Autism-vaccine lawsuits - Shorts

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients,  Oct, 2003  by Jule Klotter

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Parents who claim that vaccines have caused their children to develop autism are bypassing the Vaccination Injury Compensation Program and filing lawsuits. Under current law, vaccine injury claims must be evaluated by the federal compensation program before they can go to trial. If parents are denied their claim or are dissatisfied by the award (usually averaging under $1 million), they can then go to court. The program was set up to protect vaccine manufacturers from litigation that would cause them to stop making vaccines altogether.

In May 2001, according to the National Law Journal, Joseph and Theresa Counter of Plane, Texas charged several vaccine and thimerosal makers with product liability, conspiracy, and fraud, claiming that the mercury-based preservative in their vaccines had caused their 5-year-old son's autism. Their son had been developing normally; at 20 months, he had a growing vocabulary. Then, he began to regress, until all he could do was scream. Tests showed that the boy had very high levels of mercury in his body, but he had no history of unusual heavy metal exposure. Then, the FDA issued a report in June 1999, which stated "infants who received thimerosal-containing vaccines at several visits may be exposed to more mercury than recommended by federal guidelines for total mercury exposure." Exposure to thimerosal increased during the 1990s as infants received more vaccinations, especially combination vaccines that require preservatives to prevent contamination.

Lyn Redwood, president of Safe Minds, a support group for parents with autistic children, learned that her autistic son had received 62.5 mcg of mercury from three infant vaccines at age 2 months. The allowable dose for his weight, according to the EPA standard, is 0.5 mcg. Mercury exposure from vaccines given to him at 4, 6, 12, 18 months totaled 237.5 mcg. Hair analysis revealed that the boy had a mercury level of 4.8 ppm. The EPA recommends action at 1 ppm. The symptoms of mercury poisoning coincide with autism. After filing a Freedom of Information Act request in February 2001, Safe Minds learned that the CDC's original 2000 report on autism and thimerosal-containing vaccines showed a significant correlation: "... children who were exposed to 62.5 mcgs of mercury in vaccines in the first three months of life were 2.48 times more likely to develop autism." That report was not released. Instead the researcher Thomas Verstraeten added children under the age of 2 (below the age that autism is diagnosed) to the study in order to lower the results to an insignificant 1.69 times.

Hundreds of parents have followed the Counters' lead, seeking millions of dollars in life-care compensation and personal injury claims for each child. Class action suits are also in the works. The lawyers interviewed in the journal article will net file a claim for children who have shown symptoms of autism from birth. Rather, they want medical records and videotapes that show that the child was developing normally and then began to regress. An Associated Press report said that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who is a physician, introduced a bill in April 2003, that will prevent parents from filing lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers without first filing with the federal compensation fund.

Billions of dollars and the reputation of the medical establishment are at stake in the controversy over vaccine safety, according to Bernard Rimland, PhD. "The entire medical establishment--the drug companies, the medical schools, the medical societies, and the government agencies--have all staked their reputations on the safety of vaccines," he wrote in an editorial for Autism Research Review International. "If the court cases come down in favor of the families, the high esteem which conventional medicine has enjoyed is likely to erode rapidly. Rebuilding public confidence would not be easy."

Fisk, Margaret Cronin. A surge of lawsuits allege that vaccinations triggered autism. The National Law Journal 20 Mar 2002. www.autismlawyer.net/national_law_journal.htm

Associated Press. Bill would force out autism lawsuits. 9 April 2003. www.enn.com/news/ 2003-04-09/s_3759.asp

Rimland, Bernard, PhD. The autism-vaccine disaster. Autism Research Review International Vol. 16, No.3, 2002

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