Another ruling in the US vaccine court

MomofTN

Thank you so much for talking about this case!! Where is the rest of the media?

Also, be prepared for someone to post here that Bailey Banks doesn't have autism, even though he does.

TNMom

Clifford G Miller

Where is the rest of the British press reporting on this? Must be POETS day every day when it comes to reporting on serious issues like the health safety of British kids.

An American

Autism is a truly devastating condition, that not only can destroy a child's life depending on the degree of the autism...and also impacts parents and siblings lives negatively.

My hope is that someday soon, medical research will find a reason and cure for this malady.

In the mean time, Judges should butt out since they have no idea what's caused this malady.

This reminds me of John Edward's claim to fame who receiving millions of dollars for his fraudlent suit on behalf a child that was born with cerebral palsy.

"The jury came back with a $6.5 million award, and Edwards was the hottest trial lawyer in North Carolina. His line, in that and other cases, was that there would have been no brain damage if the doctor, instead of the breech delivery, had performed a caesarean. Thanks in part to lawyers like Edwards, there are now far more caesarean sections than ever before, yet without any reduction in birth defects".

I recently met two California judges on a trip and have honestly never in my life met such ignorant, arrogant, insufferable human beings.

The courts have overstepped in every aspect of our lives.

My question is who made these judges/lawyers GOD?

I have come to have no respect for the courts or the incompetent jokers that sit on these benches.

John Stone

It is concerning that in the Cedillo case Special Master Hastings failed to address the problem of the Hornig study when addressing the "Wakefield" hypothesis of persistent measles in the ileum. The Hornig study follows the pattern of other studies such as the Cochrane Review of MMR in presenting different headline conclusions from its internal evidence. Hornig found in its very different group of patients to Wakefield's the presence of persistent measles in the ileum of two cases, one not autistic but both having gastric inflammation and having had MMR, confirmed across 3 laboratories. Hornig's case selection might have been designed to confuse the issue but nevertheless came up with two positive (uncontestable) results. In the discussion the study stated refering to the much abused O'Leary study:

"Our results differ with reports noting MV RNA in ileal biopsies of 75% of ASD vs. 6% of control children [10], [41]. Discrepancies are unlikely to represent differences in experimental technique because similar primer and probe sequences, cycling conditions and instruments were employed in this and earlier reports; furthermore, one of the three laboratories participating in this study performed the assays described in earlier reports. Other factors to consider include differences in patient age, sex, origin (Europe vs. North America), GI disease, recency of MMR vaccine administration at time of biopsy, and methods for confirming neuropsychiatric status in cases and controls."

So, in other words they said that if they had a similar group patients to the O'Leary study they would have got similar results.

Of course, the findings in the Cedillo case have been further compromised by the
indiscretions of a certain journalist on another blog.

Jenny

"Ultimately, the correct answer will come through honest, transparent and rigorous scientific study, not from a court bench."

Indeed, so why is the medical establishment in Britain doing its level best to stop such scientific enquiry from proceeding?

Isabella Thomas

Well done Mealine,
This should be all over the news and the Government should give choice of single vaccines until there is an urgent look at the children who are damaged in the UK.

Isabella Thomas

Melanie,

Sorry, I just don't know how your name came out wrong.
Tired I think.

Ellien

A Child Psychoanalytic perspective on Autism suggests the Autistic child has had an experience of terrifying magnitude which Francis Tustin described as "a black hole". I would like to suggest that the MMR vaccination can be experienced, by some children who are predisposed in some way to being highly sensitive to it, as a traumatic assault on their brain which is experienced emotionally as this black hole mentioned above. The black hole would refer to an unimaginable terror of disintegration, requiring a fight/flight response into autism, which provides a place of safety - a restricted place in the mind where the unknown and unexpected can not impinge. With 80% or thereabouts of the brain developing before the age of two, and with emotional experiences driving this development, more attention needs to be paid to the kinds of stressors we expose our infants to. I would suggest that the MMR vaccination is one stress too many. We need to be mindful of overstimulating the infant brain which is known to affect emotional and cognitive development. The effects of neglect and abuse, and, therefore, trauma, in infancy and early childhood are well documented. Brain mapping can demonstrate this clearly. I do not think that the aetiology of Autism and the link to the MMR vaccine is too unlikely in this context.

Seonaid

"Francis Tustin described as "a black hole".

Good gracious Ellien. My son was 15 when he was given MMR vaccine. And so was able to describe how he felt in the years that followed vaccination. To us on the outside, it looked like depression, but in hindsight he referred to that time as being 'in a black pit'.

Well done again Melanie on pursuing the topic. Every newspaper which printed the result of the Omnibus hearing this month, should also be publishing THIS story - but no chance.

