March 9, 2008

Phil and Misty Hiatt: "We Were Compensated Too!"

I have calmed down from the appoplexia that overtook me when learning that Hanna was not the first autistic child to be paid from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund, but at least the tenth, to write about this somewhat coherently.

Since then David Kirby, The Pensacola News Journal, The Schafer Autism Report and the Age of Autism's Dan Olmsted have joined CBS in reporting that there are more families out there who want to go public with their settlement stories.

As you may recall, in reporting on Hannah's story on March 6th, Sharyl Attkisson on The CBS Evening News reported that:

"While the Poling case is the first of its kind to become public, a CBS News investigation uncovered at least nine other cases as far back as 1990, where records show the court ordered the government compensated families whose children developed autism or autistic-like symptoms in children including toddlers who had been called "very smart" and "impressed" doctors with their "intelligence and curiosity" … until their vaccinations.

They were children just like Hannah Poling."
CBS News was apparently a few steps behind David Kirby, who on March 3rd posted on an autism list:

"And next week, I just might drop another bombshell – A BIG one, from another case in VICP.

Turns out that people who settled with the government now want their cases to be known as well. They are seeking me out. You would be AMAZED at what the government has secretly admitted.

It contradicts many things that the Feds, AAP, and SWORN government witnesses have been saying publicly, under oath no less -- at least on this one particular vaccine injury related issue.

I love the smell of perjury charges in the morning.

Stay tuned

Cheers"

CBS was a day ahead of the Pensacola News Journal that wrote about the Hiatt family that got a judgment in 2002:

In 1999, Misty and Phil Hiatt of Pensacola, parents of 10-year-old triplets, were among the first to assert a link between childhood vaccines and autism-like symptoms.

Misty Hiatt said she and her husband, a professional baseball player for 16 years, saw their babies' lives change dramatically after they received routine immunizations at 14 months.

She said daughter Madison began suffering from severe autism-like symptoms. Daughters Morgan and Mackenzie also were affected, though less severely.

In 2002, the Hiatts received a settlement from the National Vaccine Injuries Compensation Program, a fund Congress set up to pay children injured by vaccines and to protect makers from damages as a way to help ensure an adequate vaccine supply. Since the fund started in 1988, it has paid about 950 claims — none for autism but some for autism-like symptoms.

"The government settled with our family and accepted responsibility for the injury the vaccines caused my daughter, Madison," Misty Hiatt said.


I have already discussed the difference between "autism" and "autism-like" symptoms. There is none.

And today the Schafer Autism Report ran a letter they got from the Hiatts saying that when they got their settlement, they had the impression that many other families like theirs had been compensated:

"We Were Compensated, too.

We were also compensated by the Federal Government in 2002. Our child suffered the same diagnosis after her routine immunizations. Encephalopathy with autistic like symptoms. I am not sure why people think this is the first case? Maybe they are just the first to go so public. I wonder how many other families have been compensated for the exact same symptoms? When we settled with the government I did not get the impression that we were that unique; quite the opposite as I spoke to the Special Master (the judge for the compensation program). - Misty Hiatt"

Finally, today Dan Olmsted brings to our attention a passage from an AP story in which Gary Golkiewicz, Chief Special Master for the U.S. Court of Federal Claims who oversees the vaccine court, tells us himself that Hannah's case is not the singular exception that we have been led to believe it is:

'Years ago, actually, I had a case, before we understood or knew the implications of autism, that the vaccine injured the child's brain caused an encephalopathy,' he said. And the symptoms that come with that 'all [fall?] within the broad rubric of autism.'

And there are other somewhat similar cases, Golkiewicz says, that were decided before autism and its symptoms were more clearly defined."

Two thoughts on that: We've known the symptoms of autism since exactly 1943. And since the vaccine court is known to be gruesomely stingy, it's quite some admission to say there were other, earlier cases. Maybe some of our befuddled colleagues in the mainstream media ought to find out more about those cases that, according to the top judge, resulted in brain injury and fall "within the broad rubric of autism."

