Court Rules that Vaccines Didn’t cause Autism!
“As a follow up, this story was online today (February 12) :
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/02/12/autism.vaccines/index.html
A special vaccine court ruled that, in the case of three children, there was not enough evidence to support the claim that the MMR vaccine had caused autism. But there will be more court decisions to come. From the article:
“Since 2001, thousands of parents of autistic children have filed petitions seeking compensation from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program at Health and Human Services.
Novella points out that “the standard of evidence for the compensation program has been significantly lowered recently. To make it easier to compensate families, they only have to provide a plausible theory of injury – not evidence that the theory is correct.”
So, even with these lowered standards for compensation the judges found that they could not award compensation because the evedence is so strong that, there is NO link between the MMR vaccine and thimerasol and the children’s illnesses.
Special Master Hastings wrote,” The petitioners in this case have advanced a causation theory that has several parts, including contentions that thimerosal-containing vaccines can cause immune dysfunction, that the MMR vaccine can cause autism, and that the MMR vaccine can cause chronic gastrointestinal dysfunction. However, as to each of those issues, I concluded that the evidence was overwhelmingly contrary to the petitioners’ contentions. The expert witnesses presented by the respondent were far better qualified, far more experienced, and far more persuasive than the petitioners’ experts, concerning most of the key points. The numerous medical studies concerning these issues, performed by medical scientists worldwide, have come down strongly against the petitioners’ contentions.”
That is pretty clear and direct language and difficult to argue with, although we can be sure the anti-vaccination people will try.
Happily, there is a system set up where families who were actually harmed by vaccines can be quickly and easily compensated, it’s good that that the lower standards of evidence needed for compensation didn’t effect the fact that the overwhelming evidence is that there is no causal link between vaccines and Autism.
Theresa Said,
February 17, 2009 @ 9:51 am
Interesting.
“It’s a great day for science and I’d like to think it’s also a great day for children with autism,” said Dr. Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine (a standard childhood immunization that does not contain thimerosal).
The latest estimate is that Dr. Offit’s share of the Rotateq revenues is $29,000,000 to $55,000,000.
A rational mom may think that he has a slight conflict of interest here.
The pharmaceutical industry controls which research gets into journals and which does not. This creates public perception of vaccine risks and benefits which may be at odds with what is actually observed in the medical community.
The “Vaccine Court” has already awarded over two billion dollars in compensation to families who successfully showed that they or their children had suffered harm from routine vaccination.
But now it’s all sewn up and solved! Hooray for the “special masters” that decided “Cedillo,” Hazlehurst,” and “Snyder” .
The complete decisions can be found here:
http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/node/5026
Theresa Said,
February 18, 2009 @ 8:35 pm
Interesting how you censor your comments.
A shame, really, that rational moms is such an insular group, clearly afraid of opposing points of view.
Enjoy yourselves.