This $3.5 million 1985 verdict against Dr. Tayloe help bring about the Vaccine Court in
1986.

Kevin

Medical Malpractice/ Negligent Administration of the DPT Vaccine
$3,500,000 Jury Verdict, May 1, 1985
http://www.karneyla w.com/CM/ VerdictsSettleme nts/top_5_ verdicts_ settlements. asp

The Minor Plaintiff, Bernard Forehand, Jr., was seriously injured when
the Defendant Pediatrician' s Nurse failed to communicate to the
Defendant Pediatrician, David Tayloe that the Minor Plaintiff had an
adverse reaction to the first vaccination shot. The administration of
the second shot left the Minor Plaintiff with a significant brain
injury. The Defendant Pediatrician, David Tayloe, who at that time was
the President of the National Pediatric Association, strenuously
fought this case all the way to a jury verdict. On May 1, 1985, the
jury handed down what was at that time the largest jury verdict in a
medical malpractice case in the State of North Carolina, in the sum of
3.5 million dollars.

***********

Following is a newsletter article that I (Barbara Loe Fisher) wrote in the summer of 1985
on the Forehand lawsuit:

"In May, a North Carolina jury in the Wilmington U.S. District Court
decided that David Tayloe, M.D. and T. Frank Stallings, M.D., of
Washington Pediatrics, P.A., were guilty of medical malpractice in the
pertussis vaccine-induced brain damage suffered by Beau Forehand, Jr.
The child was awarded $3.5 million in compensatory damages by the jury
but the judge overturned the verdict and it was appealed.

It was the highest medical malpractice award in North Carolina
history. Beau was represented by attorneys Anne Werum Lambright and
Richard Polling of the Charleston West Virginia firm of Preiser and
Wilson. The defense claimed that the two doctors were following the
vaccination guidelines contained in the American Academy of Pediatrics
1970's "Red Book" which was in effect at the time Beau Forehand
received his first DPT shot in January of 1974.

Beau reacted to his first short with a 103 degree fever and
unconsolable crying, which his mother reported to the doctors. Six
weeks later, Beau had a febrile seizure and was hospitalized. However,
despite the reaction to his first shot and the subsequent seizure, he
was given another DPT shot even though he had a cold and a slight
fever at the time of the second vaccination. Within three hours of his
second DPT shot he went into a major seizure and has had an
uncontrolled seizure disorder ever since. He was left with severe
mental retardation.

The 1970 RedBook did not list unconsolable crying, a fever of 103
degrees, a history of convulsions or a cold at the time of vaccination
as contraindications to the pertussis vaccine. Attorney Lambright
stated that the jury's verdict in the case sent a clear message to
physicians that "The American Academy of Pediatrics Red Book should
not be used as the sole guide to contraindications or adverse
reactions to vaccines. The basic premise in the Forehand case is that
doctors have to use their common sense, medical training, skill,
knowledge and experience to make appropriate determinations for
vaccination on a case by case basis."

If the jury's verdict is upheld on appeal, the Forehand case will
be an important precedent-setting case. It would mean that individual
physicians are responsible for obtaining knowledge and making
decisions about the advisability of vaccination in individual cases
which go beyond automatic reliance on the recommendations listed by
the AAP or the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices
(ACIP). Examples of additional information available to physicians are
the vaccine manufacturer' s product inserts included in vaccine
packages. which historically have listed more contraindications than
those listed by either the AAP or ACIP, and the more than 40 years of
scientific literature on the subject."

In a Winter 1986 newsletter, I wrote:

"On September 18, 1986, Forehand V. Tayloe and Stallings was
settled for $1.1 million in North Carolina. A North Carolina jury had
concluded that two pediatricians were negligent in the pertussis
vaccine induced brain damage of Beau Forehand, Jr. and had awarded the
boy and his parents $3.3 million. The judge overturned the verdict and
the case was appealed on behalf of Beau by the law firm of Preiser and
Wilson, of Charleston, West Virginia, before the Sept. 18 settlement
ended the lawsuit."

BRIEF VACCINE INJURY COMPENSATION SYSTEM (VICP) BACKGROUND:

The Forehand settlement was one of a series of DPT vaccine
malpractice cases against negligent physicians, as well as a few high
profile punitive damage awards for DPT vaccine brain damage that went
against vaccine manufacturers between 1981-1985 which persuaded
Congress that both drug companies making vaccines and doctors giving
vaccines should be protected from liability for vaccine injuries and
deaths. The vaccine manufacturers threatened to leave the country with
no vaccine if they did not get protection. Doctors threatened to stop
giving vaccines if they weren't protected. Both doctors and the
companies wanted a federal compensation system that banned all vaccine
injury lawsuits for all time. We fought for protection of the right to
access the civil justice system to sue companies or doctors if the
child was turned down for federal compensation or offered too little
or if it could be proved the vaccine manufacturer engaged in criminal
fraud or gross negligence in the manufacture the vaccine or the doctor
did the same in administering the vaccine.