Cedillo Appeal Hearing in DC Today

As you may have noted by my writing, I am not so much a fan of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and the "vaccine court". Unjust, unlawful and rigged, that's why.

But when the call went out for people to attend the Cedillo hearing today, I thought, well if I am going to be so critical, at least I can show up for one day and see it with my own eyes.

I had fully expected to come today, watch the bias in action, and write something cynical. But something was different today, that I had not heard before. Allow me to share a bit of what happened, while I will leave the serious examination to the professionals in the coming days.

What was different today? The hearing was run by REAL JUDGES that ask real questions and seem to actually care about justice, fairness and getting to the heart of the science in question.

The Cedillo's lawyer complained to the court that the process was not a fair one, and among the complaints, that the testimony by UK experts, brought in by the DOJ, should not have been allowed in, because the actual data that would be used to check their opinions was not admitted into evidence so that the petitioners could effectively cross examine these government witnesses.

The three member panel of judges (well two of the three) actually put the DOJ in the hot seat and asked about the fairness of going to the UK to find these experts, with out telling the petitioners that they were going or inviting them along, not getting the data needed to back up their experts assertions, and repeated several times that this process was NOT supposed to be an adversarial one, as the DOJ was clearly operating as if it was.

And the DOJ did a lot of stammering, looking down at her notes, trying to change the subject, and finally agreed with one of the judges that there were problems with the way that they carried out the hearing. But claimed that it was justified, because DOJ didn't have enough time to get it right. Only four months. (How long does it take exactly to make a phone call to Theresa Cedillo to say, "hey... we are going to the UK to look for evidence to shoot down your case... wanna come?"?) One judges response... 'too bad'.

Two members of the court (the third seemed to be just taking up space waiting for retirement) were clearly troubled by the process, troubled by the double standard that the DOJ was using in making requests of the Special Master, and troubled by the responses of the DOJ.

And so was the court room. Twice during her testimony, the response to her answers to the judge was met with laughter from the gallery.

Will the case be sent back to the Special Master? Will the UK testimony be thrown out so that the O'Leary Lab results of persistent measles strain infection in Michelle will stand unaccosted? Will the Zimmerman text book which was disallowed into evidence because of a deadline be allowed to be introduced? Will all the new research that has come to light in the last three years be allowed to be included in Michelle's case? One judge was very concerned with the earnest consideration of "monthly/weekly" new understanding in science of brain behavior. Might she send the case back to the special master with instructions to open the case up to new evidence? We can only wait and see my friends. It may take a month or two.

Ultimately, it was good to hear judges that were real judges, and actually concerned about real ethics and real law, make their voices heard in this arena. Which of course confirms my opinion that the sham of the "vaccine court" should be put to bed and vaccine litigation should be heard by real officers of the court who respect the rule of law rather than a band of (poor) cover up artists trying to make it look like they are actually practicing reason and law. Let's hope the Supreme Court agrees in the fall.

The audio of the hearing can be found here: http://oralarguments.cafc.uscourts.gov/mp3/2010-5004.mp3

Following the hearing, members of our community met to have lunch and talk about the issues. Interviews with many of the attendees, and from EBCALA members, were taped following the hearing will be airing on Autism One Radio. I will post a link when it is up.

For now, pray for Michelle. She and her parents did not attend the hearing today because Michelle's health has deteriorated. Among other struggles she has experienced multiple seizures in the last few days.

At the heart of this case that decides do much, let's not forget that this is about the life and health of a beloved girl. Michelle Cedillo.

UPDATE: Here's a question. Why were Merck's lawyers at the Cedillo appeal?

Contradictory Rulings in the Vaccine Court

[An alternate version of this piece was written in response to an article in Utah Stories.]

Many have cited three cases in which The Health and Human Service's vaccine court ruled out vaccines as a cause of a child's autism, but don't mention the 10 cases (discovered by CBS News) that were won in that court by children with autism.

Three of those 10 families have gone public, The Polings, The Banks and The Hiatts.

The Poling case is the only one that received mainstream media coverage.

Only ten days after we heard that the court said MMR doesn't cause autism, we heard that the same court said that MMR caused Baily Banks autism.

"In his conclusion, Special Master Abell wrote:

The Court found that Bailey's ADEM was both caused-in-fact and proximately caused by his vaccination. It is well-understood that the vaccination at issue can cause ADEM, and the Court found, based upon a full reading and hearing of the pertinent facts in this case, that it did actually cause the ADEM. Furthermore, Bailey's ADEM was severe enough to cause lasting, residual damage, and retarded his developmental progress, which fits under the generalized heading of Pervasive Developmental Delay, or PDD. The Court found that Bailey would not have suffered this delay but for the administration of the MMR vaccine, and that this chain of causation was not too remote, but was rather a proximate sequence of cause and effect leading inexorably from vaccination to Pervasive Developmental Delay.

And he added this:

Petitioner's theory of PDD caused by vaccine-related ADEM causally connects the vaccination and the ultimate injury, and does so by explaining a logical sequence of cause and effect showing that the vaccination was the ultimate reason for the injury.

Shouldn't we be shouting a collective, "WHAT?!" to The Department of Health and Human Services for their contradictory positions?

Here is the thing, when the Department of Health and Human Services puts the Department of Health and Human Services on trial, and the Department of Health and Human Services wins, that is not news. When they put themselves on trial and loose, as in the Poling, Banks and Hiatt cases THAT IS NEWS!

THOSE are the cases we should be demanding answers from the government on.

The Poling family has requested that their daughters case files can be made public so everyone can know the reasoning behind HHS's decision, but HHS isn't sharing any of their insight into WHY Hanna deserves a million 20 million bucks for her vaccine injury.

So let's not boil this debate down to scientist v. tv stars. There are MANY in the scientific and public health community who believe that vaccines are involved in the autism epidemic.

And apparently HHS itself does too because it keeps paying claims for autistic kids.

Please take a moment and check out the VICP's vaccine injury table for yourself. You will note that "encephalopathy" is listed as a compensated injury for DTaP and MMR.

Then scroll down to the middle of the page and look at the symptoms of encephalopathy for 18 month olds:

1. Loss of eye contact
2. Unresponsive to stimuli except for loud shouts
3. Seems disconnected from the world around him

THAT is a description of a child with "autism".

