An Early Christmas Present for Eli Lilly

Justice Dept. Seeks to Seal Vaccine Papers

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Nov. 26 — The Bush administration asked a federal claims court today to seal documents relating to hundreds of claims that a mercury-based preservative in vaccines, thimerosal, has caused autism and other neurological disorders in children.

Lawyers for the Justice Department asked for the protective order on behalf of Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, whose department administers a government fund to compensate people injured by vaccines.

A department spokesman said that the law creating the fund gives the secretary control over what information is released and that the government was merely trying to preserve that right.

If there was still any question that the provision in the Homeland Security Bil providing protection to the manufacturers of vaccines was a pork-barrell gift to Eli Lily, today's move should settle that once and for all.

It's not surprising that members of the Bush administration would move to keep these papers locked away - that's been his modus operandi for quite some time.  From his and Dick Cheney's refusal to name who they spoke to during the Energy Task Force meetings to establish the nation's energy policy; to his decision to send his own papers to his father's Presidential library (where they are harder to get at for the average citizen) rather than to one of the libraries at a state university, as is the norm; to the executive order he signed preventing the release of documents from the tenure of former Presidents, unless the former President and the sitting President both agree that they should be released, Bush and his administration have shown a serious tendency towards keeping as much information away from the public as possible.

So, requesting that files related to the thimerosal be withheld is nothing new or revolutionary for the Bush administration.  Neither is trying to help out  a well-connected contributor- which both the company, Eli Lily, and it's CEO are.