Omnibus Autism Trial Ruling Set For 2/12

[Cairber]

link

A Department of Justice special court will hand down rulings Thursday in cases asking whether certain vaccines cause autism, the lead plaintiffs' attorney told CNN Wednesday.
A group of parents are seeking compensation saying early childhood vaccinations triggered their children's autism.

A group of parents are seeking compensation saying early childhood vaccinations triggered their children's autism.

A panel of "special masters" will issue decisions on three test cases heard in 2007 involving children with autism that their parents contend was triggered by early childhood vaccination, said attorney Thomas Powers.

The parents seek compensation, saying the "combined" exposure to thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative, in some vaccines and the MMR vaccine led to autism, he said.

The three families -- the Cedillos, the Hazelhursts and the Snyders -- have been notified of the development, as have the more than 180 lawyers collectively representing the 4,800 families with claims in the Vaccine Court Omnibus Autism Proceeding, Powers said.

At 14, Michelle Cedillo can't speak, wears a diaper and requires round-the-clock monitoring in case she has a seizure. Her parents say their only child was a happy, engaged toddler who responded to her name, said "mommy" and "daddy" and was otherwise normal until at 15 months she received a measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine combined with thimerosal, found in that and other vaccines a the time.

The other two families described similar alterations in their children's development after receiving vaccinations in their first two years of life.

The government argued during the 2007 bench trials that the plaintiffs' claims linking the vaccines with autism are not supported by "good science."


Likewise, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization and the Institute of Medicine have found no credible link between vaccinations and autism.

Powers' litigation steering committee is representing thousands of families that fall into three categories: those that claim MMR vaccines and thimerosal-containing vaccines can combine to cause autism; those who claim thimerosal-containing vaccines alone can cause autism; and those who claim MMR vaccines, without any link to thimerosal, can cause autism.

Thursday's rulings will only affect the families that fall under the first category, Powers said.
Health Library


Since 2001, thousands of parents with autistic children have filed petitions seeking compensation with Vaccine Injury Compensation Program at the Department of Health and Humans Services.

By mid-2008, more than 5,300 cases were filed in the program -- 5,000 of those await adjudication, according to the agency.

What do you think will happen? Will the flood gates open or will science and logic prevail?

[Guardsman Bass]

We'll probably hear waves of bullshit, but hopefully - hopefully! - science will prevail. It has done so before, like in the Dover trial regarding Intelligent Design.

Not that it will stop the diehards' belief system. I imagine many of them will argue that the decision is part of the conspiracy.

[SirNitram]

Vaccine Court. Relatively good chances, then.

[Kitsune]

If it is a judge, there is also a much better chance.
A jury would scare me

[General Zod]

A panel of "special masters" will issue decisions on three test cases heard in 2007 involving children with autism that their parents contend was triggered by early childhood vaccination, said attorney Thomas Powers.

Curious as to what they mean by "special masters", is that like a jury composed of experts or something? I wonder if the recent exposure of that one douchebag responsible for the anti-vaccine scare will have any significant impact on this.

[Havok]

Didn't somebody just post an article saying the original physician to make the claim of vaccine-->autism, falsified his findings?

[General Zod]

Didn't somebody just post an article saying the original physician to make the claim of vaccine-->autism, falsified his findings?

Yes; that's what I was referring to in my post.

[Rye]

This'll be busted wide open like the Intelligent Design bullshit was. I'd be absolutely horrified if it turns out any different.

[Cairber]

The court ruled against the families in all cases! waiting for more information...

[Cairber]

The rulings are out, and from my initial reading of them, they lay down a complete smack down of the "MMR/preservative/combination of vaccines lead to autism" theories. They rule that there will be no compensation.

you can read the three rulings here:

rulings

Some enjoyable quotes from the rulings:

The weight of
the presented evidence that is scientifically reliable and methodologically sound does not
support petitioners’ claim

After careful consideration of all of the
evidence, it was abundantly clear that petitioners’ theories of causation were
speculative and unpersuasive.

After studying the extensive evidence in this case for many months, I am convinced
that the reports and advice given to the Cedillos by Dr. Krigsman and some other physicians,
advising the Cedillos that there is a causal connection between Michelle’s MMR vaccination and herchronic conditions, have been very wrong. Unfortunately, the Cedillos have been misled by physicians who are guilty, in my view, of gross medical misjudgment. Nevertheless, I can understand why the Cedillos found such reports and advice to be believable under the circumstances. I conclude that the Cedillos filed this Program claim in good faith.

[General Zod]

Awesome news; there's no chance these dildos can file for an appeal is there?

[Kanastrous]

And, can court costs be recovered from the plaintiffs?

[CaptainChewbacca]

I doubt any of the plaintiffs could afford such things. They're victims of doctors with agendas, and I don't think should be punished.

[General Zod]

And, can court costs be recovered from the plaintiffs?

America doesn't have a loser pays law, so I don't see how they would.

[Kanastrous]

I doubt any of the plaintiffs could afford such things. They're victims of doctors with agendas, and I don't think should be punished.

They're adults who are responsible for the consequences of their actions.

Although as Zod pointed out, it looks like they'll get to dodge the proper consequences of those actions.