THAT was a description of MY son after his DTaP shot for which he was diagnosed with "autism".

The government has ruled that vaccines do and do not cause autism. Are You ok with that solid, definitive, case closed argument?

I REALLY hope not.

It is time for HHS to make the Poling documents public, and to answer to the public for their untenable, illogical position.

Sharyl Attkisson Reports on the Governmnets "See No Evil" Behavior

CBS is catching on to the fact that the government does not ask the questions that one would naturally ask if they actually wanted to know if and how vaccines cause autism.

And she correctly points out that the question of "Do vaccines cause autism" is now off the table with the Hannah Poling case. The question now in play is "How to vaccines cause autism".

Vaccine Watch
by Sharyl Attkisson
June 19, 2008, 10:34 AM
(AP)

After a decade of denying any possible association between vaccines and autism, the government quietly settled a vaccine-autism case last fall. When news of the case leaked out to the public months later, government officials labelled the case of Hannah Poling an "anomoly." The truth is, nobody is in a position to know whether Hannah's case is an exception. Government officials have told CBS News that they have not tracked vaccine-autism claims to see how many of them might involve children with the same undetected mitochondrial disorder Hannah had... one that may have made her susceptible to side effects from vaccines, triggering her autism. Government officials have also acknowledged to CBS News that they haven't looked for common denominators in other autism-related cases which have been compensated in federal vaccine court. Yes, there are other cases that have been paid. As CBS News has reported, the government has been settling vaccine injuries that resulted in autism and/or autistic symptoms since at least the early 1990's, while at the same time telling the public there is no cause for concern. Not all of the cases are published, but some of them are and can be found by searching legal case databases. That... with the help of some well-placed sources... is how CBS News turned up at least nine more cases... and counting. Considering that only a tiny fraction of vaccine-autism claims find their way to the little-known vaccine court, these cases are just a sampling of the total that may actually exist in the population. Further, according to knowledgeable sources, vaccine injuries compensated in the past due to encephalopathy (or brain damage) "often" resulted in autism, but the autism label was not used. Again, the government does not track how many of the encephalopathy cases involved children who got autism or ADD after their vaccinations.

One important factor is often lost in the discussion of a handful of cases: the fact that the debate has shifted from whether vaccines have any relationship to some cases of autism... to what is the role of vaccines in some cases of autism. And how big is the pool of cases. If vaccines can trigger autism in any way, directly or indirectly, that contradicts all the rhetoric and dogma heard from many public and government health officials for the past decade. And it supports what many other researchers have been saying for a decade, often to deaf ears, even after they published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Which is probably why Hannah's case is resonating under the radar in the medical community. A government conference has now been scheduled for later this month to examine mitochondrial disorders like hers and autism or neurological "triggers" (i.e. vaccines). See below.

Workshop

Mitochondrial Disorders of Childhood: Testing, Potential Relationships to Autism Spectrum Disorders, and Triggers for Neurological Deterioration June 29, 2008

Workshop Goals and Objectives

"Mitochondrial Disorders of Childhood: Testing, Potential Relationships to Autism Spectrum Disorders, and Triggers for Neurological Deterioration" is a workshop to be held on Sunday June 29th after the close of the United Mitochondrial Disease Meeting in Indianapolis at the Hyatt Regency Indianapolis. The workshop will convene 11 experts in mitochondrial disorders or autism to discuss how the neurology of mitochondrial disorders might inform autism research.

The conference is sponsored by a number of Federal agencies including DHHS, CDC, FDA, NINDS and NIMH. Observers are welcome as seating allows.

Location

Hyatt Regency Indianapolis

David Kirby On The Case that Replaced Hannah Poling

The boy who replaced Hannah Poling as a test case in the Vaccine Omnibus Hearings has the same biomarkers for having the "rare" condition that Hannah has.

If the first to thimerosal test cases both just happen to have the same "rare" mitochondrial disorder, then at what point do you have to retract your claim of "rare"?

The Next Vaccine-Autism Newsmaker: Not Isolated, Not Unusual
David Kirby
Huffington Post
April 27, 2008


In February, I leaked news of the Federal government's admission that vaccines had triggered autism in a little girl named Hannah Poling. The stunning revelation, though still reverberating around the world, was roundly downplayed by US officials, who insisted that Hannah had an extremely rare, genetic case of "aggravated" mitochondrial disorder, with zero bearing on other autism cases.

Dr. Julie Gerberding, Director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), rushed to the airwaves, exhorting parents to adhere to the nation's intensive and virtually mandatory immunization schedule, and brushing off their legitimate anxieties by saying: "We've got to set aside this very isolated, unusual situation."

Well, the days of setting aside are over: Hannah Poling is neither isolated nor unusual.

In fact, the boy who was selected to replace Hannah Poling as the first-ever thimerosal "test case" in so-called Vaccine Court, has just been found with many of the same unusual metabolic markers as... you guessed it, Hannah Poling.

Hannah's case was scheduled to be heard in Federal Claims Court on May 12 -- as one of three "test cases" of the theory that thimerosal (a mercury-based vaccine preservative) can cause autism.

Test cases will help address general causation issues in all 4,900 autism claims now pending in Vaccine Court. But following the government concession, Hannah was withdrawn as the first test case of the thimerosal theory, and attorneys scrambled to find a replacement: a young boy from New York.

Last week, however, the court announced that the replacement thimerosal test case was also being withdrawn, in order to "proceed to an individual hearing on a different theory of causation."

That theory, which applies to Hannah as well, maintains that children with dysfunctional mitochondria (the little batteries within each cell that convert food into energy) are susceptible to autistic regression, triggered by a vaccine-induced overtaxing of the immune system.

"We want to pursue an additional theory, not a different theory," the boy's father told me. "We are by no means abandoning the thimerosal theory of causation but, in the context of the test case, the thimerosal theory would have eclipsed our other evidence, including evidence of metabolic dysfunction," such as impaired mitchondria and low cellular energy.

Following the Poling concession, he said, "I saw right away that we needed to pursue the mitochondrial theory,"but the lead attorneys did not see it that way. "Perhaps they did not properly understand the concession, and believed the finding was of a rare, genetically caused mitochondrial disorder," as the government contends. "I think they rightly want to keep clear focus on thimerosal in the test case, and not muddy the presentation with other theories."