Anne McElroy Dachel

The piece by Robert Kennedy Jr. and David Kirby, Vaccine Court: Autism Debate Continues,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr-and-david-kirby/vaccine-court-autism-deba_b_169673.html
really broke this story in last week. Many of us in the autism community waited for the media to give it the same attention that they had with the three recent decisions AGAINST the families in Vaccine Court. The press has ignored it. It seems that they pride themselves on being fair and balanced--except when talking about autism.
Anne Dachel
Media Editor
http://www.rescuepost.com/age_of_autism/

Mary

Thanks Mel. This is the first time I have seen this reported in the British media. So much for fairness and balance! This bias is worthy of Pravda.

FreeSpeaker

Only a person who is incapable of reading for understanding could possibly consider that the two decisions are contradictory.

In Banks, there is no question that the vaccine, (and this is
important) or the diseases themselves, can cause ADEM.

In Cedillo, there is NO intervening medical condition that is known to cause Autism.

Thus, the cases are entirely dissimilar, and tere i sno contradiction.

I expect that this comment will not be published. If so, it will be disseminated on Age of Ignorance.

John Stone

Free Speaker: The argument that there is no intevening medical condition known to cause autism is not scientific: it is not proof that there isn't one. Secondly, the cases have got lost in the maze of having to demonstrate every last facet of the mechanism while prima facie evidence that there has been a catastrophic following vaccination is sidesstepped. This is not to say that there was not plausible evidence in the Cedillo case, but the burden on families to have to prove everything - and the ability governments and manufacturers to walk away - is manifestly unsafe and unjust.

The permanent rejoinder to the victims of vaccine damage - and their families - to "prove it" is testament to the bad faith of the system, and the fundamental crassness of its culture.

Mary

From what I have read, encephalitis has long been suspected as a possible cause of Autism. How many Autistic children have had an MRI scan at all, let alone 16 days after an MMR vaccine? We dont know if encephalitis is a cause of Autism because funding for Autism research is biased towards genetics. Recent studies in California point to an enviromental cause.

Sergey

I must admit, first, that I am fully aware of importance of vaccination in prevention of viral diseases; in many cases, this is the only practical option. After graduating university, I worked in Immunology department of Moscow Gamaleya Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, where most of vaccines used in Soviet Union were developed. I also was a scientific editor of Russian translation of Anderson and May monograph "Human Infectious Diseases: Prevention and Control" - the classical text on which all WHO policies are based. What I can not agree, is that vaccination can ever be completely safe. It is inherently risky, and in every case all possible alternatives must be seriously assesed. I know, as insider, too many sad stories from practice to believe otherwise, and from purely theoretical considerations, auto-immune complications could never be ruled out. In our days most vaccines are prepared essentially as in days of Pasteur, by passage on brain tissue of rabbits, rats or mice; an attenuated (weakened) strain of virus is so prepared, and this virus-contained extract is infused into human body as a vaccine. This is a very obsolete procedure, inherently dangerous, because of so many brain-tissue antigens are infused. They always have a potential to provoke auto-immune response to human brain antigens, with a massive neurologic damage. Other risks are assotiated with using live virus. It can survive in rapidly proliferating tissues, like small intestine epithelium, and revert to virulent form. There are now better, more safe approaches to make vaccines by gene engineering. They should contain only target viral antigenes, no ballast proteins and no live viruses.
I also understand how complicated any epidemiological study of autism can be, with so many problems in identifying the disease and ambiguity of its diagnostics. I would take any results in this field with a huge grain of salt.

Ellien

Seonaid: Your son's experience of "being in a black pit" sounds similar to Francis Tustin's understanding of her patients' experience of being "in a black hole". She furthered the understanding of the Autistic persons' experience of Autism enormously and thus the ability to help them with psychotherapy. As in your son's case, which is tragic, despite his age at the time of receiving the MMR vaccine, it seems his brain (nervous system) reacted much like some younger children and babies do. A genetic predisposition is only that, and genes do not determine outcomes, only the possibility of an outcome, depending on many other factors. The damage can be reversed but not with conventional medicine. Child Psychotherapy is excellent but a lengthy procedure. The new energy psychologies offer much promise, e.g. EFT. I hope this is posted as EFT is something which is freely available to all via the Internet, and I am not making a commercial plug for it. I hope your son has made a full recovery of his previous self.

John Stone

Sorry, there was a word left out in the first paagraph of my last post which should have read:

"Secondly, the cases have got lost in the maze of having to demonstrate every last facet of the mechanism while prima facie evidence that there has been a catastrophic event following vaccination is sides-stepped."

Interesting comment by Sergey.

Dyson

The diagnosis in the case of this child was Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis, leading to persistent developmental delay. PDD is a class of conditions, which also encompasses autism, but ADEM should not be conflated/confused with autism.

ADEM is a rare condition with very specific and characteristic neurological abnormalities. It usually gets better within a few months. It can be triggered by natural measles, mumps or rubella infection, and guess what? It is in fact COMMONER in someone catching these infections than it is after vaccination with MMR.

It seems logical to promote vaccination, since to prevent the diseases will actually LOWER the risks of a child developing ADEM.

