Public Health Law Map - Beta 5 - Medical and Public Health Law Site

c) Attorney’s Duty
“It shall be the ethical obligation of any attorney who is consulted by an individual
with respect to a vaccine-related injury or death to advise such individual that
compensation may be available under the program for such injury or death.”
Physicians probably have an ethical duty to counsel vaccine-injured patients about
the availability of compensation under the Vaccine Compensation Act. If the
physician assists the patient in obtaining compensation, the patient may be more
likely to accept the award under the act and forgo a lawsuit. The problem is that the
vaccine injury table (Appendix 12–A) and the vaccine package inserts list many
events that have not been proven to be related to vaccine administration. [Fulginiti
VA. How safe are the pertussis and rubella vaccines? A commentary on the
Institute of Medicine Report. Pediatrics. 1992;89:334–336.] In addition to
encouraging unfounded claims, the listing of these unproven risks fuels the myth
that vaccines are dangerous. [Lynch TP. Vaccine myth and physician handouts. Am
J Dis Child. 1991;145:426–427.]
C. Vital Statistics
The keeping of good vital statistics is important to a society for several reasons. Infant
mortality is generally considered the best indicator of the health of a population.
Accurate records allow for allocation of medical care funds to areas of greatest need.
These records are of great historical value as well. On the individual level, the
documentation of a birth certificate establishes the individual’s legal existence and
basic legal relationships like citizenship and parentage.
Vital statistics records are not uniform among the states. The forms, the information
required, and the keeper of the records differ. Usually a county office houses these
records. The records may be open to public view, access may be limited, or the records
may be confidential. These records are always available to the person on whom they
are kept or to a court. These records also fall under the full faith and credit clause of
the Constitution. A state must honor the birth and death records of another state.
Historically, vital statistics records were kept in the locality where the event occurred
rather than the place of current residence or a unified state office. A person born in
Boston who moved to Los Angeles as an infant and lived there until he was killed in a
Chicago plane crash would have a Massachusetts birth certificate and an Illinois death
certificate. There would be no record of this person in the California vital statistics
records. Another problem is that parents may not remember accurately where and
when their children were born, making it impossible for these offspring to obtain their
birth certificates. It also makes it difficult to match birth and death certificates to
determine if a person has taken a false identity. Vital statistics records are becoming a
more useful resource as states centralize their records and begin to correlate them with
other states and the federal Social Security records.
479