The court's test case process is unusual and unwieldy. "They limit the cases to one theory at a time, when the theories are not mutually exclusive," the father said. "For example, thimerosal could cause, contribute to, or aggravate mitochondrial dysfunction. These cases can't be wrapped into neat
little packages."

The unexpected withdrawal of two test cases in a row - both because of their apparent mitochondrial underpinnings - is sure to have larger ramifications in the Court of Federal Claims, as well as the much larger court of public opinion.

A new, additional theory of causation is about to be introduced in Vaccine Court: Vaccines can trigger a chain of events in children with mitochondrial dysfunction that causes autism.

But the US Government now has a major quandary to deal with. Federal officials already conceded that, far from being "theoretical," this chain of events already happened to Hannah Poling. This will make it difficult, if not impossible, to argue against compensating the boy from New York, when compensating a nearly identical case - Hannah Poling - was already deemed appropriate.

Some estimates of mitochondrial dysfunction in children with autism range as high as 20%-30%. But among the regressive subset of cases (virtually all of the claims in Vaccine Court) up to half of the children might show signs of it.

No one knows how many of those families will pursue a similar strategy of individual hearings on causation, based on the mitochondrial concession in the Poling case. But my guess is that there could be hundreds of them, following in the precedent of this case's footsteps. The legal ramifications, inside Vaccine Court and throughout the judicial system, remain incalculable at this point.

Still, when the American public finds out that the exceedingly "rare" Poling case was replaced by what is shaping up to be yet another exceedingly rare case - they will follow the lead of all three presidential candidates and finally reject the tired mantra that, "there is no link" between vaccines and autism.

Then perhaps will end, "One of the most vitriolic debates in medical history," as it is called by Dr. Bernadine Healy, former head of the NIH and the Red Cross. "At some level," she said, the Poling case "was a vindication for families," adding that, "vaccines as a trigger carry a ring of both historical and biological plausibility."

The government is currently examining the national vaccine schedule to see if we are, perhaps, immunizing children too early and too often (and with too much thimerosal from the flu shot).

I personally thought that one Hannah Poling emerging out of Vaccine Court would be enough to
change the way we vaccinate in this country. But now we have two. And there are many more Hannah's out there, waiting to be counted.

NOTE: Today, the UK's Sunday Sun writes about the controversy today, and mentions the second test case being withdrawn.

Jon Poling: Mitochondrial Dysfunction Not Rare In Autism

Dr. Poling suggesting medically defining "Mitochondrial Autism". I have been calling it "Poling Syndrome".

No matter what it is called, "what Hannah has" has been determined by HHS to be a vaccine injury. It is time for the medical community to define it, find what the percentage of kids with it are, screen for it and catch it before it descends into the "symptoms of Autism".

And if the medical authorities won't hear it from me, hear it from Jon Poling:

"As a neurologist, I have cared for those afflicted with SSPE (a rare but dreaded neurological complication of measles), paralytic polio and tetanus. If these serious vaccine-preventable diseases again become commonplace, the fault will rest solely on the shoulders of public health leaders and policymakers who have failed to heed the writing on the wall (scribbled by my 9-year old daughter)."

Reform the vaccine schedule before everyone abandons it.

Father: Child's case shifts autism debate
By Jon S. Poling
For the Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/11/08

Autism in the U.S. has reached epidemic levels, at 1 in 150 children. Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has recently upgraded autism to "an urgent health threat." The most contentious issue of the autism debate is the link to routine childhood vaccines. My daughter's case, Hannah Poling v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has changed this debate forever. Hannah has pointed us in a new and promising direction —- the mitochondria.

On Nov. 9, 2007, HHS medical experts conceded through the Department of Justice that Hannah's autism was triggered by nine childhood vaccinations administered when she was 19 months of age. This concession was granted without any courtroom proceedings or expert testimony, effectively preventing any public hearing discussing what happened to Hannah and why. Contrary to some reports, the Special Masters, "judges" who preside over the "vaccine court," did not issue a decision.

Four months later, on March 6, with trepidation my wife, Terry, and I stepped forward to announce this news —- providing hope and awareness to other families. The HHS expert documents that led to this concession and accompanying court documents remain sealed, though our family has already permitted release of Hannah's records to those representing the almost 5, 000 other autistic children awaiting their day in vaccine court.

Mitochondria key

To understand Hannah's case, it is important to understand mitochondria, which act like batteries in our cells to produce energy critical for normal function. Because the government's concession hinged on the presence of Hannah's underlying medical condition, mitochondrial dysfunction, some claim the decision is relevant to very few other children with autism. As a neurologist, scientist and father, I disagree.

Emerging evidence suggests that mitochondrial dysfunction may not be rare at all among children with autism. In the only population-based study of its kind, Portuguese researchers confirmed that at least 7.2 percent, and perhaps as many as 20 percent, of autistic children exhibit mitochondrial dysfunction. While we do not yet know a precise U.S. rate, 7.2 percent to 20 percent of children does not qualify as "rare." In fact, mitochondrial dysfunction may be the most common medical condition associated with autism.

Biological markers

Although unlikely, if the Portuguese studies are incorrect and mitochondrial dysfunction were found to be a rarity occurring in less than 1 percent of all autism, it would still impact up to 10,000 children (250,000 worldwide), based on current estimates that 1 million people in the U.S. (25 million worldwide) have autism. If, on the other hand, the research showing that 7.2 percent to 20 percent of children with autism have mitochondrial dysfunction is correct, then the implications are both staggering and urgent.

Autism researchers do not currently understand whether mitochondrial dysfunction causes autism or is simply a secondary biological marker. Autism clearly has many different causes, and should really be separated into multiple autism(s). I propose that we clearly identify and research the subpopulation term of "mitochondrial autism," which is distinguished by its unique biological, but not genetic, markers.

Based on what we know now, it is time to follow the prestigious Institute of Medicine 2004 report regarding autism and vaccines:

"Determining a specific cause (for autism) in the individual is impossible unless the etiology is known and there is a biological marker. Determining causality with population-based methods requires either a well-defined at-risk population or a large effect in the general population."

