No evidence of autism-vaccine link, court rules

February

There is no evidence that vaccines caused autism in children, a special court ruled today. The ruling means that parents who claimed that childhood vaccines caused their kids to develop autism are not entitled to any compensation.

The long-awaited decision on three test cases is a severe blow to parents who have argued that childhood vaccines have been responsible for the surge in autism diagnoses in the United States in recent decades, the Associated Press reports.

Most mainstream scientists have 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 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.

Today’s decision is sure to spur more debate among parents and scientists who still don’t have a clear answer to the question of what causes autism.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 12th, 2009 at 3:25 pm by Jane Lerner. Print This Post | Email This Post

2 Responses to “No evidence of autism-vaccine link, court rules”

Peter Good February 12th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
One novel way to explain the connection between vaccines and autism was recently suggested by Dr Steve Schultz in the journal Autism. He found that children given tylenol for fever and pain after the MMR were more likely to become autistic than children given ibuprofen. Schultz pointed out that the autism epidemic began in 1980, the year the CDC warned that aspirin might cause Reye’s syndrome, and tylenol began to rapidly replace aspirin for infants and young children.
Manic Depression News and Discussion Forum February 16th, 2009 at 6:33 am
Hello everyone,
I’m a newbie to website design and being a this site. I’m stopping by a few sites to pick up tips and get answers from people who know a lot more about this that I do!
Find the latest news about Depression, Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia. Discuss Mood Disorders topics with members of the Health Community.

It is a condition of your use of the comment features associated with the blogs that you do not: Use the site to post or transmit any unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane or indecent information of any kind, including without limitation any transmissions constituting or encouraging conduct that would constitute a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability or otherwise violate any local, state, national or international law. You alone are responsible for the material you post or send. Refer to the Terms of Service.