Sign up for our newsletter

Link to Autism – Vaccine Court says “no”

On Friday March 12th a federal court met and ruled that any evidence supporting Autism linked with vaccines is less than persuasive. Several families who were asking for monetary compensation were denied. The findings were released in a 600 page document looking for a link to autism.

A Special Judicial forum was set up in 1986 and is often referred to as the “Vaccine Court“. This is the court that decides and addresses claims of unsafe vaccines.

The large concern over the vaccine has been “thimerosal“, a mercury-based compound that many parents say help bring about autism. Though most medical based experts reject any correlation between Autism and thimerosal. Never-the-less, thimerosal was removed from infant vaccines in 1999.

At the heart of this ruling were three specific cases. The first case was presented on behalf of William Mead whose parents had bought forth the suit. They were unable to satisfy the burden of proof under the legal standard.

The second case was for Jordan King and the response for this case was much more harsh. “After studying the extensive evidence in this case for many months, I am convinced that the opinions provided by the petitioners’ experts in this case, advising the King family that there is a causal connection between thimerosal-containing vaccines and Jordan’s autism, have been quite wrong.” wrote Special Master George L. Hastings.

The final case involved Colin Dwyer who as in the first case failed to provide adequate evidence that linked autism and vaccines.

Another several parents attending the hearings and many were disappointed by the court ruling, but many were not surprised.

A review of these findings may be done within the next 30 days in the U.S Court of Federal Claims and all three families plan on pursuing this avenue.

Others see this finding as optimistic and promote the use of vaccines on all children. Dr. Paul Offit, chief of infectious disease and the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia said,” “Parents should take heart in this decision and continue to immunize their children with the confidence that they are the safest, most effective way to protect against dangerous diseases.”

President of the Autism Science Foundation, Alison Singer added, “It’s time to move forward and look for the real causes of autism. Our children deserve real answers and at this point doing more and more studies of vaccines, when the science is so clear, would be allowing politics to triumph over science.”

Check out some related topics:

Kids Health

Is There a Relationship Between Vaccinations and Certain Diseases Such as Autism

Autism

Asperger Syndrome