By Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
On February 12, the federal "Vaccine Court" in Washington issued a
sweeping ruling in three highly touted "test cases" against families
who claimed that their childrens' autism had been caused by vaccines.
The Special Masters in those three cases found that Petitioners
failed to establish causation between MMR vaccines, the mercury-laced
vaccine preservative thimerosal, and autism (the court decision,
which is under appeal, deferred any finding on a thimerosal-only
theory of causation). The rulings could have a significant
precedential impact on some 5,000 families who opted to bring their
cases in the Omnibus Autism Proceedings (OAP) hoping that the vaccine
court would officially hold that the MMR vaccine or thimerosal had
caused autism in their children.
The New York Times joined the government Health Agency (HRSA) and its
big pharma allies hailing the decisions as proof that the scientific
doubts about vaccine safety had finally been "demolished." The US
Department of Health and Human services said the rulings should "help
reassure parents that vaccines do not cause autism." The Times, which
has made itself a blind mouthpiece for HRSA and a leading defender of
vaccine safety, joined crowing government and vaccine industry flacks
applauding the decisions like giddy cheerleaders, rooting for the
same court that many of these same voices viscously derided just one
year ago, after Hannah Poling won compensation for her vaccine induced autism.
But last week, the parents of yet another child with autism spectrum
disorder (ASD) were awarded a lump sum of more than $810,000 (plus an
estimated $30-40,000 per year for autism services and care) in
compensation by the Court, which
measels-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine had caused acute brain damage
that led to his autism spectrum disorder.
