even though Legionnaires’ disease, as the illness became known, was not swine flu, the message was not lost on Congress: if it had been swine flu instead, the criticisms of Congress would have been withering and the ensuing panic impossible to counter with arguments about liability insurance. If it turned out that the American people were denied a vaccine because Congress refused to give legal protection to the vaccine makers, it could be a political nightmare. So Congress acted quickly, passing a “tort claims bill” that required that any claims arising from the swine flu vaccine be filed
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