The U.S. Supreme Court decided 6-2 to affirm a lower court ruling upholding the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. The Act prevents civil suits against manufacturers of FDA-approved childhood vaccines “based on a claim that a particular vaccine should have been designed differently.” The opinion of the Court in the case – Bruesewitz v. Wyeth – stated that “[The Vaccine Act] reflects a sensible choice to leave complex epidemiological judgments about vaccine design to the FDA and the National Vaccine Program rather than juries.”  In an amicus brief, the American Academy of Pediatrics and over 20 other professional and public health organizations argued that a ruling against Wyeth could “precipitate the same crisis that Congress sought to avert in passing the Vaccine Act: ‘the very real possibility of vaccine shortages, and, in turn increasing numbers of unimmunized children, and, perhaps, a resurgence of preventable diseases.’” The court’s opinion is available at: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-152.pdf.