U.S. Media Blackout: Italian Courts Rule Vaccines Cause Autism -
See more at: http://healthimpactnews.com/2015/u-s-media-blackout-italian-courts-rule-vaccines-cause-autism/#sthash.FkSEGD6O.dpuf
Hmmm...US Blackout...to be expected by our Pharmafia....
Recent Italian Court Decisions on Vaccines and Autism
Both these Italian court decisions break
new ground in the roiling debate over vaccines and autism. These courts, like
all courts, are intended to function as...
new ground in the roiling debate over vaccines and autism. These courts, like
all courts, are intended to function as...
Recent Italian Court Decisions on Vaccines and Autism
On September 23, 2014, an Italian court in Milan award compensation to a boy for vaccine-induced autism. (See the Italian document here.) A childhood vaccine against six childhood diseases caused the boy’s permanent autism and brain damage.
While
the Italian press has devoted considerable attention to this decision
and its public health implications, the U.S. press has been silent.
Italy’s National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program
Like
the U.S., Italy has a national vaccine injury compensation program to
give some financial support to those people who are injured by
compulsory and recommended vaccinations. The Italian infant plaintiff
received three doses of GlaxoSmithKline’s Infanrix Hexa, a hexavalent
vaccine administered in the first year of life. These doses occurred
from March to October 2006. The vaccine is to protect children from
polio, diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis B, pertussis and Haemophilus
influenza type B. In addition to these antigens, however, the vaccine
then contained thimerosal, the mercury-containing preservative,
aluminum, an adjuvant, as well as other toxic ingredients. The child
regressed into autism shortly after receiving the three doses.
When
the parents presented their claim for compensation first to the
Ministry of Health, as they were required to do, the Ministry rejected
it. Therefore, the family sued the Ministry in a court of general
jurisdiction, an option which does not exist in the same form in the
U.S.
Court Decision: Mercury and Aluminum in Vaccine Caused Autism
Based
on expert medical testimony, the court concluded that the child more
likely than not suffered autism and brain damage because of the
neurotoxic mercury, aluminum and his particular susceptibility from a
genetic mutation. The Court also noted that Infanrix Hexa contained
thimerosal, now banned in Italy because of its neurotoxicity, “in
concentrations greatly exceeding the maximum recommended levels for
infants weighing only a few kilograms.”
Presiding Judge Nicola Di Leo considered another piece of damning evidence: a 1271-page confidential GlaxoSmithKline report (now available on the Internet).
This industry document provided ample evidence of adverse events from
the vaccine, including five known cases of autism resulting from the
vaccine’s administration during its clinical trials (see table at page
626, excerpt below).
Italian Government, Not Vaccine Maker, Pays for Vaccine Damages
As
in many other developed countries, government, not industry,
compensates families in the event of vaccine injury. Thus GSK’s apparent
lack of concern for the vaccine’s adverse effects is notable and
perhaps not surprising.
In the final assessment, the report states that:
“[t]he benefit/risk profile of Infanrix hexa continues to be favourable,” despite GSK’s acknowledgement that the vaccine causes side effects including “anaemia haemolytic autoimmune,thrombocytopenia, thrombocytopenic purpura, autoimmune thrombocytopenia, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, haemolytic anemia, cyanosis, injection site nodule, abcess and injection site abscess, Kawasaki’s disease, important neurological events (including encephalitis and encephalopathy), Henoch-Schonlein purpura, petechiae, purpura, haematochezia, allergic reactions (including anaphylactic and anaphylactoid reactions),” and death (see page 9).
The
Milan decision is sober, informed and well-reasoned. The Ministry of
Health has stated that it has appealed the Court’s decision, but that
appeal will likely take several years, and its outcome is uncertain.
Rimini: 2012 – Italian Court Rules MMR Vaccine Caused Autism
Two years earlier, on May 23, 2012, Judge Lucio Ardigo of an Italian court in Rimini presided over a similar judgment,
finding that a different vaccine, the Measles-Mumps-Rubella vaccine
(MMR), had caused a child’s autism. As in the Milan case, the Ministry
of Health’s compensation program had denied compensation to the family,
yet after a presentation of medical evidence, a court granted
compensation. There, too, the Italian press covered the story; the U.S.
press did not.
In
that case, a 15-month old boy received his MMR vaccine on March 26,
2004. He then immediately developed bowel and eating problems and
received an autism diagnosis with cognitive delay within a year. The
court found that the boy had “been damaged by irreversible complications
due to vaccination (with trivalent MMR).” The decision flew in the face
of the conventional mainstream medical wisdom that an MMR-autism link
has been “debunked.”
Italian Court Decisions Break New Ground in Debate Over Vaccines and Autism
Both
these Italian court decisions break new ground in the roiling debate
over vaccines and autism. These courts, like all courts, are intended to
function as impartial, unbiased decision makers.
The courts’ decisions are striking because they not only find a vaccine-autism causal link, but they also overrule the decisions of Italy’s Ministry of Health. And taken together, the court decisions found that both the MMR and a hexavalent thimerosal- and aluminum-containing vaccine can trigger autism.
Italian Court Rulings Contradict Special U.S. Vaccine Court
These
court decisions flatly contradict the decisions from the so-called U.S.
vaccine court, the Court of Federal Claim’s Vaccine Injury Compensation
Program. There, from 2007 to 2010, in the Omnibus Autism Proceeding,
three decision makers, called Special Masters, found that vaccines did
not cause autism in any of the six test cases, and one Special Master
even went so far as to compare the theory of vaccine-induced autism to
Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.
The Italian court decisions contrast starkly with these U.S. cases based on similar claims.
Read the full story at Age of Autism.
About the Author
Mary Holland is Research Scholar and Director of the Graduate Legal Skills Program at NYU Law School. She has published articles on vaccine law and policy, and is the co-editor of Vaccine
Epidemic: How Corporate Greed, Biased Science and Coercive Government
Threaten Our Human Rights, Our Health and Our Children (Skyhorse Publishing, 2012).
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