Monday, June 4, 2007

Vaccine Test Case Reaches Federal Court

I'M REALLY EXCITED TO LISTEN IN ON THIS TRIAL IN A WEEK. THIS IS THE MOST ORGANIZED LEGAL HEARING LOOKING INTO THE POSSIBILITY OF A VACCINE/AUTISM CONNECTION. IT WILL BE INTERESTING TO SEE WHAT EVIDENCE IS BROUGHT FORWARD BY BOTH SIDES. I THINK IT WILL BE A TOUGH BATTLE FOR THE 4800 PARENTS, SINCE THE DRUG COMPANIES HAVE SO MUCH POWER AND INFLUENCE. IT WILL DEFINITELY BE INTERESTING THOUGH.

Vaccine Test Case Reaches Federal Court
For years, parents of autistic children have claimed mercury in vaccines is
at fault. Now it’s time to prove it.

By Tony Mauro for Legal Times. http://tinyurl.com/3ab2dr

The family stories are remarkably, painfully, similar.
They begin begin with toddlers developing well, and happily. Then they
are taken to the doctor’s office for routine vaccines which, in the early
1990s, often were bundled together.
A week after the shots, the devastation begins: loss of speech and eye
contact, high fever, constant pain, screaming, bowel problems, no sleep. The
children no longer respond to their names; later, they are diagnosed with
autism or related disorders.
“Words alone cannot explain the trauma of watching your only child’s
health deteriorate to such a degree before your eyes,” Theresa Cedillo of
Arizona writes in an e-mail to Legal Times.
On June 11, the case of Michelle Cedillo, Theresa’s daughter, goes
before an extraordinary tribunal assembled by the U.S. Court of Federal
Claims. Its goal is to determine, for the first time in a judicial
proceeding, whether the combination of certain vaccines and thimerosal, a
mercury-based vaccine preservative, can cause autism — a set of disorders
that is gaining attention as more and more children are diagnosed, as many
as one in 150 children born in the United States. The government has long
denied such a link exists.
In her first comments to the media since her case began in 1998,
Theresa Cedillo tells Legal Times, “The profound downward change in
Michelle’s health began seven days following the MMR [measles, mumps, and
rubella vaccine]."
Of her daughter, now 12, she adds, “Her childhood has passed right
before our eyes spent in hospitals and doctors’ offices, not in parks and
with little friends. The trauma of the sheer human suffering she endures
every day is beyond explanation and understanding, filling us with
overwhelming anguish."
Michelle, her mother says, “will require a very highly skilled and
involved level of daily care as she continues to age . . . It is our hope
that she can gain some type of communication skills in the future."
Cedillo v. Secretary of Health and Human Services was picked as a test
case from more than 4,800 autism claims that have been filed with the
little-known court, which sits anonymously overlooking Lafayette Square near
the White House. The outcome of the case, the court hopes, will guide the
disposition of other claims and prevent the need for repetitive discovery
and expert witness testimony.
The determination also could shake — or bolster — public confidence in
the vaccine system and affect autism litigation worldwide.
During three weeks of testimony, the hotly contested issue of
causation will be advanced and picked apart by expert witnesses. A sign of
the emotions infused into the case: The court sealed the names of the
witnesses, for fear they would be harassed.
The trial before three special masters will take place in a 400-seat
courtroom that may be filled with parents and their lawyers, as well as
lawyers and lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry, which has a huge but
indirect stake in the case. Special arrangements have been made to enable
out-of-town parents to listen to the trial by phone, and transcripts and
audio of the trial will be made available online.
“There’s never been another case like this,” says Kevin Conway of
Boston’s Conway, Homer & Chin-Caplan, one of Cedillo’s lawyers.

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