A paradigm shift

When the IOM report was published, mitochondrial dysfunction defining an autistic subpopulation was not firmly established. Today there is no doubt that mitochondrial dysfunction represents a distinct autism subpopulation biological marker. I urge health officials and the IOM to embrace their own report and pursue this breakthrough in the science of autism. National public health leaders, including those at CDC, must now recognize the paradigm shift caused by this biological marker with regard to their current position of dispelling a vaccine-autism link.

In light of the Hannah Poling concession, science must determine more precisely how large the mitochondrial autism subpopulation is: 1 percent, 7.2 percent, 20 percent?

Based on the 2004 IOM analysis, if the mitochondrial autism subpopulation is found to be relatively uncommon, then all conclusions from prior epidemiological studies refuting an autism-vaccination link must be discarded. New studies then need to be performed exclusively with the mitochondrial subpopulation. If mitochondrial autism turns out to be common, then we could re-analyze the data from prior studies to determine if these studies were powered sufficiently based on a predicted effect size. If not powered appropriately, the conclusion refuting an autism-vaccine link would again have to be rejected. These statistical concepts are basic.

The current vaccine schedule, co-sponsored by the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics, injures a small but significant minority of children, my daughter unfortunately being one of those victims. Every day, more parents and some pediatricians reject the current vaccine schedule. In an abundance of caution, meaningful reform must be performed urgently to prevent the re-emergence of serious diseases like polio or measles.

Need for research

As a neurologist, I have cared for those afflicted with SSPE (a rare but dreaded neurological complication of measles), paralytic polio and tetanus. If these serious vaccine-preventable diseases again become commonplace, the fault will rest solely on the shoulders of public health leaders and policymakers who have failed to heed the writing on the wall (scribbled by my 9-year old daughter).

The mitochondrial autism scenario that my daughter has so eloquently painted has the CDC and public health experts logically cornered. Denial and fear tactics won't close Pandora's Box. Whether we find that mitochondrial autism is rare or common, there is urgent research left to be done to fully understand the interrelationship of vaccines, autism and mitochondria.

Reform of the vaccine schedule will be an important part of the solution, whether vaccines play a major or minor role in autism. Our public health agencies and programs need a reconstruction plan. Day one of the reconstruction hopefully starts at the Vaccine Safety Advisory Committee's Working Group, to be held at HHS headquarters today in Washington.

Dr. Jon S. Poling is a practicing neurologist in Athens and clinical assistant professor at the Medical College of Georgia.

US News and World Report Gets Reasonable

Dr. Healy ends with a great point about the IOM 'show's over, nothing to see here, move along decision'. It is almost like the IOM didn't want our advance our understanding.

UPDATE: Dan Olmsted's comments from AOA:

"More and more mainstream experts are standing up for the vaccine court and Hannah Poling and her parents -- and deserve our thanks and support. The latest is Dr. Bernadine Healy. Her bio from U.S. News & World Report, where the article we're pointing out is appearing in the current issue: "Dr. Bernadine Healy is Health Editor for U.S.News & World Report and writes the On Health column. She is a member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and has served as director of the National Institutes of Health and president and CEO of the American Red Cross."

Here's the beauty part from her column: "Pediatricians were concerned enough about mercury, which is known to cause neurological damage in developing infant and fetal brains, that they mobilized to have thimerosal removed from childhood vaccines by 2002. Their concern was not autism but the lunacy of injecting mercury into little kids through mandated vaccines that together exceeded mercury safety guidelines designed for adults."

So by definition, the former head of the NIH says people like Paul Offit -- who calls it a mistake to take mercury out -- and organizations like the CDC, the World Health Organization and their ilk who are keeping mercury in flu shots in the U.S. and in standard immunizations around the world ... the former head of the NIH says they're lunatic(s).

That's about as harsh as anything we've ever said, isn't it? -- Dan Olmsted"

Fighting the Autism-Vaccine War
US News and World Report
By Bernadine Healy M.D.
Posted April 10, 2008

One of the most vitriolic debates in medical history is just beginning to have its day in court—vaccine court, that is. Without laying blame, the independent Office of Special Masters of the Court of Federal Claims—with a 20-year record of handling vaccine matters—recently conceded that the brain damage and autistic behavior of Hannah Poling stemmed from her exposure as a toddler to five vaccinations on one day in July 2000. Two days later, she was overtaken by a high fever and an encephalopathy that deteriorated into autistic behavior. Even though autism has a strong genetic basis, and she has a coexisting rare mitochondrial disorder, I would not be too quick to dismiss Hannah as an anomaly.

At some level, the decision was a vindication for families who have been battling with the vaccine community, arguing that some poorly understood reaction to components of vaccines or their mercury-based preservative, thimerosal, could cause brain injury. Yes, vaccines are extraordinarily safe and bring huge public health benefit. (Remember the 1950s polio epidemics?) But vaccine experts tend to look at the population as a whole, not at individual patients. And population studies are not granular enough to detect individual metabolic, genetic, or immunological variation that might make some children under certain circumstances susceptible to neurological complications after vaccination.

A trigger? Families are not alone in searching for a trigger that might explain why autism and autism spectrum disorders have skyrocketed; now they reportedly affect about 1 in 150 kids. No doubt some of the increase is soft, due to broader diagnostic criteria, greater awareness, and—now that the notion of a detached "refrigerator" mom as a cause has blessedly fallen by the wayside—greater openness. But the rise of this disorder, which shows up before age 3, happens to coincide with the increased number and type of vaccine shots in the first few years of life. So as a trigger, vaccines carry a ring of both historical and biological plausibility.

Go back 40 or 50 years. The medical literature is replete with reports of neurological reactions to vaccines, such as mood changes, seizures, brain inflammation, and swelling. Several hundred cases of the paralytic illness Guillain-Barré after the swine flu vaccine were blamed on the government and gave Gerald Ford heartburn—but eventually led to the vaccine court.

Pediatricians were concerned enough about mercury, which is known to cause neurological damage in developing infant and fetal brains, that they mobilized to have thimerosal removed from childhood vaccines by 2002. Their concern was not autism but the lunacy of injecting mercury into little kids through mandated vaccines that together exceeded mercury safety guidelines designed for adults. But as in all things vaccine, this move too was contentious. Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization remain unconvinced that thimerosal puts young children at risk.

