Court Opinion

ID: 9472485
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:01:45.826241+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:57.788365
License: Public Domain

BRIGHT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent. I believe that the warning Petty received before being vaccinated was adequate. Therefore the United States is not liable under either the negligence theory or the strict liability theory propounded by the majority.
Even assuming that serum sickness was a foreseeable risk attending swine flu vaccination, I think vaccinees received adequate warning. The information form Petty read stated that, “[a]s with any vaccine or drug, the possibility of severe or potentially fatal reactions exists.” I do not think that a more specific warning, either describing the symptoms of serum sickness or mentioning that condition by name, would have served any useful purpose in the context of this mass inoculation program. Vaccinees were warned that a small risk of severe or fatal reaction accompanied receiving the vaccine. The majority does not dispute the minimal nature of that risk, but maintains that the warning should have itemized the potential adverse reactions from the vaccine. Yet, the warning of the “possibility of severe or potentially fatal reactions” more directly, completely, and graphically describes for the lay person the hazards of receiving the vaccine than a specific itemization of adverse effects. I agree with the government and with most of the courts that have considered the issue, see supra n. 6, that a detailed catalogue of every serious complication that might befall a vaccinee would *1442have been counterproductive, serving to confuse or needlessly alarm potential vaccinees without giving them any more information necessary to the making of an informed decision. I therefore reject the majority’s conclusion that the failure to specify the potential adverse effects of the vaccine makes the warning inadequate when, as here, the warning aptly apprised vaccinees of the overall possibility of harm.
Because the warning was adequate, the government was not negligent. Nor is the government strictly liable under the theory .that the unavoidably unsafe vaccine was rendered defective or unreasonably dangerous by the failure to give a more detailed warning.
I think the practical consequence of the court’s decision is to impose so stringent a warning requirement as likely to render any future mass inoculation program infeasible, no matter how desirable.
Accordingly, I dissent.