Here’s the article, quoted for convenience

Feb. 12, 2009 — The federal “vaccine court” has rejected claims that either the measles/mumps/rubella vaccine or thimerosal in vaccines caused children’s autism.

The vaccine court — shorthand for the Office of Special Masters of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims — administers a system that since 1988 has overseen all claims for compensation due to injury from vaccinations.

Today’s ruling is a major setback for the more than 5,000 cases in which families claim that the MMR vaccine, either alone or due to the mercury-based thimerosal preservative in the vaccine, caused a child’s autism.

Lawyers for the families and Department of Health and Human Services (the defendant in the suit) agreed to argue three test cases. In these cases, the vaccine court agreed to decide whether there was sufficient evidence to blame vaccines for autism — and whether to pay damages to the families.

The decision, in all three cases, is no. The court formally rejected arguments that either the MMR vaccine or thimerosal caused the children’s autism.

Although huge amounts of scientific evidence were heard in the case, the vaccine court’s decision is a legal ruling and not scientific proof.

Last March, federal officials said that a Georgia girl, Hannah Poling, was entitled to compensation from a federal vaccine injury fund because she developed autism-like symptoms after receiving childhood vaccines in 2000.

WebMD will be updating this story throughout the day as more information becomes available.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/02/11/autism.vaccines/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Thanks for sharing! This is big, big news. Now if only the Omnibus Autism Proceeding website were updated. Last update was in September, it appears.

http://www.yahoo.com/s/1029067

I see your point about finding “patient zero” but really, it wouldn’t be that hard. The kids at school have a pretty good grasp about what goes on around them; they would be able to tell you.

Might I suggest you contact your school district and have them institute a communication strategy for things like lice nits? In our schools the kids get a generic letter to take home which states that “nits have been found in your child’s classroom” and they go on to give suggestions on how to rid your child of the pest or prevent the possibility of being exposed to them.

–But how would you know?

My nephew keeps being re-infected with nits because his school refuses to inform parents that there has been an outbreak (on the basis of right-to-privacy) and so there is always some ‘nit typhoid mary’ reinfecting the whole school.

If you can’t localise patient zero in these cases….

That said, all three of my brood were vaccinated and I would openly criticize anyone who felt the risks outweighed the benefits.

Vaccinations FTW!

The point is, life is a great deal more tenacious than most people credit. It had to develop resistance to all manner of environmental insult, including nuclear radiation, since early levels(3 plus billion years ago) were substantially higher in those long ago days(due to the greater prevalence of un-decayed radio-active elements).

There are only 27 diseases that are currently vaccine preventable. Some of those are specific to tropical environments, so they are probably not necessary for those of us in the US. That leaves us with about 20 against which we should all be vaccinated.

People in general are very un-informed and intellectually lazy. If it can’t be explained in a 30 second sound bite,,,well, you get the picture.

The ‘Net can effectively increase intelligence for those who know how to think critically. For those not so trained, it just leads one down the primrose path to complete woo-woo.
AH, the vagaries of the two-edged sword,,,

GAry 7

From the CDC:

Advances towards protective vaccines against malaria were made feasible by the development of a rodent model of mammalian malaria that allowed production of all stages of the malaria parasite for study. Investigations with sporozoites (the stage transmitted by mosquitoes in their saliva) demonstrated that immunization with radiation-attenuated sporozoites could produce a solid, sterile immunity,,,

GAry 7

GAry 7

To clarify, this means that the feds can’t impose it nationwide. Public Health is a provincial responsibility.

I am however surprised that only three of the 10 provinces have legislation on this matter.

(For more than six years I’ve been following the exploits of the Bad Astronomer, and this is my first comment. Thanks for the heads up, Dr. Plait. I live in Toronto but I don’t watch much TV any more.)

http://www.immunizetexas.com/

It’s slogan is, “Vaccines are like hugs, you don’t want to miss one”.

Very proactive. I’m glad.

The North American continent and most of Europe is current under the effects of a dangerous but unknown disease Plumbeus bardus. Apparently it is spread by those who are familiar or fluent in some form of the English language, access to the internet and a willingness to believe anyone famous. Oddly enough, this disease should have propograted to many other parts of the world.

Indeed it did. And if I was paying more attention earlier today (as my hurried comments probably expose), I might have realized as much.

I lived in Toronto for about two years, but in all honesty, I didn’t find the area to be more progressive, only more cutthroat. Being in the computer industry, though, it’s likely there’s a selection bias at work there. I returned to Nova Scotia after my run in Toronto, where I’m finding the conservative and religious types are more plentiful than I had realized my first go-around (imagine my dismay at finding out the atheist bus ads failed in Halifax), but I’m doing okay for the moment. The internet is my safe haven.

I am surprised to see this misinformation on this scientific website…..
Direct from the Health Canada website:
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/publicat/ccdr-rmtc/97vol23/23s4/23s4b_e.html
1. Immunization in Canada
“Unlike some countries, immunization is not mandatory in Canada; it cannot be made mandatory because of the Canadian Constitution. Only three provinces have legislation or regulations under their health-protection acts to require proof of immunization for school entrance. Ontario and New Brunswick require proof for diphtheria, tetanus, polio, measles, mumps, and rubella immunization. In Manitoba, only measles vaccination is covered. It must be emphasized that, in these three provinces, exceptions are permitted for medical or religious grounds and reasons of conscience; legislation and regulations must not be interpreted to imply compulsory immunization.”

I believe that’s true in Ontario as well, unless it’s for religious reasons. If everyone is mixed together, then herd immunity protects the unvaccinated. The problem is that the same type of people who won’t vaccinate their kids for religious reasons are the same type who send their kids to school with the kids of like-minded people. There’s a school in Norwich, Ontario where 60% of the kids aren’t vaccinated. They had an outbreak of Rubella (German measles) and the same area had an outbreak of mumps.