FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Contact: Vaccine Safety Council of Minnesota
Patti Carroll (651) 785-5716
Published Paper Reveals Stunning Autism Rate In NVICP Compensated Vaccine Injury Cases
As reported today on CBS, Fox News, CNN and several other news outlets, a newly published paper reveals that a startling number of compensated vaccine injury claimants have autism. The peer-reviewed paper, titled “Unanswered Questions from the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program: A Review of Compensated Cases of Vaccine-Induced Brain Injury,” was published in the Pace Environmental Law Review.
150 families who were successful in proving a vaccine injury through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program were interviewed about their experience in the program and the specific vaccine damage their child sustained. In a stunning 41% of cases (62), the child had a confirmed diagnosis of autism, or exhibited clear autistic features. An additional 21 cases of autism among compensated vaccine victims were identified using the government’s legal database.
There are over 1,100 additional cases of vaccine-induced brain damage that have been compensated through the NVICP. “No doubt a similar percentage of those cases will also show children with a diagnosis of autism,” says Patti Carroll, a contributor to the paper and member of the Vaccine Safety Council of Minnesota.
The NVICP is a program established in 1986 to protect vaccine manufacturers from liability when their products injure or kill people. Compensation is paid to injured parties out of a fund collected from an excise tax imposed on the sale of every vaccine. Over 2 billion dollars have been paid out since the program’s inception, despite the fact that receiving compensation for vaccine injuries is extremely difficult and rare.
The CDC and medical industrial complex continually reassured the public that vaccines do not cause autism, even after information was leaked to the media in 2008 about the compensated case of Hannah Poling. Though Hannah’s parents wanted to go public with her medical records in order to educate parents and doctors about how and why vaccines caused their daughter’s autism, the Department of Justice chose to seal the records in that case.
“Vaccine safety advocates suspected then that the government was hiding something,” said Carroll. “We were shocked to learn that not only did they know that vaccines certainly CAN cause autism, but that they have known for over two decades. They blatantly lied to the public while quietly compensating families for vaccine injuries resulting in autism. It is unconscionable that it took an autism advocacy organization to uncover this deceit, but what is even more disturbing is that this truth had to be ‘uncovered’ at all.”
In a sickening display of greed and self-protectionism over the health and well-being of individuals, the government has allowed an entire generation of children to be exposed to products they knew were causing devastating lifelong neurological disorders. Vaccine Safety Council of Minnesota demands a thorough investigation of those responsible, and supports a Congressional investigation and potential complete overhaul of the NVICP.
A Congressional briefing will be held Thursday, May 12 at 8:30 a.m. EST in Rayburn B-339, Washington, D.C. The paper authors, members of the Elizabeth Birt Center for Autism Law and Advocacy, will present further information to members of Congress, media and the public. Today’s press conference will be broadcast at UStream: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ebcala .
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