Vaccine Did Cause Hannah's Autism

Debate Rages Anew on Vaccine-Autism Link
Vaccine Experts Say Government Concession Does Not Amount to Clear Connection
Hannah Poling, left, stands with her parents Terry and Jon Poling, right, at a news conference in Atlanta, Thursday, March 6, 2008. Government health officials have conceded that childhood vaccines worsened a rare, underlying disorder that ultimately led to autism-like symptoms in Hannah, and that she should be paid from a federal vaccine-injury fund. (W.A.Harewood/AP Photo)

By DAN CHILDSABC News Medical UnitMarch 7, 2008


Top federal health authorities Thursday reiterated that vaccines do not cause autism after government health officials acknowledged that a vaccine, by worsening an underlying genetic condition, may have triggered autismlike symptoms in one girl.
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Vaccine-Autism Debate
The case is viewed as an important milestone by autism groups that maintain that vaccinations are connected to autism.
But Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, emphasized that the concession should not be interpreted to mean that vaccines cause autism.
"The government has made absolutely no statement about indicating that vaccines are the cause of autism, as this would be a complete mischaracterization of any of the science that we have at our disposal today," Gerberding said during a Thursday news conference. "I think we need to set the record straight on that."
And some vaccination experts said the legal rulings were an example of the courts taking action ahead of the evidence needed to justify such a move.
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Still, on the steps of a U.S Federal Court in Atlanta Thursday morning, Athens, Ga., neurologist Dr. Jon Poling and his wife, Terry Poling, made it clear that they believed vaccines triggered the encephalitis that led to their 9-year-old daughter Hannah's autismlike symptoms.
"I wanted to know why my daughter, who had been completely normal until she received [five vaccines for nine different diseases], in one day was no longer there ... no longer responding," Terry Poling told the crowd of reporters present.
The Polings said Hannah received the battery of vaccines in 2000, when she was 19 months old. Shortly after these shots, they said she suffered from a fever that left her screaming and arching her back. Following this, they said, Hannah began showing classic signs of autism -- staring at lights, running in circles and staring at fans.
"When my husband saw this, his heart just broke," Terry Poling said.



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BUT Hannah's is not the first settlement by the Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund for vaccine caused autism
From Ginger at Adventures in Autism:

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Phil and Misty Hiatt: "We Were Compensated Too!"
"I have calmed down from the appoplexia that overtook me when learning that Hanna was not the first autistic child to be paid from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund, but at least the tenth, to write about this somewhat coherently."