The US Vaccine court
has ruled in three cases that autistic children (or rather their parents)
aren't
entitled to compensation.
From a technical persective, this is of course correct: there's
just no evidence that vaccines cause autism except in exceptional
cases. From a social perspective, I'm not sure it's such
a great idea. As I understand it, the rationale for the
Vaccine Injury Compensation Program is to provide stability in the
vaccine system by providing a form of insurance for
manufacturers. Since the parents of these children
(and the thousands of other autistic children) don't show a lot
of signs of giving up their beliefs about a vaccine-autism
link, paying off these suits might be a cheap tradeoff to remove
what's turning into a real (though imagined) disincentive for
parents to vaccinate their children.
Autism decision
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March 2009
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Giving money to people who claim their children's autism is caused by vaccines will fuel the anti-vaccination movement, not slow it. They will interpret it as validating evidence of their vaccination conspiracy.
I agree. This is the right decision. Besides, what would you do about future children who get vaccinated (nearly all) and then go on to get autism (a coincidental few)? Do you pay them off too?
...Not to mention future tort lawyers who are able to convince large numbers of clients to blame vaccines for their children's migraine headaches or psoriasis or morgellons or...
Uh. So you're advocating that payments should be made to anyone who baselessly claims that their child got autism from a vaccine? Do they even have to prove their kid is autistic? Can I claim that my kid's poor performance in school is because of vaccines? Can I get money? Where do I sign up?