Coalition for Vaccine Safety Explains the Autism Omnibus Proceeding
http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/03/c...roceeding.html

Managing Editor's note: The following information is to assist you in
speaking to media, friends, family and colleagues from the Coalition for
Vaccine Safety:

Please contact local media to discuss the Omnibus Autism Proceeding
decisions. Here are the three main take-away points:

1. The Special Masters protected the vaccine program - and denied justice to
vaccine-injured children.

2. Vaccines cause autism - this Court and HHS have previously acknowledged
that.

3. These decisions highlight the inadequacy and possible suppression of
vaccine safety science.



1. The Special Masters protected the vaccine program - and denied justice to
vaccine-injured children.

a. The Special Masters' denied compensation to the King, Mead and Dwyer
families apparently out of the misguided government policy that their role
is to protect the vaccine program before doing justice for vaccine-injured
children.

b. They apparently believe that if they acknowledge that mercury causes
autism, parents will stop vaccinating their children. Based on this policy,
the court failed to weigh the evidence in an impartial way.

c. The scientific evidence at the hearing that mercury causes neurological
and immune damage to infants leading to autism was credible and strong.

d. The petitioners met their burden of proof to show that the
thimerosal-containing vaccines (TCVs) they received more likely than not
contributed to their autism. These petitioners will likely appeal.

2. Vaccines cause autism - this Court and HHS have previously acknowledged
that.

a. HHS conceded in the 2008 Poling case that Hannah Poling's autism was
caused by vaccines affecting her mitochondrial condition.


b. In another Court of Claims decision, Banks v. HHS, the Court held that
vaccines caused the child's acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM)
which, in turn, caused the autism spectrum disorder PDD-NOS.

3. These decisions highlight the inadequacy and possible suppression of
vaccine safety science.

a. There is overwhelming, uncontested scientific evidence that mercury
causes neurological damage and immune dysfunction.

b. The health of these children improved dramatically when they were treated
for heavy metal toxicity and immune dysfunction. Their condition was
treatable, not immutable.

c. The government removed thimerosal from routine childhood vaccines because
of safety concerns.

d. The government has failed to do serious research on children with
regressive autism.

e. Until December 2009, the Centers for Disease Control denied any real rise
in autism prevalence.

f. Petitioners were unable to gain access in this Court to taxpayer-financed
data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink, the most important source of data on
vaccine safety.

g. HHS' assertion of no thimerosal-autism link is dubious.

4. These test cases further erode trust in the National Immunization
Program, when trust is already at an all-time low.

a. There is a crisis of confidence in the U.S. vaccine program.

b. A recent study of the American Academy of Pediatrics found that half of
all parents have serious concerns over vaccine side effects, and one in four
believe that some vaccines cause autism.

c. Parents will not participate in a program that is not as safe as possible
or that fails to compensate those who are injured.

5. These test cases highlight the failure of the Vaccine Injury Compensation
Program.

a. Simply put, vaccine cases in the Court of Federal Claims are
fundamentally unfair. Petitioners fight for compensation at a tremendous
disadvantage.

b. Government actors defend a government program, using government-financed
science, before government judges.

c. In countless ways - a short statute of limitations, an extremely
adversarial atmosphere, no jury, inadequate procedural rules, extremely
limited discovery - the deck is stacked against petitioners.

d. The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program should be radically reformed or
abolished.

6. We lost this round, but we will win this war.

a. The truth will win out. This is the beginning, not the end of this
issue.

b. These cases will be appealed; the previous Omnibus test cases on MMR and
autism are already in the appeals process. The Cedillo appeal will be
argued later this spring.

c. The Supreme Court took Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, a vaccine injury case, and
will hear it this fall. It will decide whether petitioners in vaccine court
can file in civil court to claim that a vaccine design was defective.

d. The Thorsen investigation will continue.

e. Contact your Senators and your Congressional Representatives to support
the Coalition for Vaccine Safety's call for hearings on vaccine safety.
See http://www.coalitionforvaccinesafety...,1003758.story