Encephalopathy may be accompanied by a medical progression of an array of symptoms including autistic behavior, autism, or seizures." We have compensated cases in which children exhibited an encephalopathy, or general brain disease. When we asked for the statistics, vaccine compensation officials told us: "The government has never compensated, nor has it ever been ordered to compensate, any case based on a determination that autism was actually caused by vaccines. Neither the court nor the government is tracking how many vaccine-brain damage cases involve children who also ended up with autism or autistic-like behavior. It's unknown how many other children have similar undiagnosed mitochondrial disorder. *In this case (involving Hannah Polling), though the government conceded before trial, it took the position that vaccines didn't "cause" autism, but rather that the vaccines aggravated an unknown and previously undiagnosed mitochondrial disorder the child had which "resulted" in autism. Source: HHS-HRSA (Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration) (as of May 2010 and including the newly-released settlement of the Hannah Poling autism case) Total Number of Brain Injury Cases Compensated in Federal Vaccine Court And more than half of those awards are for brain injuries. Since the late 1980's, more than 2,100 families have received compensation for vaccine injuries under the federal program designed to help in rare instances of severe vaccine side effects. But for future families, she says: "if you want to be compensated, I would say stay away from the 'autism' word." Cedillo doesn't regret her daughter being a landmark autism case, even though they lost. Her mother, Theresa Cedillo, feels they could have won if they had simply based their case on encephalopathy. Michelle is also diagnosed with severe encephalopathy. But the federal vaccine court couldn't have been firmer in smacking down the claim last year, saying there was no credible proof that vaccines caused her autism. 20, 1995 directly caused her severe autism. Michelle's attorney argued that an MMR shot on Dec. If she'd won, it could have opened the floodgate for thousands more vaccine-autism claims to be paid. Her autism claim was a "test case" in federal vaccine court. The case of Michelle Cedillo, now 16, couldn't have turned out more differently. Sharyl Attkisson's 2007 Report on Michelle Cedillo The point wasn't to try to win the autism debate, it was to get this family the compensation they need to take care of their injured child." They promptly won a significant award. "Using (the child's) autism diagnosis would have dragged out the lawsuit for years. "I purposely avoided mentioning 'autism' in the claim," says the attorney for a child diagnosed with brain damage and autism after her DTaP vaccination at 18 months. Still, some families who believe vaccines caused autism in a loved one are circulating these words of advice: use "encephalopathy" in vaccine court and you're more likely to win. "Even if it caused the encephalopathy, that may or may not have been the cause of the autism-those are two different questions." "The fact that a person suffers autism and encephalopathy does not mean that the vaccine caused both of them," says Dr. He says the prevailing medical opinion is that vaccines are scientifically linked to encephalopathy, but not scientifically linked to autism. Brian Strom, who has served on Institute of Medicine panels advising the government on vaccine safety. But it makes perfect sense to the University of Pennsylvania's Dr. That doesn't make sense to families who see autism as a specific form of encephalopathy. But when autism or autistic symptoms are alleged as the primary brain damage, the cases are lost. Children who end up with autistic symptoms or autism have won vaccine injury claims over the years-as long as they highlighted general, widely-accepted brain damage not autism specifically. Our examination of federal vaccine court decisions over the years reflects this.
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