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HUFFINGTON: Finding The Answer To Washington's
Hottest Whodunit
By Arianna Huffington,
AlterNet
December 4, 2002
Quick, somebody call Sherlock Holmes. Or at least the Hardy Boys. Or
maybe even newly-designated Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. There's a
Washington mystery that needs solving.
Everyone in D.C., it seems, is utterly baffled as to how an ugly little
provision shielding pharmaceutical behemoth Eli Lilly from billions in
lawsuits filed by the parents of autistic children made its way, in the 12th
hour, into, of all things, the 475-page Homeland Security bill.
"It's a mystery to us," shrugged Eli Lilly spokesman Rob Smith.
It's a mystery to us, too, echoed spokesmen for the White House, the
Department of Health and Human Services, and
physician-turned-senator-turned-drug-company-shill Bill Frist, who had
originally penned the Lilly-friendly provision for a different bill.
The haphazard lawmaking also proved baffling for pharmaceutical industry
lobbyists, and for White House budget director Mitch Daniels, a former Lilly
executive, who made a very public show of disavowing any knowledge of the
amendment's mystifying genesis. Gosh, maybe the little provision just flew
down from heaven. Or was immaculately conceived. Or maybe Osama bin Laden
snuck over and planted the little public policy bomb himself.
The outrageous rider stuck onto the end of the Homeland Security bill
provides security for Lilly from suits filed by the families of autistic
children who believe that their kids' condition is linked to Thimerosal, a
mercury-based preservative made by Lilly that used to be a common ingredient
in childhood vaccines.
But in a town where knowledge is power, and where there is no shortage of
people willing to take credit for even the most minute accomplishment, there
has been a sudden outbreak of people playing dumb. Official Washington is
observing a code of omerta that makes the Sopranos look like the
loose-lipped gals on "The View." In other words: Nobody's seen nothin'.
Here are the clues we have to work with: Over the Veteran's Day weekend,
GOP negotiators from the House and Senate hunkered down to finalize the
details of the elephantine security bill. At some point – no one is willing
to say when – someone – no one is willing to say who – inserted the Lilly
provision – though no one is willing to say why.
It's vital that we solve the mystery – even if you believe that the
custom-made legislation is justified. We need to find out because this kind
of behind-closed-doors monkey business is an affront to our democracy – the
very democracy this bill was theoretically designed to protect. Perhaps it
should have been called "The Homeland and Lilly Protection Act."
"The ability," Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, told me "of a special
interest group to secretly insert provisions into law for its own narrow
benefit and to the detriment of the public interest raises fundamental
questions about the integrity of our government."
Kucinich has vowed to lead a challenge to congressional rules that permit
our representatives to do the bidding of their deep-pocket donors away from
the prying eyes of the public. At the most crucial part of the bill-drafting
process – when the language of the law is being finalized – Washington's
corporate alchemists work their black magic to turn legislative gold into
self-preserving lead.
"It's a defect in the system," explains Kucinich. "When a bill goes into
a conference committee, it gets yanked out of the sunlight and into the
shadows. The conference process is a closed one, so you can go into a
conference committee and basically add anything or take out anything you
want and no one really knows. It transforms the legislature into a secret
cabal."
So this fight is about a lot more than pushing for the repeal of the
Lilly provision, something Sens. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and John McCain,
R-Ariz., have promised to do when the 108th Congress convenes in January.
It's about putting an end to the gaming of the system that is turning the
legislative process into a prize-a-minute carnival for big contributors.
"Inserting such favors for special interests in a bill is a directive that
can only come from some very high places," Stabenow told me.
Intriguingly, Stabenow, McCain, and Kucinich may have found an unlikely
ally in their battle – one with a very personal stake in the issue. It turns
out that Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., the chairman of the Government Reform and
Oversight Committee, has a grandson who first began showing symptoms of
autism within days of receiving vaccinations containing Thimerosal. "He
became radically different," says Burton, "banging his head against the
wall, running around flapping his arms. Twenty years ago we had one in
10,000 children that they thought was autistic. Now, it's more than one out
of 250."
This is clearly not a left-right issue. Any politician who has waxed
lyrical about "accountability" and "transparency" – that includes you, Mr.
President – owes it to the public to demand that Congress get to the bottom
of just whose directive it was to insert into the homeland security bill a
provision that has absolutely nothing to do with homeland security. And to
find out whether the $1.6 million that Lilly contributed in the last
election cycle – 79 percent of which went to Republicans – had anything to
do with the inclusion of this designer provision. And, come to think of it,
whether these donations had anything to do with the Bush administration
asking a federal claims court to block public access to documents unearthed
in over a thousand Thimerosal-related lawsuits.
For anyone remotely familiar with the ways of Washington – and Sherlock
Holmes – the answer should be "elementary."
We're used to having pounds of fatty pork stirred into almost every
recipe Congress dishes up. But the abuse of a bill about homeland security
is especially distasteful. Washington's greedy corporate masters may finally
have overreached. Their continued influence constitutes a clear and present
danger to our security and if the president is serious about protecting the
homeland, he should speak up.
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