Family To Receive $1.5M+ In Vaccine-Autism Award

[DamianTV]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20015982-10391695.html


The first court award in a vaccine-autism claim is a big one. CBS News has learned the family of Hannah Poling will receive more than $1.5 million dollars for her life care; lost earnings; and pain and suffering for the first year alone.





In addition to the first year, the family will receive more than $500,000 per year to pay for Hannah's care. Those familiar with the case believe the compensation could easily amount to $20 million over the child's lifetime.




Hannah was described as normal, happy and precocious in her first 18 months.


Then, in July 2000, she was vaccinated against nine diseases in one doctor's visit: measles, mumps, rubella, polio, varicella, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, and Haemophilus influenzae.


Afterward, her health declined rapidly. She developed high fevers, stopped eating, didn't respond when spoken to, began showing signs of autism, and began having screaming fits. In 2002, Hannah's parents filed an autism claim in federal vaccine court. Five years later, the government settled the case before trial and had it sealed. It's taken more than two years for both sides to agree on how much Hannah will be compensated for her injuries.

Read Sharyl Attkisson's 2008 report on Hannah Poling



In acknowledging Hannah's injuries, the government said vaccines aggravated an unknown mitochondrial disorder Hannah had which didn't "cause" her autism, but "resulted" in it. It's unknown how many other children have similar undiagnosed mitochondrial disorder. All other autism "test cases" have been defeated at trial. Approximately 4,800 are awaiting disposition in federal vaccine court.

(more on link)

[Anti Federalist]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20015982-10391695.html

Nice find, thanks for posting.

[DamianTV]

Yeah, found it on SlashDot.org of all places!

[Jandrsn21]

Good for them. I have seen too many videos of families experiencing the same problem. Child is happy and energetic, takes many vaccines over a shot period of time and comes back vegetables. Two year olds on dialysis, brain inflammation, and siezures.

Many people like to rely on court findings as a way to determine the scale of this problem. Looking at the ineffectiveness of our judicial system at this point in time, most have to turn to youtube videos for christ sake! Seen too many parents say the EXACT same thing. Hopefully this will start a chain effect and help those other parents receive benefits, justice and peace of mind.

Next we just need some legislation for the first responders. Then in 10 years it will be the same case for corexit and oil poising for the gulf workers!

[PatriotOne]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20015982-10391695.html

Five years later, the government settled the case before trial and had it sealed.

[lucius]

So where is ZippyPin-head to give us the warm voice of toolish reason...so I will do it for him--vaccine good: K?

[PatriotOne]

Paging Tmosley. Please report to the vaccine thread. Your benevolent government needs you.

[Matt Collins]

Yeah, found it on SlashDot.org of all places!

I love SlashDot!


http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/09/11/0434247/Family-To-Receive-15M-In-Vaccine-Autism-Award

[Zippyjuan]

Missed me? I am touched!


The US Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) will pay over $1.5 million to the family of a child whose parents allege acquired autism after routine vaccinations in 2000. CBS called the payment to the family of Hannah Poling the “first court award in a vaccine-autism claim” (9 September 2010, CBS).

However, the payment does not acknowledge a vaccine-autism link. The payment was made for a mitochondrial disorder and encephalopathy which fall under a category of so-called “Table” injuries for which parents do not need to show proof that the vaccine aggravated the condition as long as it appeared within a certain amount of time after vaccination. The VICP, which was established in 1988 (US Court of Federal Claims), has made thousands of such payments since its establishment. The same court found no compelling evidence of a link between vaccination and autism in a ruling last year, which was upheld in a federal appeals court on the same day as the Poling payout decision, (27 August 2010, Associated Press).

“It’s a complicated story…the government hasn’t explained to the press or the public exactly what their thinking was in this case,” says Paul Offit, a pediatrician and infectious disease researcher at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The symptoms which a doctor later used to diagnose her with autism “were part of a global encephalopathy,” he wrote in an opinion piece in the New England Journal of Medicine two years ago (15 May 2008, NEJM) and could have been aggravated by the vaccine or by other naturally-occurring childhood fevers.

When the vaccine court conceded the Poling case in 2008 the then-director of the Centers for Disease Control Julie Gerberding told National Public Radio that “The government has made absolutely no statement indicating that vaccines are a cause of autism." (7 March 2008, NPR). Gerberding now heads Merck's vaccine unit.