There is no evidence that removal of thimerosal from vaccines has lowered autism rates. But autism numbers are not precise, so I would say that considerably more research is still needed on some provocative findings. After all, thimerosal crosses the placenta, and pregnant women are advised to get flu shots, which often contain it. Studies in mice suggest that genetic variation influences brain sensitivity to the toxic effects of mercury. And a primate study designed to mimic vaccination in infants reported in 2005 that thimerosal may clear from the blood in a matter of days but leaves inorganic mercury behind in the brain.

The debate roils on—even about research. The Institute of Medicine in its last report on vaccines and autism in 2004 said that more research on the vaccine question is counterproductive: Finding a susceptibility to this risk in some infants would call into question the universal vaccination strategy that is a bedrock of immunization programs and could lead to widespread rejection of vaccines. The IOM concluded that efforts to find a link between vaccines and autism "must be balanced against the broader benefit of the current vaccine program for all children."

Wow. Medicine has moved ahead only because doctors, researchers, and yes, families, have openly challenged even the most sacred medical dogma. At the risk of incurring the wrath of some of my dearest colleagues, I say thank goodness for the vaccine court.

Julie Gerberding Admits on CNN that Vaccines can Trigger Autism

This weekend Julie Gerberding, the head of the CDC, appeared on Dr. Sanjay Gupta's show, House Call, and explained that vaccines can trigger autism in a vulnerable subset of children. This is the claim that parents like me have been making since at least the 80's, and have been dismissed and even mocked for making it.

But no one in the main stream media seems to have noticed. Not even CNN. Not even Dr. Gupta who was sitting right in front of her.

[Video updated 4/2/08]





Apparently, if you dress in soft pink and speak in dulcet, reassuring tones, you can indict yourself in the biggest international health crisis of the times and not even your interviewer will notice.

It is time for Dr. Gerberding to be forced to give cogent answers to the difficult questions that it is her responsibility to truthfully address. From all I have seen, it will take an act of Congress to do it.

I am joining Hannah Poling's parents in calling for the immediate release of the Poling case documents, and calling for congressional hearings into the autism cases in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

This obfuscation and double speak must end.


*For more on this interview, read these:

An Invitation to Julie Gerberding to Help Her Find the Missing Information on Autism

Wait! Did Julie Gerberding Just Admit that Vaccines Trigger Autism!?

David Kirby on Ring of Fire

http://www.adventuresinautism.com/images/AirAmericaKirby032208.mp3

The Spectator: Another Piece in the Jigsaw

They are catching on to Hannah's story in the UK.

Another piece in the jigsaw?
22 March 2008
Melanie Phillips
The Spectator


A propos the Wakefield affair discussed in my post below, a recent case in America should not pass without comment. In a landmark ruling, the US Court of Federal Claims, Office of the Special Master, under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Programme, conceded a vaccine injury to a child from Georgia who, having been developing normally until she received multiple vaccinations, subsequently developed serious brain and body disorders.

Nine year-old Hannah Poling, who at 18 months was recorded by paediatricians as meeting all her developmental milestones, was then given no fewer than five vaccinations in one day — DTaP, Hib, MMR, Varivax, and IPV. Id — following which she suffered a catastrophic breakdown in brain and bodily functions, regressing in language and social development and with persistent gut problems. The court ruled that

the vaccinations CHILD received on July 19, 2000 significantly aggravated an underlying mitochondrial disorder, which predisposed her to deficits in cellular energy metabolism, and manifested as a regressive encephalopathy with features of autism spectrum disorder.

Writing in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, journalist David Kirby goes further and says:

The November report said Hannah's vaccine reaction had ‘manifested’ as early-onset brain disease, with ‘features of autism spectrum disorder.’ But the February report is more blunt. It says that Hannah's vaccines ‘caused’ her ‘autistic’ brain disease.

This ruling is the first time a causal link has been established between childhood vaccines and autistic spectrum disorder. It is important to note straightaway an important point of difference from the MMR controversy in the UK. This child’s immune system collapsed not as a result of MMR alone but because she received multiple vaccinations in one day, including the MMR triple jab.

Precisely what caused Hannah Poling’s catastrophic reaction, therefore, cannot be established. We don't know whether it was one of these vaccines or the fact that they were in combination. Nevertheless, this case should not be dismissed as having no relevance. These vaccines did include MMR, and the symptoms she displayed bear remarkable similarities to those reported by countless parents in the MMR controversy. Despite the differences, the significance for the MMR controversy is that this ruling established for the first time that a hitherto unknown problem with a child’s cellular system caused a catastrophic reaction in that child to a vaccination schedule, including delivery of the already multiple MMR, that has produced no ill-effects in other children. This suggests that, in some children, multiple vaccines overload immune systems that are particularly vulnerable.

In America, the health authorities are dismissing this ruling as a one-off with no further significance. But surely it suggests instead that urgent questions now demonstrably need to be asked about both the safety of these these childhood vaccines in themselves and the policy, so dear to the medical establishment on both sides of the Atlantic, of multiplying the number of vaccines delivered simultaneously to small children?

Kirby in AJC: Give Us Answers On Vaccines

New Poling Case documents are surfacing which inform us that, "Hannah's autism was caused by vaccine-induced fever and overstimulation of her immune system, according to court documents."

That is NOT what Julie Gerberding told us out side of the CDC two weeks ago.

Keep those calls to the White House up. 202-456-1414 Ask them when they are going to get HHS to release all the documents from the Poling case and all the other cases in Vaccine court.

Running tomorrow in the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

Give us answers on vaccines
By DAVID KIRBY
Published on: 03/20/08

By now, many parents in America have heard of the Hannah Poling court case. They know the government has acknowledged that vaccines contributed to autism in at least one little girl from Georgia. Understandably, they are worried, and they want answers.

But instead of frank talk from leading health officials, their concerns are being met with stonewalling, denial and misinformation.

By refusing to address what really happened to Hannah — by commanding parents to settle down and adhere to the nation's rigid immunization regime — officials will only drive people away from vaccines in anxiety-ridden droves.

But what if we could test children for underlying conditions that might increase their risk of vaccine injury and autism? And what if we allowed those at risk to slightly delay and spread out their shots?

It's a difficult, but not impossible, proposition. And I believe doing so would reduce the rate of autism, seizure disorders and even asthma in some children. And we would boost vaccination rates by restoring faith in the nation's teetering immunization program.

