Personal Injury Law

Victory for Vaccine Makers - Setback for Parents

By Jane Akre

Three Families Denied Autism Compensation

Three families who claimed their children were damaged by vaccines were turned away by a special U.S. court that oversees such cases.

All three families claimed that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine caused their children's autism. 

The special court ruled the evidence does not back their claims.

The ruling is a legal setback for thousands of parents of autistic children who believe that common childhood vaccines, preserved with mercury-based thimerosal, are responsible for their children's neurological disorders.

The Vaccine Court Omnibus Autism Proceeding, made up of three "special masters," heard the cases.   

The families sought compensation under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. It is funded by a 75-cent-per-vaccine tax and is a $2.5 billion fund. 

As a no-fault system, the fund was established to offer immunity to vaccine makers and was intended to encourage them to stay in the business of making vaccines in the face of mounting lawsuits.

The panel said the arguments were "speculative and unpersuasive."

"The evidence does not support the general proposition that thimerosal-containing vaccines can damage infants' immune systems," Special Master George Hastings wrote, after reviewing tens of thousands of documents and hours of oral arguments, according to Reuters.

The Cases

The parents of Michelle Cedillo, Colten Snyder, and William Yates Hazlehurst, were before the court. All three children suffer from autism.  The families had to persuade the court that it was more likely than not that the children's autism was directly related to the MMR shots they received.

"I further conclude that while Michelle Cedillo has tragically suffered from autism and other severe conditions, the petitioners have also failed to demonstrate that her vaccinations played any role at all in causing those problems."

Hastings also rejected an argument that some children may be genetically "hypersusceptible" to mercury.

Hannah Poling

But that was exactly the argument in the case of Hannah Poling, a precocious, high functioning and verbal toddler until, at 19 months, she received a five-shot series of childhood vaccines in July 2000 that "significantly aggravated an underlying mitochondrial disorder" which resulted in a brain disorder with features of autism.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services conceded the case in this November 9, 2007 document that journalist David Kirby posted on the Huffington Post. He calls it a document every American should read. 

5,300 other cases have been filed by parents who strongly believe their children's conditions were caused by vaccines.  Injured individuals who have been judged to be vaccine damaged have averaged more than $1 million.

The National Vaccine Information Center's president said more studies are needed.  "I think it is a mistake to conclude that, because these few test cases were denied compensation, it's been decided vaccines don't play any role in regressive autism," said Barbara Loe Fisher, said to ABC News. 

Former National Institutes of Health (NIH) director Bernadine Healy has warned those in the health community that the voices of so many parents, who watched their children change in some cases overnight, should not be so easily dismissed

Autism can cause sudden social withdrawal, screaming, repetitive, and compulsive behaviors.  Symptoms generally begin to emerge around the age of three.  More are more likely to be autistic than girls and after an explosion in the number of autism cases nationwide, it's now estimated that more than one million children have the disorder.   # 

Full post as published by InjuryBoard on February 12, 2009 (boomark / email).