Regardless of what lawyers in courts rule, Offit says, “whether or not vaccines cause autism is a scientific issue it therefore can be addressed in a scientific manner, and I think it has been”.


http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2010/09/us_vaccine_payout_provokes_con.html

[Zippyjuan]

There is a very, very small segment of the population which has a disorder which can be triggered by any attack on the body- yes, vaccines can trigger it but so can simply getting sick. Even if the child did not get vaccinated, if she had this condition it probably would have kicked in the next time she got sick. Vaccines trigger an immune responce to cause the body to produce defences against a potential disease and it is exactly the same reaction to a real disease or illness- it is just a milder version which in most cases the body can fight off quite easily. This is a very rare disorder.

Information specific to this case: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=66

To make a long story short, “CHILD” (whom we now know to have been Hannah, thanks to the PR blitz) regressed and continued to have ear infections. She was seen by Dr. Andrew Zimmerman, a pediatric neurologist, who diagnosed her as having: “encephalopathy [that] progressed to persistent loss of previously acquired language, eye contact, and relatedness” or “regressive encephalopathy with features consistent with an autistic spectrum disorder, following normal development.” He also noticed features consistent with a mitochondrial disease and had Hannah undergo a neurogenetics evaluation. Ultimately, she was diagnosed with a disorder of her mitochondria due to a point mutation in the gene for the 16S ribosomal RNA (T2387C). The conclusion was:

Medical personnel at the Division of Vaccine Injury Compensation, Department of Health and Human Services (DVIC) have reviewed the facts of this case, as presented by the petition, medical records, and affidavits. After a thorough review, DVIC has concluded that compensation is appropriate in this case.

In sum, DVIC has concluded that the facts of this case meet the statutory criteria for demonstrating that the vaccinations CHILD received on July 19, 2000, significantly aggravated an underlying mitochondrial disorder, which predisposed her to deficits in cellular energy metabolism, and manifested as a regressive encephalopathy with features of autism spectrum disorder. Therefore, respondent recommends that compensation be awarded to petitioners in accordance with 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-11(c)(1)(C)(ii).


So what does this mean? First, one thing that it doesn’t mean, contrary to all the P.R. over the last few days, is that the government has conceded that vaccines cause autism. It hasn’t, and science doesn’t support that contention even if it did. Mitochondrial disorders of the sort suffered by Hannah are genetic in nature and rare, an estimated 5.7 individuals per 100,000 worldwide, and, as described well in this New Scientist article, the subset of these disorders that cause autism-like symptoms is even more rare. It is also known that children with mitochondrial disorders are prone to encephalopathy in response to stress or fever that can cause them to regress. The source of this stress can often be an infection, such as a cold or normal childhood illness, that results in a fever. The reason is that the mitochondria are the “batteries” or energy sources of the cell, and mitochondrial diseases can lead a child to be “energy challenged,” so to speak. Because neurons have such a high constant resting energy requirement, stressors like fever deplete the neurons of energy. Moroever, mutations in the same gene that Hannah had a mutation in are incredibly rare. According to Salvatore DiMauro, an researcher who studies mitochondrial diseases, only four other cases are known. It is also important to see what is really meant about this diagnosis. Kevin Leitch, a prominent autism blogger, compared the actual DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for ASDs with what is known about Hannah and found that only three of the behaviors described in the ruling appeared to match up with criteria for ASDs (poor eye contact, poor relatedness, and fixating on fluorescent lights during the examination). Of course, it’s entirely possible that there were other aspects of this diagnosis that have yet to be reported, but, even so, what was really diagnosed was a regressive encephalopathy that had some features of ASD. It may have been exacerbated by the fever that occurred in the wake of the series of vaccines described; it may have been exacerbated by the girl’s recurrent bouts of otitis media. Either way, the government decided that the temporal course of vaccination and regression was close enough that under the law “compensation is justified.”

[steve005]

yeah but its sealed so this wont help, next

[WaltM]

Give me a break! "normal for 18 months"?

[WaltM]

Five years later, the government settled the case before trial and had it sealed.

thats what happens when you have a price.

$20M to shut you up, tells you how serious they are. (by they, I mean both sides)

[WaltM]

Missed me? I am touched!

http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2010/09/us_vaccine_payout_provokes_con.html

do you always have to be a party pooper for autism-vaccine connection??

can't you let them have their ONE case as evidence?

(no doubt, before this case, they all screamed denial, now they all scream evidence and victory)