Why do I say this? New documents have surfaced in the Poling case that shine more light on how Hannah's vaccine injury led to autism.

A government document filed in the case last November conceded that Hannah's vaccines had aggravated an underlying disorder of the mitochondria. Mitochondria are the tiny powerhouses within each cell that convert food and oxygen into energy. Government officials acknowledged that Hannah's disorder led to a condition known as low cellular energy metabolism, which was aggravated by vaccines and ultimately led to an autism diagnosis.

It was a tantalizing admission but did little to explain just how the vaccines had aggravated the disorder or caused autism.

But on Feb. 21, the U.S. government made a second, unpublicized concession in the case. In addition to triggering autism, officials now admitted, Hannah's vaccines had also led to her "seizure disorder," or epilepsy.

And there was more. The November document claimed that Hannah had a mitochondrial "disorder." But by February, this was modulated to a mere mitochondrial "dysfunction."

That's because Hannah's underlying condition was asymptomatic and most likely environmentally acquired. It was not some rare, grave, inherited disease that would have progressed to autism anyway, as many officials contend.

The November report said Hannah's vaccine reaction had "manifested" as early-onset brain disease, with "features of autism spectrum disorder."

But the February report is more blunt. It says that Hannah's vaccines "caused" her "autistic" brain disease.

But the real bombshell was this: Hannah's autism was caused by vaccine-induced fever and overstimulation of her immune system, according to court documents. Her low cellular energy and reduced metabolic reserves, due to mitochondrial dysfunction, were overstressed by the contents of nine vaccines (including mercury) at once.

The Cleveland Clinic defines low cellular energy metabolism disorder this way: "The process of converting food and oxygen (fuel) into energy requires hundreds of chemical reactions, and each chemical reaction must run almost perfectly in order to have a continuous supply of energy. When one or more components of these chemical reactions does not run perfectly, there is an energy crisis, and the cells cannot function normally. As a result, the incompletely burned food might accumulate as poison inside the body."

The cause of Hannah's mitochondrial dysfunction is up for debate, though ample evidence exists to implicate heavy metals in air, water, food and vaccines as possible suspects. But the government has acknowledged that low cellular energy can increase the risk of immune system overdrive, and regression into autism.

Now, one would think that investigating — and preventing — such vaccine-induced overstimulation in susceptible children would be a top priority of health officials. But it is not.

Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has vowed to "adamantly" enforce the one-size-fits-all vaccine schedule, no matter what happened to Hannah and other kids like her.

Frantic parents, desperate for answers, were admonished by Gerberding to "set aside this very isolated, unusual situation" in so-called Vaccine Court, even though "the court apparently made the decision that it is fair to say that vaccinations may have been one of the precipitators."

Gerberding was either grossly misinformed, or lying.

To begin with, this "decision" was not made by the court at all, but by medical personnel working for the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Gerberding's boss.

More important, the Poling case is neither isolated nor unusual. At least 12 other autism-related claims have been paid out in Vaccine Court to date, and perhaps hundreds more cases like Hannah's are pending.

Most striking is how typical Hannah's cellular dysfunction may be among children with autism. While extremely rare in the general population, at two per 10,000 people, it seems unusually common in autism — with estimates up to 2,000 per 10,000.

Many opinion leaders are calling on the government to release all relevant documents leading to the Poling concessions. The family has waived all claims to privacy, and the public has a right to know.

For now, all we have is the CDC Web site, which says that "simultaneous vaccination with multiple vaccines has no adverse effect on the normal childhood immune system."

But did Hannah have a "normal" immune system? Are other kids out there also metabolically primed for overstimulation from too many shots at once? Should their vaccines be spread out?

Instead of answers, we get adamant silence. This is not a matter of national security. It's a national emergency. Millions of parents are anxiously waiting for their government to tell them what the hell is going on.

• David Kirby, an investigative journalist, is author of "Evidence of Harm – Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic: A Medical Controversy"

Vaccine Omnibus Hearings Test Case #3 Concludes

Kent Heckenlively, Esq., who is THE man following every word of the hearings for the autism community, files his final report on Snyder v. the Secretary of Health and Human Services in THE SHORT GOOD-BYE: DAY 21 AUTISM OMNIBUS HEARING

A special thanks to Kent for using his legal ear and parents heart to bring us Colten Synder's story over at the Age of Autism.

The Beginning of the End of Vaccine/Autism Secrecy

If this does not signal the new direction that things are going... I don't know what does. The man overseeing the Vaccine Injury court is inviting David Kirby and possibly some of his detractors, to have a chat about autism and vaccines in front of lots and lots of judges.

The light shining on all this is getting brighter and brighter.

From David Kirby:

I have been contacted by Justice Gary Golkiewicz, the Chief Special Master of the US Court of Federal Claims, who personally called to invite me to speak at the Court’s Annual Judicial Conference, to be held on November 19 in Washington, DC.

I will be on a panel to discuss the Autism Omnibus Proceedings (I imagine by then there will be more Hannah Polings in the headlines by then) and its impact on the vaccine-autism debate in the country.

I think it’s safe to say that the court’s impact, so far, has been considerable.

Dr. Roy Grinker and Arthur Allen were mentioned as other possible panel members, and I welcome their participation at the conference. I imagine it will be a well-attended and interesting discussion.

I know it’s quite some time from now, but it just got confirmed and I thought you all might like to know.

PS: Stay tuned, there is another big news story coming out next week that should stir up the airwaves all over again.


Cheers

DK

CJR: The Wrong Debate Over Autism

IMHO: Mr. Juskalin misses the point a bit here.

Instead of "Why focusing on thimerosal misses a larger story", I think it would be more accurate to say, "Why focusing on thimerosal is the tip of a larger story"

Most autism looks to be derived from a toxic insult, of which vaccines are likely the worst offender, and of the ingredients of which mercury is most likely the worst offender.

The questions at the conclusion are important, but they have pretty much been answered. And those answers are leading to recovered children. It is hard to argue with results.