Once again, Melanie and her antivaccination cronies are barking up the wrong tree, in a totally futile attempt to try and save face now that the US courts have so comprehensively thrown out claims linking vaccines with autism.

John Stone

Dyson: What happens if your child gets a severe adverse reaction to MMR. You are told to ignore it. Here is NHS advice:-

Q: "My son had a sever(e) reaction to the first MMR jab. Does this mean that he is well protected from these diseases, or is a second dose still necessary?"

A: "If a child has responded to all the components of the vaccine the first time, he will not have a problem being exposed to the viruses again. It's like any one of us who is already immune meeting someone with the disease - the infection can't get established.

"If he hasn't made protection to all three diseases after the first time, then he would still be susceptible to those natural infections, and still needs the 2nd dose.

"Reactions after the 2nd dose are essentially the same as after the 1st dose, but if they do occur they are even rarer. There are no new side effects after the 2nd dose that do not occur after the 1st dose. The advice is therefore that it is safe for your child to have the 2nd dose in order that he is properly protected."

http://tinyurl.com/6mpucs

Seonaid

Ellien - thank you for your good wishes, and I will have a look at EFT as you recommend.

Joe

This isnt news here.

Firstly, The MMR vaccine can cause encephalitis - This is neither new or surprising. In fact this is clear in the NHS MMR factsheet. However encephalitis is up to 5000 times more likely with an actual measles infection.

Secondly, PDD IS distinct from autism, and this was recognized in the court ruling.

Thirdly, with respect to the 'burden of proof' the claimants in this (and Cedillo and other cases) did not have to 'prove' anything, other than their claim was merely more likely than not.

move on people

John Stone

Dyson, I think you could safely say that manufacturer's advice would be not to repeat the dose in the event of a severe reaction, but the NHS advice is to ignore it. So you probably end up struggling at home with a very sick child with medical services looking the other way or pretending it is something else. And sequelae are systematically not monitored.

So, actually when you talk about the relative effects of the vaccine and the diseases you have only completely skewed and biased data to refer to, and systematic institutional negligence regarding the adverse effects of vaccine (documented from the NHS's own lips).

Tony Harrison

I don't think this case showed that the vaccine caused autism.

Valentinus

The baseline here? The case proves nothing of any medical significance for the alleged MMR-autism connection. The science is now so conclusive on this matter, it's almost embarrassing to have to reiterate it: the MMR vaccine plays no role in autism. The journal Nature now counts more than 300 separate studies of the question. No correlation has been found in any one of them. Deal with it. And move on. This is becoming an 'alien abduction' theme on this site.

John Stone

The trouble is - as Robert F Kennedy suggested in Huffington Post - there are people playing with semantics here. Autism is a clinically nebulous concept: what we are really talking about here is vaccine induced mental impairment. You can always have slippery arguments about whether it is autism.

Dyson

John Stone, to answer your question, should my child have a severe reaction to the 1st dose of MMR, I would consider doing the following:

1. Not wishing to risk a repeat, even with the assurance that the reaction would be no worse, I might choose not to let my child risk another dose of the vaccine.

2. As the NHS leaflet says, this one dose would not ensure my child had sufficient immunity. I would probably ask for antibody levels to be done, and if these were good, I would be happy that my child had sufficient protection.

3. I would fully support universal vaccination as a means of ensuring that the diseases themselves are eradicated, and that herd immunity remains high, thereby helping to protect my own child should the immunity from one dose of vaccine prove insufficient for his own individual protection.

Quite why you persist in quizzing me about this issue is unclear. Is it a distraction from the topic of this article, and to make peoples take their eyes off the ball, since they might realise the substance of Melanie Phillips' post is nonexistent and that it exists purely for the purpose of creating yet more antivaccination propaganda by means of smoke and mirrors?

John Stone

Dyson: I am making the point that we do not have the faintest idea about the incidence of severe adverse events post MMR (or indeed post DPT) because there is a culture and system of belligerent denial (which, incidentally, you are part of).

Mary

John Stone: No doubt, if Bailey Banks had not had a neurological examination 16 days after MMR, his disability would have been dismissed as "coincidence." Studies have shown that doctors only report about 10 percent of adverse reactions to any medication.

John Stone

Mary: Exactly.

Neil Craig

US courts handed out $25 billion danages for people who caught vancer from breast implants. It is now pretty much accepted that there was no statisticl (or other) link.

On the other hand the papers got lots of pictures of breasts. This is how the US tort system & increasingly ours, is run.

John Stone

Neil Craig: That's a ludicrous claim: in the UK courts - thanks to Legal Services Commission - almost no one is ever held to account over corporate damage. Merck didn't even have to pay out over Vioxx here. The balance in the UK is overwhelmingly against the citizen (which is worth bearing in mind before you take a risk like vaccination).

MinorityView

Neil Craig: Cancer from breast implants? That wasn't what the argument was about...it was immune system problems. Nothing like a fact based argument to convince people that you know exactly what you are talking about!