Saturday, July 12, 2008

Autism and Vaccines: The Courts Take a Broader Look

Originally published here on May 19, 2008.

Last month I wrote about an autism court case in Georgia. The case was settled out of court with the government conceding that, in this particular child's case, vaccines contributed to the development of autism in a child.

Now the issue is back in court, according to Reuters:
More than 5,300 cases have been filed by parents who believe vaccines may have caused autism in their children and are seeking payment under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, a no-fault system that pays out for vaccine injuries.

A vocal community of autism advocates believes that the rise of autism in the last few decades can be blamed on the use of a mercury-based preservative called thimerosal. The substance is routinely used in vaccines for children - or at least it was until 2001. Since then the substance has been removed from all of the normal childhood vaccines in Europe & North America. But autism rates continue to climb in those regions - raising doubts about the link between autism and thimerosal.

A CNN story on the legal proceedings says that two 10-year-old boys from Portland, Oregon, are serving as test cases to determine whether the thousands of families who have filed complaints 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 and developed autism.

Autism comes in a variety of forms. The two boys in this court case have a relatively rare form of autism known as regressive autism.

One of the sideline discussions in these autism court cases is the differences involved in defining "proof" for different contexts and purposes. The scientific community has largely rejected the idea that there is a connection between thimerosal and autism because there is a lack of scientific evidence. Civil courts deal in a less rigorous world where "plausible association" could justify monetary awards. In other words, we could be looking at a situation over the next decade where the idea that thimerosal is a "cause" of autism is considered true (or at least plausible) in the court room and false (or at least unsupported by evidence) in the research lab...

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