Families Will Make Case For Vaccine Link to Autism

WASHINGTON — Parents claiming that childhood vaccines cause autism should not be rewarded by the courts when the scientific community has already rejected any link, government lawyers argued Monday on the first day of a hearing in federal court.

Overall, nearly 4,900 families have filed claims with the U.S. Court of Claims alleging that vaccines caused autism and other neurological problems in their children. Lawyers for the families are presenting three different theories of how vaccines caused autism. The theory at issue Monday was whether vaccines containing the preservative thimerosal caused autism.

Lynn Ricciardella, a Justice Department lawyer, said that theory has not moved beyond the realm of speculation. She said that the Institute of Medicine and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have rejected any link between thimerosal and autism.

"There is no scientific debate," Ricciardella said. "The debate is over."

Autism is a developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life and affects a person's ability to communicate and interact with others. Medical experts don't have a comprehensive understanding of what causes autism, but they do know there is a strong hereditary component.

Thimerosal has been removed in recent years from standard childhood vaccines, except flu vaccines that are not packaged in single doses. The CDC says single-dose flu shots currently are available only in limited quantities.

Under a two-decades-old program, individuals claiming injury from a vaccine must file a petition for "no-fault" compensation with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. The secretary of Health and Human Services replaces the vaccine manufacturer or vaccine administrator to defend the claim.

Two 10-year-old boys from Portland, Ore., will serve as test cases to determine whether thousands of families can be compensated. Attorneys for the boys will try to show they were happy, healthy and developing normally _ but, after being exposed to vaccines with thimerosal, they began to regress.

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To win, the attorneys for the two boys, William Mead and Jordan King, will have to show that it's more likely than not that the vaccine actually caused the injury, which they described as regressive autism.

Tom Powers, one of the boys' attorneys, acknowledged that the evidence showing thimerosal led to regressive autism was indirect and circumstantial. Still, it's clear in the case of the two boys that they did not show any symptoms of autism until after they had received all their immunizations.

"Each of them had developed normally and typically well after their first year in life," Powers said.

The attorneys for the two boys said that a study in monkeys showed that mercury could ignite "neuroinflammation" in the brain, and such inflammation is the hallmark of somebody with autism. They also noted that previous studies of thimerosal were focused on autism, rather than on a more rare, specific form of the disorder that they described as regressive autism.

The first witness for the families, Sander Greenland, a professor at the UCLA School of Public Health, said published studies he reviewed failed to separate regressive autism from other types of autism when looking at thimerosal, thus they allow for a substantial association of the vaccines with clearly regressive autism.

Under the vaccine compensation program, officials titled special masters serve as the trial judges. The hearing that began Monday involved three special masters who will hear the evidence and determine whether thimerosal belongs on the list of causes for regressive autism. The rulings are appealable to the Court of Federal Claims.

If the families are successful, they could be entitled to damages that cover lost income after one turns 18 and up to $250,000 for pain and suffering.

Many members of the medical community are skeptical of the families' claims. They worry that the claims about the dangers of vaccines could cause some people to forgo vaccines that prevent illness.

Ricciardella argued that a marketing consultant fanned publicity about the supposed link between thimerosal and autism in a journal called Medical Hypothesis. She described the journal as willing to publish radical ideas, so long as they are coherent. She also said the authors pay to have the article published.

But Powers said those questioning conventional wisdom in the case cannot be easily dismissed.

"These are doctors who are willing to challenge the establishment on behalf of their patients," Powers said.

The court Web site says more than 12,500 claims have been filed since creation of the program in 1987, including more than 5,300 autism cases, and more than $1.7 billion has been paid in claims. It says there is now more than $2.7 billion in a trust fund supported by an excise tax on each dose of vaccine covered by the program.

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On the Net:

Background on thimerosal trial: http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/node/4428

Comments

[Olerist]

Paul Offitt

perfectly willing to go from one formulation of Rotavirus vaccine to the next while using kids as guinea pigs as they and their families suffer through intersucception and death.

[billu]

If thimerosal caused or was a trigger for autism we would have seen a dramatic drop in autism rates over the past 10 years as vaccinations removed thimerosal from their formulation. That drop has not been seen. That combined with many peer reviewed studies show no link between thimerosal and autism.

What you do have is autism which presents symptoms around 2 years of age and there are vacinnations at the same age. It's coincidental.

[CraigWilloughby]

My son's official medical report from his ER visit the day of his DTaP vaccine (which, btw STILL CONTAINS THIMEROSAL) was Encepalopathy caused by vaccine induced fever. Funny, Hannah Poling had a similar diagnoses...so did the Krakow child that was recently conceded as well. That is not a coincidence.

[billu]

Encephalopathy is a rare side effect of both MMR and DTaP vaccines both with and wthout thimerosal. The seizures can cause a large difficulty in regulating the body temperature and can lead to brain damage mild and severe. This does not mean that mercury is the root cause by any stretch of the imagination. In fact thimerosal exposure has been decreasing while the rates for autism diagnoses is increasing. If mercury is a cause for autism you'd expect to see a direct not inverse correlation.

Why is a "consensus" acceptable for the global warming issue but not for the thimerosal question?

[CraigWilloughby]

Peer reviewed studies bought and paid for by the CDC, IOM, FDA and big pHARMa. This represent a conflict of interest. And we know that big pHARMa has fudged results of their products recently (Vioxx) and bought off doctors to sign off on them. Then, there was Big Tobacco several years ago that bought off doctors from the IOM to say that their product wasn't addictive.

Are you telling me that you don't believe that they could do something similar with Vaccines?

[billu]

But why? There's not a large profit margin on vaccines. There is no money in lawsuits due to federal law which taxes each does for a compensation fund. Even if they found out that vaccine X killed one out of three if the vaccine was FDA approved all compensation would come from the fund, not the pharmacy companies. Also several studies have been done my the NIH and foreign gov't medical services.