Ruling on Vaccine Court Cases Today: Après ça, le déluge

by Kristina Chew · 2009-02-12 01:34:00 UTC
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Update, 11am EST: CNN reports:

A special court ruled Thursday that parents of autistic children are not entitled to compensation in their contention that certain vaccines caused autism in their children.

CNN reports that a ruling on three test cases about the claim that vaccines can be linked to autism will be announced today. Thomas Powers, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, informed CNN of the ruling in the Vaccine Court Omnibus Autism Proceeding. Some 4800 families have filed claims that vaccines somehow contributed to their child being autistic under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP).

Regardless of what the US Federal Court of Claims ruled, you can be sure there'll be a blog-o-bath of commentary. Indeed, there already has been (n.b., the following tip-of-the-iceberg selection of blogging on this topic is based on what some deem to be a "biased" perspective because as previously stated on this blog, the evidence refuting a vaccine-autism link keeps growing):

Kathleen Seidel at Neurodiversity offers a brief (and comprehensive) introduction to Vaccine Court. And, here, she lists her articles on the Autism Omnibus Proceeding as well as on vaccine-injury and thimerosal legialation. Insightful commentary, as well as transcripts of the testimony of the proceedings (here's Day 1), can be found at Autism Diva (and that's only one day; here is more testimony). Kev at Left Brain/Right Brain has numerous posts (this one's on the "expert," Vera Byers) and a whole section of posts on the Autism Omnibus. And, of course, here's a few posts by Orac on Respectful Insolence weighing in on antivaccination lunacy.

Finally, some posts by me on my old blog, Autism Vox, including Myth, Science, and a Trial: Vaccines and Autism and another about legal standards and science.

There's plenty more good stuff out there and I suspect they'll be more by the end of the day, provided the three test cases are indeed ruled upon. And after that deluge is over, I just hope we're all not so washed out that we forget to talk about the things that really matter.

Image by g-hat.

Kristina Chew
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