Federal court deals another blow to autism-vaccine link

When a decade-old study from the medical journal The Lancet linking vaccinations to autism was retracted last month, the medical community breathed a sigh of relief. But, as Alisa has pointed out, parental fears over vaccinating children still exist, despite overwhelming evidence of their usefulness and protection of kids from preventable diseases. But this week yet another blow was struck to parents who are hesitant to vaccinate their children because of perceived risks involved - this time by the federal "vaccine court," a branch of the U.S. Court of Appeals that exists solely to govern litigation involving vaccinations.

The vaccine court rulings also dealt with the link between vaccines and autism, and it found in three separate cases that thimerosal, a preservative that contains mercury and is found in some vaccines, does not cause autism - a controversial conclusion that upset many parents who have long insisted otherwise. The court had previously come to a similar conclusion in a case involving the measles-mumps-reubella (MMR) vaccine, declaring that the thimerosal in that vaccine does not cause autism. Combined, the rulings are likely to end the wave of litigation on the subject.

The anger from the rulings, however, isn't likely to end anytime soon. J.B. Handley, a founder of the nonprofit Generation Rescue, told the Los Angeles Times, "Find me another industry where the U.S. government defends their product in court and funds the science that exonerates them. ... The average citizen has no hope." Generation Rescue is fronted by actress Jenny McCarthy, whose son has autism. Since The Lancet study was retracted (and even before), the actress and other parents with autistic children have come under fire for believing in the vaccine-autism link. According to a TIME magazine article on McCarthy, "McCarthy claims Evan was healed through a range of experimental and unproved biomedical treatments; even more controversially, she blames the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine for giving her son autism. And yet research conclusively shows that vaccines are safe for children; just last month, the U.K. scientist who had published a study linking the MMR shot to autism was found by a British medical panel to have acted unethically."

Though the federal vaccine court has largely found against parents claiming their children's autism was caused by vaccines, it has on occasion found in favor of parents who were able to show that their children were harmed in other ways by vaccinations - whether physically, neurologically, or otherwise. The court was established in 1986 through the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, mostly over fears related to the DPT vaccine, which guards againt three infectious diseases: diptheria, whooping cough and tetanus. Though most of the claims surrounding the DPT vaccine were later discredited, most manufacturers of the vaccine stopped producing it.