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Julia a three year old US citizen has just won substantial compensation in the US Federal Court for autism caused by MMR vaccine – says her mother. What is different about this case? They kept the “autism” word out of the case. Many parents in other US cases have been advised to do this:- CBS News has found that since 1988, the vaccine court has awarded money judgments, often in the millions of dollars, to thirteen hundred and twenty two families whose children suffered brain damage from vaccines. In many … cases, the government paid out awards following a judicial...

A special vaccine court dismissed claims that the vaccine can cause the cognitive disorder. The pitched debate regarding the purported link between autism and the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine -- a battle viewed on both sides as critical to shielding the defenseless from harm -- took the encouraging turn for which many physicians were hoping and landed in favor of protecting public health. At issue was the consideration by a special vaccine court of test cases to determine if certain hypotheses of how vaccines could cause autism were legitimate and, therefore, warranted compensation to the affected parties through the...

THE doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism, a Sunday Times investigation has found. Confidential medical documents and interviews with witnesses have established that Andrew Wakefield manipulated patients’ data, which triggered fears that the MMR triple vaccine to protect against measles, mumps and rubella was linked to the condition. The research was published in February 1998 in an article in The Lancet medical journal. It claimed that the families of eight out of 12 children attending a...

THE doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism, a Sunday Times investigation has found. Confidential medical documents and interviews withwitnesses have established that Andrew Wakefield manipulated patients’ data, which triggered fears that the MMR triple vaccine to protect against measles, mumps and rubella was linked to the condition.

For more than a decade, families across the country have been warring with the medical establishment over their claims that routine childhood vaccines are responsible for the nation's apparent epidemic of autism. In an extraordinary proceeding that begins today, the battle will move from the ivory tower to the courts. Nearly 5,000 families will seek to convince a special "vaccine court" in Washington that the vaccines can cause healthy and outgoing children to withdraw into uncommunicative, autistic shells -- even though no link has been found by a large body of evidence and expert opinion. The court has never heard...

April 10, 2006: The U.S. Navy wants to save money by building its amphibious ships to merchant ship standards. This is something Europeans are already doing with some of their smaller warships. The thinking is that these ships, when hit by an anti-ship missile, are not going to be any better protected by the more expensive (double welds on seams, etc) techniques usually used for warships. The navy already has pre-positioning ships, built to merchant ship standards, that would enter war zones along with amphibious ships. This "convergence" building strategy would allow for greater economy in procuring materials and parts,...

Gian Paul Gonzalez stands with his mother, Catherine, outside of Grace Bible Church in North Haledon. Gian Paul Gonzalez was 11 years old when his mother told him a story that forever changed his life.They were discussing miracles, and whether or not they ever happened. Gian Paul, now an All-New Jersey Athletic Conference forward on the Montclair State basketball team, said he doubted that they did, and Catherine Gonzalez told her son that he needed to sit down and hear about the miracle that was his own life.When Catherine was first pregnant with Gian Paul in late 1982, she...

The only serious harm associated with the mumps-measles-rubella (MMR) vaccine is the risk to the health of children who don't receive it, an international team of investigators announced today."In particular we conclude that all the major unintended events, such as triggering Crohn's disease or autism, were suspected on the basis of unreliable evidence," said Vittorio Demicheli, M.D., of the Servizo Sovrazonale di Epidemiologia here and his colleagues in a systematic review from the Cochrane Collaboration. The Cochrane Collaboration is an international non-profit and independent organization, dedicated to making up-to-date, accurate information about the effects of healthcare readily available worldwide. It...

ALESSANDRIA, Italy, Oct. 19 - The only serious harm associated with the mumps-measles-rubella (MMR) vaccine is the risk to the health of children who aren't vaccinated, pronounced an international team of investigators today "In particular we conclude that all the major unintended events, such as triggering Crohn's disease or autism, were suspected on the basis of unreliable evidence," said Vittorio Demicheli, M.D., of the Servizo Sovrazonale di Epidemiologia here and colleagues in a systematic review from the Cochrane Collaboration. "Mumps, measles and rubella are serious diseases that can lead to potentially fatal illness, disability and death." Dr. Demicheli and...

A mumps epidemic has taken hold in the UK -- primarily affecting people in their early 20s who did not routinely receive the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, which was introduced in 1988, but also striking under-vaccinated children. Number of Cases Recorded Soars 35-Fold in Two Years Britain is in the grip of a mumps epidemic, public health experts announced yesterday. Doctors have reported more than 2,300 cases of the illness in Scotland alone since the beginning of the year. That is nearly 36 times the number of cases recorded in the first four months of 2003, before the latest outbreak began,...

