SO THERE ARE MORE HANNAH POLINGS WE JUST DON'T KNOW ABOUT? GOTCHA, JUDGE.
(Managing
Editor's Note:
Schafer
Autism Report has just run this letter
they received:)
We Were
Compensated, too
We
were also compensated by the Federal
Government in 2002. Our child suffered the
same diagnosis after her routine
immunizations. Encephalopathy with autistic
like symptoms. I am not sure why people
think this is the first case? Maybe they
are just the first to go so public. I
wonder how many other families have been
compensated for the exact same symptoms?
When we settled with the government I did
not get the impression that we were that
unique; quite the opposite as I spoke to the
Special Master (the judge for the
compensation program).
- Misty
Hiatt Read their
story here.
By Dan Olmsted
Thanks to Michael Belkin for passing on
this quite remarkable passage from an AP
story (HERE) on
the Poling settlement: "The case may
not be a first," said Gary
Golkiewicz, chief special master for the
U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
He oversees the special 'vaccine court'
which rules on requests for payments from
the vaccine injury fund. 'Years ago,
actually, I had a case, before we understood
or knew the implications of autism, that the
vaccine injured the child's brain caused an
encephalopathy,' he said. And the symptoms
that come with that 'all [fall?] within the
broad rubric of autism.'
And there are other somewhat similar cases,
Golkiewicz says, that were decided before
autism and its symptoms were more clearly
defined."
It's also worth pointing out that the AP writers spin this comment into the following pay-no-attention lead: "ATLANTA - For those convinced that vaccines can cause autism, the sad case of a Georgia girl, daughter of a doctor and lawyer, seems like clear-cut evidence. The government has agreed to pay the girl's family for injury caused by vaccines. But it turns out it's not that simple — and maybe not even a first."
Meanwhile, my head is spinning from the illogic of the whole thing.
Dan Olmsted is Editor of Age of Autism.