Federal Government Concedes Autistic Child Injured by Vaccines

by Barbara Loe Fisher

Ever since the historic National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Reagan, federal health officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) have fought most vaccine injury claims in the U.S. Court of Claims. Even so, special masters in the Court have awarded nearly $2 billion to vaccine victims since 1988. Over the years, there have been several awards quietly made to children, whose autistic behaviors began after DPT vaccine induced brain inflammation, but those awards were vigorously protested by DHHS officials who insisted that vaccines do not cause autism.

This week, however, the news is that DHHS officials have finally "conceded" that vaccines given in 2000 to a 19 month old girl with a pre-existing mitochondrial disorder did, in fact, cause brain inflammation that resulted in a spectrum of permanent brain dysfunction, including autistic behaviors. The child was given DTaP, HIB, MMR, Varicella and polio vaccines all at once and suffered classic vaccine reaction symptoms within 48 hours of the shots and subsequently regressed and was left with permanent disability, including autism.

The parents of the child, Dr. and Mrs. Jon Poling, participated in a press conference in Atlanta today, which was broadcast on CNN. The Poling's attorney for the case was NVIC Board member Cliff Shoemaker, who has represented the vaccine injured in the federal vaccine injury compensation program (VICP) ever since it was created in 1986. Tonight the parents will appear on Larry King Live at 9 p.m. on CNN and there is an on-line poll on autism and vaccines on CNN's website. CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains what he thinks the VICP award means.

On tonight's 5:30 p.m. WJLA-TV7 (ABC) News in Washington, D.C., Vicky Debold, PhD, RN speaks out about how her son regressed into autism after his 15 month vaccinations. Vicky's son, who received 7 live virus and killed bacterial vaccines on one day in 1998, suffered nearly identical reactions as the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Poling. During the interview, she said, "I did something stupid. I gave my son 7 vaccines on one day. " She went on to say "I regret this but I can't take it back." Like Terry Poling, who was formerly a pediatric intensive care nurse, Dr. Debold recalls that she was a pediatric ICU nurse and completely trusted the vaccine recommendations by the CDC and AAP. Both Terry and Vicky fully vaccinated their children. Vicky, who is on NVIC's Board, has served as NVIC's Director of Patient Safety for the past few years and has counseled many parents reporting vaccine reactions and regression into poor health to NVIC during the past few years. (View some of these reaction reports at http://www.vaccinememorial.org/)

For more information on the history of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act and NVIC's long- held position regarding need for reform of the Act to make the system less adversarial and compensation less difficult to obtain for the vaccine injured, go to http://www.nvic.org/Loe_Fisher/blfvicp82899.htm