And yet in the face of all this, Julie Gerberding, the head of the CDC said this about the Hannah Poling case setting a precedent for other cases of vaccine induced autism:

"This is a complete mischaracterization of the findings of a very simple situation of one child with an unusual disorder, and it would be completely wrong to say that this has bearing to the vast majority of children with autism,"

Julie Gerberding is telling us that Hannah is a rare exception. We now know that she is not.

Autism parents are going to spend tomorrow calling the White House asking for her resignation.

Either Julie knew about these previous rulings, in which case she is lying to us and should be removed from her post, or she did not know about these previous rulings, in which case she is incompetent and should be removed from her post.

What this means is that for almost 20 years the government has had the evidence that vaccines cause autism and they have buried it and lied to the public. For two decades doctors have been denied the information they needed to make responsible health decisions for their patients. The parent of every child vaccinated since 1990 has been denied "informed consent" in their decision making process on if and how to vaccinate their children. How many hundreds of millions of children is that? Or billions?

What this means to my family is that a full year after paying the Hiatts for their daughter's vaccine induced autism, they were telling me that it was safe to vaccinate Chandler with out fear of having his shots trigger autism, resulting in my son's vaccine induced “Autism-like symptoms”.

In light of all this, I am calling for congressional hearings to find out what the government knew and when they knew it.

I am calling for full disclosure on the part of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program to release every case of a child who was paid for their "Autism-like" vaccine injury so we can get to the bottom of the vaccine/autism connection. Because those cases hold vital clues to what has happened to my son, and what treatments might heal him.


If the families involved do not want their details released, the cases can be presented in such a way as to protect their privacy. But if what David Kirby is reporting, that families are coming to him to make their cases known, such privacy measures may not be needed.

I am looking forward to seeing what new information David Kirby and any other journalist that has begun to wake up to this miscarriage of justice can bring us about these other cases.

... and if this pans out the way it looks like it is going to... Kirby is right... some people need to go to jail.

6 comments:

Angela DeRossett said...

Love that you're getting the word out and love your new look!

AutismNewsBeat said...

I have already discussed the difference between "autism" and "autism-like" symptoms. There is none.

Here's what I don't understand. Dan Olmsted wrote in his Age of Autism series that he only found one Amish child with autism in Lancaster County, PA. When it was pointed out to him that the Clinic for Special Children in Strasburg treats dozens of Amish children who present with autism-like symptoms, he said he was only looking for full-blown, idiopathic, Kanner autism. Apparently that's the only kind that counts.

But none of the vaccine court cases involve Kanner autism.

So who's right, Angela - you or Mr. Olmsted? If you're right, then Olmsted fabricated a series of reports for the UPI. If Olmsted is right, then the vaccine injury claims have nothing to do with autism.

I don't see how we can have it both ways. Do you?

Ginger Taylor said...

"But none of the vaccine court cases involve Kanner autism."

But they DO involve full blown Kanner autism! That is the wacky trick that the court is trying to play.

Hanna Poling has DSM-IV diagnosed Autism. The court just calls it "Features of Autism" and "Autism Like Symptoms" to make it sound like these kids have something similar, but not autism.

An it works! Because you believed that Hannah was not diagnosed with Autism.

The Pierian Spring said...

Reading the documents Kirby posted reveals 3 sx consistent with DSMIV. That would suggest autism spectrum, not full blown autism.

A closer reading shows that her symptoms were more consistent with regressive encephalopathy, which is a known complication of mito dz and inflammation. Furthermore, if you read the paper her father, a neurology resident, published you see that she has made significant, albeit incomplete, recovery. (attending kindergarten w. aide)

In summary, this does not look like a good 'test case' for autism as caused by vaccine, but rather an outlier. Someone with a very, very rare disease, who had a bad reaction to the generally mild inflammatory response that often accompanies vaccinations.

