Analysis: An unending battle for justice

Vera Duffy still fights for justice for her son Alan, even though the State and doctors deny a vaccine induced a reaction causing him to suffer brain damage, Arlene Harris reports.

IN the early ’70s, Vera Duffy and her husband Kevin looked like they had it all — a happy marriage, a two-year-old daughter called Tracy, a successful retail business, and a new baby on the way. Life was looking good.

And when their son Alan was born in 1973, he was the icing on the cake. His mother remembers her newborn infant being alert, content, and healthy, a boy who, as the months went by, did all the normal things babies were supposed to do. He cooed and gurgled, smiled at his family, and laughed when his mother played peek-a-boo — he was the apple of his parents’ eye and the results of his routine medical check ups showed him to be progressing at a normal rate.