Autism

A connection between autism and the preservative e thimerosal vaccine is on trial again. The second hearing at the United States Court of Federal Claims began this week. At the end of three hearings they will decide what is best to compensate almost 4,800 parents who believe that their children were damaged by the preservative because it is mercury-based.

According to The New York Times parents feel that they have the right to millions of dollars – but believe that even this will not make up for the fact that their children cannot interact or communicate with other people socially.

Thimerosal was removed from routine childhood vaccines by 2001, despite a raft of studies that found it was not linked to autism. Yet, that hasn’t stopped parents, looking at government warnings about the risk of mercury exposure from eating fish during pregnancy and early childhood, from believing the neurotoxin could play a role. There are now approximately 1 in 150 children with an autism spectrum disorder.

Oddly enough the trial came only two months after a special Division of Vaccine Injury Compensation court gave compensation to the parents of a Georgia girl with autism. It was believed that she was affected by vaccinations.

“The experiences of two 10-year-old boys from Portland, Ore., are at the center of the latest hearing,” the Times reports. “The boys, William Mead and Jordan King, were developing normally until they were vaccinated, said Thomas Powers, a lawyer representing them. But a buildup of mercury in their brains from vaccines containing thimerosal led the boys to regress, Mr. Powers contended.”