On the plus side, if the vaccinations prevented an infection, they possibly saved her life, since the typical inflammatory response to an actual infection is generally significantly greater and longer lasting than the response to a vaccine adjuvant.

Ginger Taylor said...

"Reading the documents Kirby posted reveals 3 sx consistent with DSMIV. That would suggest autism spectrum, not full blown autism."

Hannah was diagnosed with autism. Not PDD-NOS, not Aspergers', full autism.

The paper her father wrote says in the title that she has autism.

I contacted John Gilmore, the spokes man for the family at the press conference, and he confirms this. He also spent two days with her and said she is autistic. He is also an autism parent.

Hannah has autism.

"A closer reading shows that her symptoms were more consistent with regressive encephalopathy,"

But what we are asking is are they the same thing? They were in this case, so what portion of the cases diagnosed as "autism" does this case represent.

I believe probably a great deal, because while the CDC wants to call this 'rare' these parents tell the exact same story as I do and as thousands of other parents do.

And the reason they found out about the mito dysfunction and got an diagnosis of encephalopathy was because he was a neurologist and gave her every test under the sun.

When I called my pediatrician about Chandlers fevers, they blew them off.

Autism is solely diagnosed by behavior. Encephalopathy is diagnosed by actually measuring what is going on in the body.

The standard procedure for a child who shows signs of developmental delay is to get them evaluated by a speech/behavioral/developmental specialist. They tag them with autism, the medical community says 'we don't know what causes it' and then they spend their life in therapy.

But what IS not done by main stream medicine is to actually look at what is going on in their bodies to see if some event triggered the autism.

Because they don't want to know what triggered the autism.

My son has the exact same story as Hannah, and has never been seen by a neurologist.

No one can say that they think this was rare and not a good test case because almost none of our kids have been evaluated to see how many of them have mito dysfunction (estimates are between 7% and 38% for autistics as opposed to 1 in 5000 in the gen. pop.)

And when we tell our pediatricians that our child was having fevers, crying and screaming after vaccination, they dismiss us.

"Furthermore, if you read the paper her father, a neurology resident, published you see that she has made significant, albeit incomplete, recovery. (attending kindergarten w. aide)"

Due to what? Terry Poling was on the biomedical intervention lists years ago, so it likely that her improvements came the same way my son's improvements have come. Did they chelate her? Is she GFCF?

"In summary, this does not look like a good 'test case' for autism as caused by vaccine, but rather an outlier. Someone with a very, very rare disease, who had a bad reaction to the generally mild inflammatory response that often accompanies vaccinations."

You have to understand what a ridiculous statement that this is to me and to parents in my community.

Hannah is just like my son. She even acts like my son. She has the same story as my son. The only difference between the two of them so far is that Hanna has had more comprehensive medical testing than my son.

And.. I cannot emphasize this enough.... THE POLINGS ARE TELLING THE SAME STORY THAT THOUSANDS OF US WITH AUTISTIC KIDS HAVE LIVED THROUGH!

So on what basis do you make the claim that this is probably not a good test case? When the Omnibus hearings started it was a good test case! But suddenly because it went it her favor it is no longer a good test case?

"On the plus side, if the vaccinations prevented an infection, they possibly saved her life, since the typical inflammatory response to an actual infection is generally significantly greater and longer lasting than the response to a vaccine adjuvant."

And the typical response to vaccines is not regressive encephalopathy resulting in autism. These children are not typical and do not have typical immune systems. Until you study THEM and stop comparing them to the rest of us typical folks, you can't make statements like this.

Their bodies work differently than ours do and until the medical stops just referring them to speech therapy and actually start medically investigating each case as is their ethical responsibility as doctors, we will never answer these questions will we?

Ginger Taylor said...

In addition...

I just checked in with John Gilmore again and asked if they have done biomedical intervention with her.

His response:

"Lots, still are. GFCF definitely helped. Didn't see much improvement that lasted from chelation."

Again... other than the fact that Chandler's chelation is bearing lasting results... same story as ours.

Hannah is a great test case.