Vaccine court finds no link to autism

[Silent3]

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/03/12/vaccine.court.ruling.autism/

Washington (CNN) -- A federal court ruled Friday that the evidence supporting an alleged causal link between autism and a mercury-containing preservative in vaccines is unpersuasive, and that the families of children diagnosed with autism are not entitled to compensation.

Special masters of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims released more than 600 pages of findings after reviewing three test cases and finding all the claims wanting.

More at link.

Of course, this can't be anything other than a conspiracy of vested interests.

[xchrom]

1. ...

[TheWraith]

2. I find it depressing that some people still believe this shit.

When something has been disproven so many times, you'd think even the most hard-core followers would LET IT GO.

[laconicsax]

5. It's a religion.

Anti-vaccinationism is a religion. Maybe not a conventional one, but it's certainly a belief system with its own practices, rituals, and prophets.

[longship]

3. Yawn! Old news

Andrew Wakefield, the UK physician who was exposed for fraud and struck off the Medical Register, which basically means he lost the right to practice medicine in the UK. (See link at top of this post for the details.)

Wakefield was the origin of the autism/vaccination rubbish. Unfortunately, whereas the science has moved on, the loonies have not. People like Jenny McCarthy (a well known "intellectual" who first came to notoriety as a Playboy Playmate of the Year, later as the woman who picked boogers on MTV, who first claimed her son was an Indigo Child) have endorsed Wakefield, who since his medical career has been destroyed in the UK, has brought his bullshit to the USA where DSHEA has become the law of the land and allows all sorts of quackery to be promoted without any basis in reality.

[Sgent]

6. Don't forget

that he was paid by trial lawyers for his results.

[LeftishBrit]

7. True, but the True Believers still think Wakefield is a saint and martyr

And is being persecuted by profit-driven medicine, despite the fact that in order to save his career, he had to move from a country with (so far) single-payer healthcare to a place more friendly to profit-driven medicine.

[laconicsax]

4. Well, whadda you know.

How long before an anti-vaxer starts screaming about Hannah Poling or Bailey Banks?

[typhoid mary]

8. FEDERAL court?

Yeah...they'd never lie to us... The Tuskegee Airmen were just...unlucky...

[Silent3]

9. So since governments do sometimes lie and deceive...

...whenever you don't like what they say, they must be lying and deceiving?

The benefit of the doubt does not always belong to the one yelling "Conspiracy!", especially when the necessary complexity to pull off the imagined conspiracy is high and the size of the payoff is questionable for that effort.

Your little ROLF guys only show how much this is a matter of personal image for you, how you imagine yourself so clever for "seeing through" what the rest of us poor dupes can't see.

[Odin2005]

11. That post is a good example of how people can rationalize whatever they want.

The vast majority of people are idiots who are incapable of logic and will believe what they want and rationalize everything to agree with their beliefs.

[Odin2005]

10. Oh for fucks sake!

[mzmolly]

12. "In this case, the evidence advanced by the petitioners has fallen far short ..."

"... of demonstrating such a link,"

The celebration here is bizarre.

In THIS case, there was a ruling that evidence of a causal link was insufficient. BFD.

[Silent3]

13. This one case, however, had access to a wide range of data on the subject

Unless you take the approach that anecdotes count as good data, that every criticism of data in support of a vaccine-autism connection is driven by conspiracy, that every bit of data showing no connection is a fabrication of that same conspiracy, and that you don't to prove there is a conspiracy, just suggest motivations for one and act as if anyone who doesn't see there must be a conspiracy is either naive or "in on it"... then an evaluation of the data show no good reason to think there's any connection, and it's good to see a court of law recognize that.

[mzmolly]

14. A decision in a single court case,

is not a scientific finding. The court ruled that the evidence, as presented, did not prove a causal link in the case in question.

There are cases in which the vaccine courts have awarded monies for autism, as a result of vaccination as well.

Anecdotes, are not the scientific data credible people point to, when discussing a potential vaccine/austim connection.

[Silent3]

15. No number of court cases is a scientific finding...

...and I don't think anyone here is pretending that this one case settles the matter.

The preponderance of evidence from many other sources, however, much of it reviewed in this case, does strongly favor a lack of any link between autism and vaccines.

The point of the OP is mostly a matter of feeling good when the courts get it right. The scope of the evidence examined in this case and the merit of the legal arguments made aren't, however, inconsequential. While not equivalent to a scientific review, the legal result is much more than mere anecdote.

[mzmolly]

16. The court may have gotten it right in this case,

Last edited Wed Mar 28, 2012, 06:31 PM - Edit history (1)

as it did in Hannah Poling's case. I don't think either decision merits celebration, personally.

[laconicsax]

17. Who had 15 days?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11421940#post16

Do I need to remind you that the Poling decision was on whether her vaccination aggravated a preexisting mitochondrial disorder that lead to encephalopathy and wasn't until AFTER the decision that the Polings started saying that Hannah had autism?

[mzmolly]

18. The Poling's didn't wait for a court ruling to determine that their child had autism.

However, at least the goal posts are moving in the direction of an autism diagnosis now.

Do I need to remind you that IF a mitochondrial disorder was a factor prior to vaccination, Hannah Poling is not alone.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101130161521.htm

Edited to add an interview with Jon Poling, in which he addresses some of the myths:

[Odin2005]

19. There you go again with your Hannah Poling obsession.

[mzmolly]

20. .

yourself.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

21. The moth has found its flame

I wondered how long it would take for the apologists to find DU3, and I was beginning to think (hope) it wouldn't happen.

[mzmolly]

22. .

[EvolveOrConvolve]

23. You should get your narcolepsy checked out by a doctor

It's causing you to fall asleep in the middle of DU threads.