Court panel rules no association between autism, vaccines

A court panel of special masters has ruled there is insufficient evidence to support an association between autism and certain vaccines.

The ruling involved three test families who have children with autism. The families contended their children’s autism was triggered by a combination of the measles, mumps, rubella vaccines and the preservative thimerosal and were seeking to be compensated through the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

However, in their ruling, the special masters noted the “evidence advanced by the petitioners has fallen far short” of demonstrating such a link.

After the ruling, officials with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued this statement: “The medical and scientific communities have carefully and thoroughly reviewed the evidence concerning the vaccine-autism theory and have found no association between vaccines and autism … Hopefully, the determination by the special masters will help reassure parents that vaccines do not cause autism.”

Infectious Diseases in Children Editorial Board member Paul Offit, MD, echoed this sentiment.

“One hopes that this decision will finally reassure parents that vaccines do not cause autism and will further enable lawmakers and therapists to focus on getting children with autism the supportive services that they need, instead of focusing on the fruitless, dead-end hypothesis that vaccines were the problem,” Offit, also chief of infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said.

HHS officials said they continue to support research that will help physicians “better understand the cause of autistic disorders and develop more effective methods of treatment.”

Officials with Autism Speaks, a research and advocacy group, said they “will continue to support authoritative research that addresses unanswered questions about whether certain subgroups of individuals with particular underlying medical or genetic conditions may be more vulnerable to adverse effects of vaccines.”

The ruling on these three families' cases is only the first in several expected to be heard in the coming months. Families have filed lawsuits based on three areas: those who believe the combination of the MMR vaccine and other thimerosal-containing vaccines causes autism; those who believe MMR vaccines alone cause autism; and those who believe thimerosal-containing vaccines alone cause autism. – by Colleen Zacharyczuk