Vaccine Court Issues Decisions on Autism Cases
The Special Masters of the United States Court of Federal Claims issued its highly anticipated decisions today on the first three test cases in the Autism Omnibus Proceeding. In all three cases, the court found insufficient evidence of a causal link between the vaccines and autism.
The Omnibus Autism Proceeding consists of over 5,000 cases alleging that certain childhood vaccinations caused or contributed to the child’s diagnosis of autism or autism spectrum disorder. As part of the proceeding, three test cases were selected and tried under two general causation theories: (1) that the MMR vaccine and vaccines that contained thimerosal (a compound consisting of 49.6% mercury used as a preservative in certain vaccines) combined to cause autism; and (2) that thimerosal-containing vaccines alone caused the childrens’ autism. The decisions on these two general causation theories will then be applied to the over 5,000 individual cases.
The three test cases decided today pertained to the first general causation theory. The Special Masters issued separate decisions on each of the three test cases. The lengthy decisions may be found on the United States Court of Federal Claims website.
Hearings on the three test cases on the second general causation theory, that thimerosal-containing vaccines alone can cause autism, were completed in July of 2008. Decisions on the second general causation theory are not expected for a few months.
Tags: autism, vaccine, vaccine court