Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/10pdf/09-152.pdf
Page Number: 25

Cite as:  562 U. S. ____ (2011) 

3 

BREYER, J., concurring 

able” nor the phrase “the principle of Comment k” tells us
which  courts’  view  Congress  intended  to  adopt.    Silence 
cannot  tell  us  to  follow  those  States  where  juries  decided 
the design-defect question. 

II 
The  legislative  history  describes  the  statute  more  gen-
erally  as  trying  to  protect  the  lives  of  children,  in  part
by  ending  “the  instability  and  unpredictability  of  the
childhood  vaccine  market.”    H. R.  Rep.,  at  7;  see  ante,  at 
2–3.  As the Committee Report makes clear, routine vacci-
nation  is  “one  of  the  most  spectacularly  effective  public
health  initiatives  this  country  has  ever  undertaken.” 
H. R. Rep., at 4.  Before the development of routine whoop-
ing  cough  vaccination,  for  example,  “nearly  all  children”
in  the  United  States  caught  the  disease  and  more  than 
4,000  people  died  annually,  most  of  them  infants.    U. S. 
Dept. of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease 
Control  and  Prevention,  What  Would  Happen  if  We
Stopped  Vaccinations?  http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/ 
whatifstop.htm  (all  Internet  materials  as  visited  Feb. 17, 
2011, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file); Prevent-
ing  Tetanus,  Diphtheria,  and  Pertussis  Among  Adoles-
cents:  Use  of  Tetanus  Toxoid,  Reduced  Diptheria  Toxoid 
and  Acellular  Pertussis  Vaccines,  55  Morbidity  and  Mor-
tality Weekly Report, No. RR–3, p. 2 (Mar. 24, 2006) (here-
inafter  Preventing  Tetanus)  (statistics  for  1934–1943),
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/rr/rr5503.pdf;  U. S.  Dept.
of  Health  and  Human  Services,  Centers  for  Disease  Con-
trol  and  Prevention,  Epidemiology  and  Prevention  of 
Vaccine-Preventable  Diseases  200  (11th  ed.  rev.  May 
2009).  After  vaccination  became  common,  the  number  of 
annual  cases  of  whooping  cough  declined  from  over 
200,000  to  about  2,300,  and  the  number  of  deaths  from 
about 4,000 to about 12.  Preventing Tetanus 2; Childhood 
Immunizations,  House  Committee  on  Energy  and  Com-