leader in the new Congress, Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee, will immediately face a controversy left over from the last legislative session in which he played a prominent role.

At issue is a provision of the new homeland security law that limits liability for makers of vaccine additives that some parents allege caused autism in their children.

When the provision was inserted into the bill last month, just before final votes in the House and Senate, no one stepped forward to claim authorship. Critics denounced the provision as a giveaway to Eli Lilly & Co. and other drug manufacturers. The bill passed Congress with the controversial language and was signed into law by President Bush.

Frist, an ally of the pharmaceutical industry, had written nearly identical language in a separate bill on vaccines. While he disavowed any responsibility for inserting the language into the homeland security bill, Frist twice spoke strongly in favor of the provision during a Senate debate on whether to kill it.

On Saturday, Frist spokesman Nick Smith said the senator has spoken with GOP colleagues who voted reluctantly for the provision in the homeland security bill but want to alter it when Congress returns.

“They’ve already been talking,” Smith said. “There’s a number of things being discussed” to address the concerns. He declined to elaborate.

Frist had no public appearances scheduled Saturday, a day after he became the consensus choice to replace Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi as the Senate Republican leader. He spoke with colleagues and well-wishers by telephone from Washington.

The vaccine additive issue is alive because of a back-room deal brokered by the man Frist is expected to succeed.

In the waning days of the 107th Congress, Lott was eager to get the homeland security bill passed and sent to Bush’s desk. But he faced a potentially crippling amendment from Sens. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.). The amendment would have killed the vaccine-related language and a handful of other controversial provisions.

Had the amendment passed, the homeland security bill might have been in jeopardy. Centrist Sens. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) provided crucial votes to help defeat the amendment. But they extracted a promise from Lott, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to revisit the matter when Congress returned.

One change under discussion would scale back the vaccine additive provision to protect the interests of plaintiffs who filed lawsuits before the law was enacted.

Whether Frist would consider himself bound by any deal Lott brokered is unclear.

The provision requires people who allege damages from certain vaccine additives -- including the mercury-based preservative known as thimerosal, made by Lilly -- to first seek compensation out of court through a fund created under a 1986 federal law. The law does not bar potential plaintiffs from filing lawsuits after going through that process.

Thimerosal is being phased out of use in vaccines. Dozens of lawsuits blame it for health problems, including autism. Lilly and other defendants reject the allegations and say no research has proved a link between vaccines and autism.

This month, House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas), who is days away from retirement, said he was responsible for putting the provision into the homeland security bill. Others point a finger at the Bush administration -- a claim the White House denies.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), a critic of the provision, called it “government at its worst.”

Frist has close ties to Lilly. The company bought 5,000 copies of a Frist book concerning bioterrorism and has also given money to a Republican committee Frist recently chaired.

But Frist, a former heart-transplant surgeon, also is an expert on public health. During the floor debate in November, he said the provision was essential for vaccine makers to stay in business.

He called it a matter of national security and said the American Academy of Pediatrics backed him.

“I will say that, without this clarification [provision],” Frist said, “litigation outside the program -- and that is what is happening today -- will continue and the supply of vaccines could well be jeopardized as we have these huge lawsuits.”