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Journalism of Courage
A special US court ruled against three families on Thursday who claimed vaccines caused their childrens autism. The Vaccine Court Omnibus Autism Proceeding ruled against the parents of Michelle Cedillo,Colten Snyder and William Yates Hazlehurst,who had claimed that measles,mumps and rubella vaccines had combined with other vaccine ingredients to damage the three children.
I conclude that the petitioners have not demonstrated that they are entitled to an award on Michelles behalf, Special Master George Hastings,a former tax claims expert at the Department of Justice,wrote in the Cedillo ruling.
The families sought payment under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program,a no-fault system that has a $2.5 billion fund built up from a 75-cent-per-dose tax on vaccines.
No judge,but three special masters heard the three test cases representing thousand of other petitioners. They asked whether a combination vaccine for measles,mumps and rubella,or MMR,plus a mercury-containing preservative called thimerosal,caused the children’s symptoms.
The evidence does not support the general proposition that thimerosal-containing vaccines can damage infants immune systems, Hastings wrote,after reviewing tens of thousands of documents and hours of oral arguments.
Michelles parents argued that she was a normal baby until she received the vaccine.
Experts say parents often link vaccines with their childrens symptoms because they are vaccinated at an age when autism and related disorders are often first diagnosed. Two Institute of Medicine reports,in 2001 and 2004,reviewed the evidence and determined there was no link between vaccines and autism.
Considering all of the evidence,I found that the petitioners have failed to demonstrate that thimerosal-containing vaccines can contribute to causing immune dysfunction,the ruling from Hastings said.