The Wrong Debate Over Autism
Why focusing on thimerosal misses a larger story

By Russ Juskalian Tue 11 Mar 2008 10:51 AM

Columbia Journalism Review

Back in 2005, CJR published a story by Daniel Schulman about media coverage of "whether a mercury-containing vaccine" preservative called thimerosal was to blame for an alarming spike in autism cases among a generation of children. Last summer, yet another study was released that showed no link between autism and vaccinations, and last week came news of a lawsuit settlement that required a girl's medical costs to be covered by the government after she was diagnosed with a rare mitchochondria disorder and autistic symptoms related to receiving nine vaccinations in one day. Clearly, the debate rages on, so we decided to take another look at the press-coverage landscape.

Schulman concluded in his piece that the media had been too quick to close the door on the potential link between thimerosal and autism. "[W]ith science left to be done and scientists eager to do it, it seems too soon for the press to shut the door on the debate," he wrote. He cited stories like a New York Times piece by Gardiner Harris and Anahad O'Connor in June of the same year, with the headline: "On Autism's Cause, It's Parents vs. Research".

Schulman, now an editor at Mother Jones, noted that while the vast majority of studies appeared to disprove a vaccine link to autism, there were serious researchers (notably Dr. Mady Hornig and Dr. Ezra Susser, both epidemiologists at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health; Richard Deth, a Northeastern University pharmacologist; and Jill James, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Arkansas) who supported the possibility that environmental factors—and perhaps thimerosal in vaccinations—could at least be triggers for autism in predisposed populations that might otherwise not have developed the disorder.

(It's a lot like the global warming debate in reverse: almost every major study said there was no credence to the autism-vaccine link, but there were, and still are, a few credible voices out there saying the case isn't closed.)

So, where are we now?

Last summer, a report on vaccinations and neurological problems in children was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and the vaccine-autism debate got a little more fuel. Depending on which side of the fence you stand, the argument can be made that coverage of this report was good or bad. Autism is a touchstone issue, so it was often mentioned in headlines and stories, even if only to note that the study itself was not focused on autism.

A sample of stories and headlines from September 27, 2007, paints a picture:

Newsday: "CDC: Vaccines are safe; Though autism was not a focus, study says mercury preservative in shots did not cause neurological problems"

Federal health officials yesterday reassured parents that childhood vaccines are safe and that kids who got routine immunizations a decade ago when shots contained a controversial mercury preservative are not at risk of neurological problems….An investigation examining autism and thimerosal, the preservative that once was added to common vaccines, is expected to be published within 12 months, scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said yesterday.

The New York Times: "Vaccine Compound Is Harmless, Study Says, as Autism Debate Rages"

Yet another study has found that a controversial vaccine preservative appears to be harmless. But the study is unlikely to end the increasingly charged debate about vaccine safety.

The Globe and Mail (Canada): "Vaccine preservative can cause tics; But according to U.S. research, thimerosal does not appear harmful to kids' learning skills or physical abilities"

"The scientific literature to date does not support a causal link between autism and thimerosal, but it's important to say this study isn't of autism," she said. "There's a separate CDC study ongoing that's going to get at that question to provide more information."

Even more recently, the issue of an autism-vaccine link came up in response to a settlement involving the government and nine-year-old Hannah Poling. Poling started showing symptoms typical of autism shortly after receiving a bundle of vaccinations when she was a toddler. The government decided that Poling's vaccinations, given on top of a rare metabolic disorder, caused her problems.

The headlines this time covered broader ground: KHBS Fort Smith, "Vaccine-Autism Link Unproven By Controversial Georgia Case"; Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "Ga. girl helps link autism to childhood vaccines"; The New York Times, "Deal in an Autism Case Fuels Debate on Vaccine".

Not even John McCain could let this one go by as was noted by Benedict Carey in the Times, in a piece titled, "Into the Fray Over the Cause of Autism":

"It's indisputable that autism is on the rise among children," Senator John McCain said while campaigning recently in Texas. "The question is, What's causing it? And we go back and forth, and there's strong evidence that indicates that it's got to do with a preservative in vaccines."

With that comment, Mr. McCain marked his entry into one of the most politicized scientific issues in a generation.

It appears that Schulman was on to something when he claimed the media had taken too narrow a tack on the autism-vaccine link issue. But he, too, may have had his keyboard aimed in the wrong place.

The problem with the coverage was not that the few credible opposition voices didn't receive balanced coverage, but rather that the whole issue of whether vaccines containing thimerosal or mercury cause autism served as a distraction from the ongoing efforts to tease apart the causes of this enigmatic disorder. That's not to say the vaccine issue shouldn't be covered at all, but that there are many more important—if less emotionally driven—questions related to autism that deserve further investigation.

Is autism caused by environmental factors? Can it be triggered by these factors? How does epidemiology try to solve these riddles? Are some people genetically predisposed to respond to environmental factors (like mercury)? Can we find a way to screen for these predispositions (like Poling's metabolic condition)? What else is in our environment that poses a risk?

Lest we forget about the long list of environmental contaminants that have been pointed out going back to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, the AP just released its own investigation that found a wide array of pharmaceuticals in tap water across America. A potent reminder that while important, the vaccination story is only one part of a bigger issue.

Schulman is right about one thing: when we simplify science to "yes" or "no" questions the repercussions can be dangerous. And simply because a few scientist are in the minority does not mean their careers and their work should be dismissed with the wave of a hand.

We may never find an answer to the autism-vaccine debate that satisfies everyone—and that's okay. Science pushes on, and the myriad questions about autism will continue to be researched long after the last mercury-containing inoculation is administered.

The New York Times Wakes Up!

Wow!

The NYT, the most hostile publication to the vaccine/autism connection out there, that has denigrated parents like me for years, has just called for the VCIP cases to be unsealed!

The times they are a-changin!

A Puzzling Autism Case
Editorial
Published: March 11, 2008

The federal government’s concession that vaccines may have triggered brain deterioration with symptoms like autism in a young girl is sure to exacerbate concerns among parents worried about immunizations. It is imperative that the court for vaccine compensation unseal documents involved in this unusual case so that experts, families and their doctors can better understand exactly how Hannah Poling, now 9 years old, came to be harmed after receiving a battery of shots when she was a toddler.

For years medical authorities have been assuring us that sound epidemiological studies showed that vaccines and a mercury preservative once widely used in them were not implicated in causing autism, a condition characterized by lack of social skills, problems with communication and repetitive behaviors. That almost certainly remains true for the vast majority of youngsters.

