 |
| Hannah Poling and her father, Jon. |
Hannah Poling is indisputably the most famous case of the Autism and vaccine link to date.
I personally have taken to this story because her condition relates so closely to my sons vaccine injury. Hannah's parents, Jon and Terry Poling, were also an interesting attribute to this case having careers as a Neurologist and Clinical Nurse (RN), respectively.
Hannah was born in 1999 and received five vaccines in one day in 2000 at the age of 19 months; this occurred because she had fallen behind on her vaccine schedule as a result of a series of ear infections. She became immediately ill and, within six months spiraled into the solitary world of autism, losing speech, social reciprocity and motor skills, and showing various hyper- and hypo- sensitivities. As Hannah’s father said at a March 6, 2008 press conference in Atlanta, six months after receiving 9 vaccines, “we knew Hannah’s beautiful inquisitive mind wasn’t coming back.” According to Kathleen Seidel, the Poling family filed a case with the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program on October 25, 2002. In 2006, Jon, along with three other researchers, all of whom were affiliated with Johns Hopkins at the time, published a case report and chart review retrospective series regarding the association of mitochondrial disease and autism in the Journal of Child Neurology. In 2008, after the government conceded his daughter's vaccine injury case, Dr Poling said, “Many in the autism community and their champions believe that the result in this case may well signify a landmark decision as it pertains to children developing autism following vaccinations. This still remains to be seen, but currently there are almost 5,000 other cases pending.” Hannah's case had originally been placed with the almost 5,000 Autism Omnibus cases pending hearing 5 years before her case was conceded administratively. They were awarded a settlement of 1.5 million dollars for loss of wages, pain and suffering and cost of care through the VICP. Sharyl Attkisson reported on the Poling case for CBS News on March 6, 2008. She said, “While the Poling case is the first of its kind to become public, a CBS News investigation uncovered at least nine other cases as far back as 1990, where records show the court ordered the government to compensate families whose children developed autism or autistic-like symptoms in children, including toddlers, who had been called ‘very smart’ and ‘impressed’ doctors with their ‘intelligence and curiosity’ … until their vaccinations. They were children just like Hannah Poling.” After the Polings took their story public, a firestorm of media attention was ignited giving new attention to the long standing debate about whether or not vaccines cause neurological disorders in children.
 |
| Settlement in the Hannah Poling vaccine injury case with the VICP |
Julie Gerberding, head of the CDC at the time said,
"Let me be very clear that the government has made absolutely no statement indicating that vaccines are a cause of autism. It has also been noted that Hannah's mitochondrial disease is very rare, and that no evidence proves that it is possible for vaccines to cause or worsen mitochondrial diseases, with Chuck Mohan of the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation noting that "there is very little scientific research in this area."
Contradicting this statement in an interview with Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN, she says the following;
"Well, you know, I don't have all the facts because I still haven't been able to review the case files myself. But my understanding is that the child has a -- what we think is a rare mitochondrial disorder. And children that have this disease, anything that stresses them creates a situation where their cells just can't make enough energy to keep their brains functioning normally. Now, we all know that vaccines can occasionally cause fevers in kids. So if a child was immunized, got a fever, had other complications from the vaccines. And if you're predisposed with the mitochondrial disorder, it can certainly set off some damage. Some of the symptoms can be symptoms that have characteristics of autism." She went on to admit, "What we can say absolutely for sure is that we don't really understand the causes of autism. We've got a long way to go before we get to the bottom of this. But there have been at least 15 very good scientific studies on the Institute of Medicine who have searched this out. And they have concluded that there really is no association between vaccines and autism. Well, I'll never be comfortable with everything we know. I mean, I think we have to have an open mind about this. We know that there's very little chance that it's something related to a vaccine that's going to cause a serious problem for a child. We also know how life saving vaccines really are. Well, one thing that I remember is that the government is actually composed of moms and dads. And there are a lot of moms and dads at CDC who look at this the same way. Many of the people in our immunization program are parents of young children. So they understand the dilemma that a parent feels. But it's kind of our job to do the science to help clarify and separate concern from scientific fact. Autism is a huge challenge. And it is much more common than I think anyone realized. And we aren't doing enough. And we need to do more."
Julie Gerberding was asked to resign from her position at the CDC by the Obama administration in 2008 and in 2009 exactly 1 yr and 3 days later (the statue of time that anyone in an official capacity employed by a government agency, that has to pass before they can work for a government vendor). She went to work for Merck, as the president of Merck’s vaccine unit. Merck makes 14 of the 17 vaccines the CDC recommends for children, and nine of the 10 recommended for adults.
Since the Poling case drew so much questioning and criticism to the issue, the CDC and vaccine manufactures alike have taken great precaution to avoid any type of data and or mentioning of Autism as being a toxic effect from vaccines. Even though it was listed on vaccine inserts in the past.
 |
| DTaP Package insert which has since been changed to omit Autism and SID as a known side effect of the vaccine. |
Injury
Hannah Poling mitochondrial disorder and autism spectrum disorder.
Notable Cases
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/the-vaccineautism-court-d_b_88558.html
http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/docket-omnibus-autism-proceeding
http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/omnibus-autism-proceeding
Articles
http://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/UCM101580.pdf
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/family-to-receive-15m-plus-in-first-ever-vaccine-autism-court-award/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vaccine-injury-case-offer/ (youll notice many of the links in this article no longer have the related content posted)