[CmdrWilkens]

Here is a Washington Post article on the trial, some background, an the conclusion:

By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 12, 2009; 12:02 PM

Thousands of parents who claimed that childhood vaccines had caused their children to develop autism are wrong and not entitled to federal compensation, a special court ruled today in three decisions with far-reaching implications for a bitterly fought medical controversy.

The long-awaited decision on three test cases is a severe blow to a grass-roots movement that has argued -- predominantly through books, magazines and the Internet -- that children's shots have been responsible for the surge in autism diagnoses in the United States in recent decades. The vast majority of the scientific establishment, backed by federal health agencies, has strenuously argued there is no link between vaccines and autism, and warned that scaring parents away from vaccinating their youngsters places children at risk for a host of serious childhood diseases.

The decision by three independent special masters is especially telling because the special court's rules did not require plaintiffs to prove their cases with scientific certainty -- all the parents needed to show was that a preponderance of the evidence, or "50 percent and a hair," supported their claims. The vaccine court effectively said today that the thousands of pending claims represented by the three test cases are on extremely shaky ground.

In his ruling on one case, special master George Hastings said the parents of Michelle Cedillo -- who had charged that a measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine caused their child to develop autism -- had "been misled by physicians who are guilty, in my view, of gross medical misjudgment."

Hastings said that he was deeply moved by the suffering autism imposed on families such as the Cedillos, but that "the evidence advanced by the petitioners has fallen far short of demonstrating . . . a link."

The ruling today does not preclude appeals, and the lead lawyer in the Cedillo case has indicated that they would appeal if they lost.

Two other special masters reached similar conclusions in their cases.

The vaccine court was set up by Congress as part of what is known as the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. It was primarily designed to compensate the tiny fraction of people who suffer serious side effects from vaccines. Rather than have these victims sue vaccine makers in regular court -- potentially putting the manufacturers out of business and jeopardizing a major component of the country's public health infrastructure -- the court set up a "no-fault" system that required victims to prove to a special master only that vaccines harmed them, and not that anyone intentionally caused the harm.

Thousands of cases charging childhood vaccines cause autism have been filed in the vaccine court in recent years. To simplify proceedings, the court initially decided to hear three cases that suggested different mechanisms by which vaccines might have caused autism. It was the rulings on those three cases that were announced today.

Here's the thing, the system, as noted, is basically designed as a shield for vaccine manufacturers so the government takes care of issuing compensation in order to keep the manufacturers in business (and thus ensure a stable supply of vaccines). It also means that the burden of proof is already much lower than if this had been a direct case against the manufactueres where the families would have had to show some form of negligence involved in addition to the harm. What this means is that the court held that even the reduced standard of only needing to show a likelyhood of a link was faulty so that's a pretty steep hill to overcome.

Appeal looks like it will be contemplated and I agree that I don't blame the families. Autism is certainly not an easy disease to deal with and I can easily sympathize with parents looking for a cause or the issue and being led down the path towards this by doctors with a mission. So I hope they appeal and I hope it gets shot down so we can wrap this up.


On a seperate note I'm actually mildly impressed with the idea here as I haven't followed issues with regard to vaccination and vaccine supply. But given all the other screwups Congress has managed to institute the fact is this program seems like an excellent and well managed idea. It keeps vaccine manufacturers out of potentially tricky legal messes which promotes the viability of a very critical manufacturing profession, it provides families who believe they have been injured by vaccinations a legal remedy, and it works as a "no fault" system which means we don't have to deal with punitive damages and can simply assign compensation based on the damage done. Basically it seems like a well thought out and, so far, well executed idea.

[SirNitram]

To answer the 'Special Masters' and judge/jury questions:

The Vaccine Court has no jury. In the traditional sense, it doesn't have a judge. It is ruled over by a specially trained individual called the Special Master. They're basically judges whose entire job is to know craploads of relevent medical data. Alot of special rules apply, to make it ALOT easier to file in Vaccine Court if you have a credible case(The filing fee, for example, is waived if you can't pay), and the deck is stacked that if you have a real case, you will get compensated.

To lose in Vaccine Court means that you had no case.

[Broomstick]

Appeal looks like it will be contemplated and I agree that I don't blame the families. Autism is certainly not an easy disease to deal with and I can easily sympathize with parents looking for a cause or the issue and being led down the path towards this by doctors with a mission. So I hope they appeal and I hope it gets shot down so we can wrap this up.

Keep in mind that in the US there is an additional motivation to bring this to court - the cost of treatment. Treating autism, particularly severe autism, is enormously expensive. In very few cases is it fully covered by insurance. Even where it is, the insurance will usually end for these children between 18 and 24 years of age, after which they may have NO health insurance because they are unlikely to be hired, nor could they possibly afford a private plan, even if they could find one that didn't exclude their pre-existing condition (they might get social security disability. Might). Although you may be happy to see this myth slapped down, realize that most of these families will be rendered destitute, if they aren't already, due to the cost of caring for these children.

[AMT]

So.... I see a lot of Class Action lawsuits against the shit doctors who helped push the autism line in the near future. Hopefully medical dismemberments too.

[Broomstick]

And, can court costs be recovered from the plaintiffs?

America doesn't have a loser pays law, so I don't see how they would.

Not quite - in the instance of frivolous lawsuits the plantiff can be made to pay the defenders' court costs, but it's not typical. The judge more or less said this wasn't frivolous so it would not apply in this case.