Hannah’s case was complicated by a rare disorder that can deprive the brain of needed energy and cause neurological deterioration. When Hannah’s case was submitted to a federal vaccine compensation program, the government settled before the evidence was argued in a hearing. Government medical personnel apparently found that the vaccinations aggravated the underlying disorder. An alternative theory — that the vaccines may have caused the disorder — is viewed skeptically by government experts.

Top health officials are still urging parents to get their children vaccinated, and with good reason. All children deserve protection against infectious diseases, and even youngsters with these rare disorders may be at risk of neurological deterioration if they contract one of the diseases that vaccines protect them against.

It will be important to develop the best possible medical guidance for youngsters with rare defects. That effort would be enhanced if the government makes public all relevant documents in this puzzling case.

David Kirby's comments:

Stay tuned, this just got a LOT more interesting

I have been talking to lots of people over there, former colleagues and the like, for weeks

I am not taking credit for this! The Times moves at its own pace. But obviously, someone over there is paying attention

Let’s hope the FEDS release all the Poling documents – I know there will be pressure coming from Congress to do so as well

AND there is other activity going on behind the scenes right now on Capital Hill that will really shake things up, when it breaks.

Last year, an IOM panel warned senior staff at the CDC to get legal counsel. Boy, are they going to need it.

I think this long story is about to begin its final act.


DK

Bush Administration Does Not Want VCIP Cases Made Public

UPDATE: Apparently this was an article from 2002 that was reprinted last week. So if 6 years ago they were trying to get the records sealed, why? There is no link right? What do they have to hide? Why do they need to control the information again? Because there is no link, right?

We see the governments true colors. They have pretended for two decades that there is no link and "pity the distressed parents who need someone to blame" and "shows over, nothing to see here".

But apparently there is something to see!

Because the Department of Justice is going to a lot of trouble to keep you from seeing it.

And what is with their argument "that allowing their automatic disclosure would take away the right of federal agencies to decide when and how the material should be released"?

Do they have the right to control the information? Says who? If these families want the information out there, then how can it possibly be legal for them to keep them secret?

HHS going to claim that they have the RIGHT to keep secrets documents that may incriminate them and prove they have been perjuring themselves over and over???!!!

Not Acceptable!

Government Requests Vaccine Records Be Sealed
Posted by Todd Zwillich Thursday, March 6th at 7:00 AM

Attorneys for the Bush Administration asked a federal court on Monday to order that documents on hundreds of cases of autism allegedly caused by childhood vaccines be kept from the public.

Department of Justice lawyers asked a special master in the US Court of Federal Claims to seal the documents, arguing that allowing their automatic disclosure would take away the right of federal agencies to decide when and how the material should be released.

Attorneys for the families of hundreds of autistic children charged that the government was trying to keep the information out of civil courts, where juries might be convinced to award large judgments against vaccine manufacturers. . . .

"A well placed source high up in the DC power elite writes ..."

Interesting tidbit from David Kirby.

So when will people start going on the record?

"Interesting analysis from an extremely well connected, high-powered official inside the Beltway. This was sent to me last night. .

I am now getting all kinds of fascinating messages from all over the world, ever since the Poling story aired.

Who knew the woodwork could hold so much stuff?

= DK"

I've thought about why the govt would concede. You know there were many many meetings between govt and pharma and all concerned before this concession. It was no oversight or accident. And I believe it's because they know they had lost this strong case (with the dad a neurologist no less) and felt like if they "Lost" one of the "landmark" group of autism cases it would make a bigger splash/precedent. But if they "admitted" it (rather than "lost" it) and get it out of the big group of autism test cases, they could spin it as a strange "exception" not a "precedent" etc.

Either way they were screwed, so they went for the path that they hoped would make the least splash (knowing it would make SOME splash either way). They're probably right. If a "decision" had come down in vaccine court that the govt "lost" a test case it might have been even bigger -- and more difficult to spin. But it looks like either way the genie is out of the bottle. They know this.

I wish I could get to all those emails flying now as to the plans on what to do. Of course that's assuming they haven't had a plan ready for a long long time. I believe they've known since 99 this was coming (if not earlier) and have been working on strategy and presentation for when it all came out.

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.

CBS: Sharyl Attkisson speaks to Rep. Dave Weldon About the Poling Case

Jenny McCarthy Calls For Julie Gerberding's Resignation

And she is not alone.

A number of different people have been calling for her ouster for a while now. Most significantly many from inside the CDC

I’m asking all parents and autism groups to join me in demanding Julie Gerberding’s immediate resignation as Director of the CDC.

On Monday, March 10th, beginning at 9:00am Eastern Daylight Time, let’s all start calling the White House and ask President Bush & Laura Bush to demand Julie Gerberding’s resignation for incompetence during the autism epidemic. The White House switchboard can be reached at:

202-456-1414

Also, on the same day, please call your local Congressperson and Senators from your state and ask them to call for her resignation, too.

Julie Gerberding has led the CDC for 6 years during a time when the autism epidemic has only gotten worse. Despite tens of thousands of children who declined just like Hannah Poling, Ms. Gerberding stood before cameras yesterday defiant, cold, and defensive. Where is her humanity in the face of such tragedy? Why couldn’t she have said, “We at CDC want to make sure what happened to Hannah doesn’t happen to any other children, we want to make vaccines safe”?

Rather than listen to the heartbreaking stories of so many parents, you can be sure that Ms. Gerberding is spending her time right now trying to get the Spin Machine up and running to minimize, confuse, and deceive the American public.

The autism epidemic won’t end until we fix the vaccine schedule by reducing total vaccines, separating shots, waiting until our kids are older to begin shots, greening our vaccines, and screening for at-risk kids. Ms Gerberding has stood by and watched self-interested parties more than triple our vaccine schedule and I’m certain her inactivity to help our kids will continue.

The chances of Ms. Gerberding taking the radical steps to reform the CDC and reform our vaccine schedule to make it kid-safe are zero! We need a new CDC Director who is an open-minded reformer and who recognizes that we are experiencing an epidemic of autism, which Ms. Gerberding has never publicly admitted.

Please, parents and national autism organizations, let’s all help make our voices heard on Monday.

Thank you,

Jenny McCarthy

The Polings on Good Morning America