A major study of over 31,000 children has found no link between the MMR vaccine and the development of autism. The MMR vaccine has been surrounded by controversy since 1998, when a small British study led by Dr Andrew Wakefield, which suggested a link to autism, was published in the highly respected medical journal, The Lancet. Since then, not one epidemiological study has found any evidence of such a link. Furthermore in 2004, the editor of The Lancet, Dr Richard Horton said that Dr Wakefield's study should never have been published as it was 'flawed'. Despite this, some parents still...

A GP who faked blood test results to allay parents’ fears about the effectiveness of separate measles, mumps and rubella jabs given to child patients was today jailed for nine months. Dr David Pugh, 55, had admitted faking four test results at the private clinic he ran near Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, in February 2003. He pleaded guilty to four counts of forgery at Cambridge Crown Court in November. Sentencing had been adjourned until today. Pugh, a GP for 31 years, comes from Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, but in recent months has been living in Runaway Bay, Queensland, Australia. Thousands of families, concerned at...

If you didn't see this programme, find someone who taped it. Not only will you learn something about the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) health scare, but it will also give you the opportunity to watch one of the most exciting examples of investigative television journalism you will ever see. This episode of Dispatches was utterly compelling both in its presentation and in its lack of emotional blackmail. Presenter and journalist Brian Deer seems to have singlehandedly eaten away at the MMR story. His clear and simple presentation of this, his latest chapter—describing an enormous clash and conflict of interest between...

Experts Argue Over Findings, but Specialist Sees Possible MMR Link to Autism LONDON -- The first lesson a doctor needs to learn, says Andrew Wakefield, is to listen to his patients. And so when Rosemary Kessick brought in her son William in 1996, Wakefield listened carefully. She described how William had deteriorated at age 15 months from a healthy developing toddler into a withdrawn, incommunicative child who screamed throughout the night, and how his bowels seemed on fire with constant diarrhea and pain. All of this had started, she said, within days after William received the MMR -- an injection...

Panel Says More Research on Possible Connection May Not Be Worthwhile The Institute of Medicine, a highly influential adviser of the government on scientific matters, said yesterday there is no credible evidence that either the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine or vaccines containing the preservative thimerosal cause autism. The conclusion came in an 81-page report requested by two federal agencies to address the doubts raised by a small but vocal group of parents who question the safety of childhood vaccines. A 14-person panel of experts urged more research on autism but said further pursuit of possible links between vaccines and the devastating...

An examination of scientific studies worldwide has found no convincing evidence that vaccines cause autism, according to a committee of experts appointed by the Institute of Medicine. In particular, no link was found between autism and the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine or vaccines that contain a mercury preservative called thimerosal. The committee released its eighth and final report yesterday in Washington. Some parents of autistic children immediately protested. Mark Blaxill, the father of an 8-year-old girl with autism, said the committee's conclusions were premature. Studies are under way that should not be dismissed, said Mr. Blaxill, who is a director of the...

Ten of the 13 scientists who produced a 1998 study linking a childhood vaccine to several cases of autism retracted their conclusion yesterday. In a statement to be published in the March 6 issue of The Lancet, a British medical journal, the researchers conceded that they did not have enough evidence at the time to tie the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, known as MMR, to the autism cases. The study has been blamed for a sharp drop in the number of British children being vaccinated and for outbreaks of measles. "We wish to make it clear that in this...

Ten scientists who worked on the research that triggered the MMR scare now say that there is no association between the triple jab and autism in children. Thirteen co-authors wrote the paper published in The Lancet in 1998, led by Andrew Wakefield, who has been at the heart of the controversy ever since. One of the scientists could not be traced and one other, Peter Harvey, together with Dr Wakefield, did not sign the researchers' retraction. The 10, working for or attached to the Royal Free Hospital, London, or its medical school at the time, said in a statement yesterday:...

CDC Vaccine Data Leads Scientists to Shocking DiscoveryMonday February 9, 9:20 am ET CHILDREN 27-TIMES MORE LIKELY TO DEVELOP AUTISM WITH EXPOSURE TO MERCURY- CONTAINING VACCINES, FINDINGS REVIEWED AT TODAY'S IOM MEETING IN DC WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the Institute of Medicine will hold a one-day meeting to review important new research on the link between thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative in vaccines, and neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism. One of the larger studies under review comes from the CDC's own Vaccine Safety Datalink. Under independent investigation, CDC's data concludes children are 27-times more likely to develop autism...

<p>LONDON — A leading medical journal said Saturday it should not have published a controversial 1998 study that claimed a link between childhood vaccinations and autism (search).</p> <p>The editor of the Lancet, Dr. Richard Horton (search), said Dr. Andrew Wakefield and a team of British scientists who conducted the study on the triple measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine didn't reveal that they were being paid by a legal aid service looking into whether families could sue over the immunizations.</p>