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| Vaccines in the News |
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| Media coverage about vaccines and vaccine-preventable diseases |
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| Poling case |
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| Court Hears More Claims of Vaccine-Autism Link |
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| New York Times |
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| May 13, 2008 |
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| "The United States Court of Federal Claims began another hearing on Monday to decide whether a vaccine additive led thousands of children to become autistic. The hearing is the second in a series of three in which the court is considering whether the government should pay millions of dollars to the parents of some 4,800 autistic children. In this hearing, parents are claiming that thimerosal, a preservative that contains mercury, damaged their children’s brains. Thimerosal was removed from all routinely administered childhood vaccines by 2001..." |
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| Op-ed: Autism and Vaccines--A Careless Ruling |
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| Author: Paul A. Offit, MD |
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| Dallas Morning News |
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| April 7, 2008 |
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| "On March 6, Terry and Jon Poling stood outside a federal courthouse in Atlanta with their 9-year-old daughter, Hannah, and announced that the federal government had admitted that vaccines contributed to her autism. The news was shocking. Health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and at the American Academy of Pediatrics have steadfastly assured the public that vaccines do not cause autism. Now, in a special vaccine claims court, the federal government appeared to have said exactly the opposite. What happened?.." |
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| Op-ed: Decision May Undermine Years of Vaccine Progress |
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| The Denver Post |
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| April 2, 2008 |
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| "It wasn't so long ago that Colorado had the shameful distinction of being last in the nation in childhood immunization rates. Thankfully, much has improved since then. But a recent decision by the nation's so-called vaccine court has motivated the nation's anti-vaccination contingent and has the potential to undo the good progress that has been made. The case involved vaccinations administered to Hannah Poling, a Georgia girl who was 19 months old at the time. She fell ill and later developed autism-like symptoms. Eventually, she was found to have a disorder in her mitochondria, the power sources for cells..." |
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| Vaccine Court's Ruling Adds to Confusion over Autism Link |
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| American Medical News |
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| April 1, 2008 |
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| "Physicians are being called upon, once again, to address concerns about the safety of childhood vaccines. This time families' queries are driven by a special vaccine court's decision to pay for the care of a young girl injured by vaccines. The court ruled last fall that 9-year-old Hannah Poling's underlying mitochondrial disorder was aggravated by the shots which she received as a toddler and resulted in brain dysfunction and "features of autism spectrum disorder..." |
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| Op-ed: Inoculated Against Facts |
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| Author: Paul A. Offit, MD |
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| New York Times |
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| March 31, 2008 |
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| "On March 6, Terry and Jon Poling stood outside a federal courthouse in Atlanta, Ga., with their 9-year-old daughter Hannah and announced that the federal government had admitted that vaccines had contributed to her autism. The news was shocking. Health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and at the American Academy of Pediatrics have steadfastly assured the public that vaccines do not cause autism. Now, in a special vaccine claims court, the federal government appeared to have said exactly the opposite. What happened?..." |
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| Op-ed: Fear over Vaccines and Autism |
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| Author: Ned Calonge, MD |
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| Denver Post |
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| March 30, 2008 |
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| "Vaccinations do not cause autism. Certainly, we are past due in dedicating the appropriate resources to look for the potential causes — and in identifying effective therapies — for the very serious condition of autism. But the March "Vaccine Court" decision, a single legal settlement involving an unfortunate child suffering from a rare heritable disorder, serves as an unnecessary distraction from this course. The worst decision parents could make as a result of this isolated event would be to avoid immunizing their children against serious childhood disease, where the risks are real and proven..." |
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| What the Poling Autism Case Means |
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| Author: Rahul Parikh, MD |
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| Salon.com |
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| March 13, 2008 |
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| "For the past decade, advocacy groups have claimed that vaccines cause autism, a behavior and language disorder, in children. At the center of the debate is a compound called thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that was used in most vaccines until around 2001. Many of the advocates, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in Salon, have accused doctors, drug companies and the federal government of hiding the truth about thimerosal and its connection to autism..." |
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| Op-ed: A Puzzling Autism Case |
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| New York Times |
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| March 11, 2008 |
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| "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..." |
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| Case Stokes Debate About Autism, Vaccines |
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| National Public Radio |
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| March 7, 2008 |
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| "The case of 9-year-old Hannah Poling may now affect the fate of a program that was created to compensate families whose children suffer rare injuries that are definitively linked to vaccines..." |
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