September 9, 2010
Family to Receive $1.5M+ in First-Ever Vaccine-Autism Court Award
by Sharyl Attkisson
The first court award in a vaccine-autism claim is a big one. CBS News has learned the family of Hannah Poling will receive more than $1.5 million dollars for her life care; lost earnings; and pain and suffering for the first year alone.
In addition to the first year, the family will receive more than $500,000 per year to pay for Hannah's care. Those familiar with the case believe the compensation could easily amount to $20 million over the child's lifetime.
Hannah was described as normal, happy and precocious in her first 18 months.
Then, in July 2000, she was vaccinated against nine diseases in one doctor's visit: measles, mumps, rubella, polio, varicella, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, and Haemophilus influenzae.
Afterward, her health declined rapidly. She developed high fevers, stopped eating, didn't respond when spoken to, began showing signs of autism, and began having screaming fits. In 2002, Hannah's parents filed an autism claim in federal vaccine court. Five years later, the government settled the case before trial and had it sealed. It's taken more than two years for both sides to agree on how much Hannah will be compensated for her injuries.
Read Sharyl Attkisson's 2008 report on Hannah Poling
In acknowledging Hannah's injuries, the government said vaccines aggravated an unknown mitochondrial disorder Hannah had which didn't "cause" her autism, but "resulted" in it. It's unknown how many other children have similar undiagnosed mitochondrial disorder. All other autism "test cases" have been defeated at trial. Approximately 4,800 are awaiting disposition in federal vaccine court.
Time Magazine summed up the relevance of the Poling case in 2008: ...(T)here's no denying that the court's decision to award damages to the Poling family puts a chink -- a question mark -- in what had been an unqualified defense of vaccine safety with regard to autism. If Hannah Poling had an underlying condition that made her vulnerable to being harmed by vaccines, it stands to reason that other children might also have such vulnerabilities."
Then-director of the Centers for Disease Control Julie Gerberding (who is now President of Merck Vaccines) stated: "The government has made absolutely no statement indicating that vaccines are a cause of autism. This does not represent anything other than a very specific situation and a very sad situation as far as the family of the affected child."
Read the newly-released decision on Hannah Poling's compensation.
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By Reuters
Monday, September 13th, 2010
A new government study adds to the evidence that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative until recently found in many vaccines, does not increase children's risk of autism.
It shows kids who had been exposed as babies to high levels of the preservative -- through vaccines they received or their mothers received while pregnant -- were no more likely to develop autism, including two distinct subtypes of the condition.
"This study should reassure parents about following the recommended immunization schedule," said Dr. Frank Destefano, director of the Immunization Safety Office at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, and the study's senior author.
Concerns about a link between vaccines and autism were first raised more than a decade ago by British physician Andrew Wakefield.
His report, based on 12 children, has since been discredited and was retracted earlier this year by the journal that published it. In the meantime, it sparked a fierce worldwide debate among scientists and a health scare that caused many parents to shy away from recommended vaccines like the one against measles, mumps and rubella.
Outbreaks of all three diseases followed.
One widespread worry has been that thimerosal might play a role in the development of autism, a condition that affects as many as one in 110 U.S. children, according to the CDC.
Most scientists consider autism a developmental disorder, likely influenced by genes.
Autism spectrum disorders range from mild Asperger's Syndrome to severe mental retardation and social disability, and there is no cure or good treatment.
The CDC researchers used data for U.S. children born between 1994 and 1999, who were enrolled in one of three managed care organizations.
They found 256 children with an autism spectrum disorder and compared them with 752 children who did not have the condition, but were matched for age and sex.
No matter when a child had been exposed to thimerosal -- before birth when the mother had a shot, or when the child itself was vaccinated as a baby or toddler -- there was no increase in the risk of any type of autism spectrum disorder.
In fact, those kids who were exposed to the preservative between birth and 20 months of age had slightly lower odds of developing the condition, although the researchers could not explain that result.
"This is a very reassuring study," said Dr. Michael J. Smith, a pediatrician at the University of Louisville School of Medicine in Kentucky who was not involved in the research.
"These data show that you could receive a thimerosal vaccine and not be concerned about it."
Smith, who said he has a fully vaccinated two-month-old at home, noted that autism rates have continued to rise, although thimerosal has been removed from all routine childhood vaccines, except flu shots.
For parents who remain concerned about thimerosal in the flu shots, he said there are alternatives without the preservative, such as FluMist, a nasal spray that can be used in children aged two and older.
Some parents have also worried that giving too many shots at once, or in children who are too young, could cause mental problems. Smith said studies had dispelled those concerns one by one.
"There is no credible evidence" for a link between vaccines and autism, he told Reuters Health.
http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2010/09/us_vaccine_payout_provokes_con.html
ReplyDeleteHowever, the payment does not acknowledge a vaccine-autism link. The payment was made for a mitochondrial disorder and encephalopathy which fall under a category of so-called “Table” injuries for which parents do not need to show proof that the vaccine aggravated the condition as long as it appeared within a certain amount of time after vaccination. The VICP, which was established in 1988 (US Court of Federal Claims), has made thousands of such payments since its establishment. The same court found no compelling evidence of a link between vaccination and autism in a ruling last year, which was upheld in a federal appeals court on the same day as the Poling payout decision, (27 August 2010, Associated Press).
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2010/09/damages-awarded-in-the-poling-case/
If we as a people are going to compensate those injured by vaccines, as we should, we should compensate highly. We can not fully compensate a person or a family for injury. For example, the cap on pain and suffering damages has not been increased in the roughly 25 years that the vaccine program has been in place.
Exhaustive and complete analysis of the Poling case from 2008
A Not-So-Hidden History · 2008-03-11 17:45
http://neurodiversity.com/weblog/article/148/
The Commerce in Causation · 2008-03-24 18:30
http://neurodiversity.com/weblog/article/149/
"The Appalling Poling Saga" · 2008-10-03 13:00
http://neurodiversity.com/weblog/article/176/
http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=341
Dr. Poling is saying that his daughter’s case is not unique – that it is typical and therefore is does say something about a broader vaccine-autism connection. Hannah Poling’s history has many features that are not typical of autism – like a history of otitis media with frequent fevers, seizures, and what sounds like a rare encephalitis that probably did result from vaccines. Even if we put her mitochondrial mutation aside – this is not a typical case of autism.
Dr. Poling also makes specific claims about the association of autism and mitochondria – which is not surprising as this is now one of the favored hypotheses of the anti-vaccine crowd, now that their mercury hypothesis has failed. He does not reference his “5-20%” figure for autistic children with mitochondrial dysfunction. The highest figure I could find was 7.2%. I admit I am not familiar enough with this literature to know for sure if there is other published data showing it is more prevalent, but reviews of the literature give figures more in the 5% range.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/02/incredible_shrinking_causation_claim.php#more
Finally, if you're still not convinced and think that this concession means that the government is really admitting that vaccines cause autism, ask yourself this simple question: If this case conceded by the government is such a slam-dunk piece of evidence that mercury in vaccines or vaccines themselves cause autism, why on earth did the plaintiff's allow it to be dropped from the Autism Omnibus and settled? If, as Kirby implies and Handley and Heckenlively outright state, this case is slam-dunk, irrefutable evidence that vaccines cause autism so strong that the government couldn't fight it, then keeping it in the Autism Omnibus as a test case would have allowed it to serve as a precedent that would provide a significant proportion, if not all, of the plaintiffs of the nearly 5,000 cases to follow a much better chance of obtaining compensatio? If this case is so damning, as Kirby et al imply that it is, would dropping it from the Autism Omnibus make any sense?
Sure, that's why I posted the other article. I felt like the 2nd article contrasted the first one.
ReplyDelete