Original article was published on 17/06/2020
A tremendous amount of lies and disinformation have been published in just one text, that tells about the alleged “official confessions” that there is a causal relationship between vaccines and autism.
Online media outlet dnevno.hr published on 14th January 2016 the article “EXTRAORDINARY NEWS: Courts Admit that Vaccine Causes Autism!”
It is stated that the author of the text is Zrinka K, although it is not an author’s article, but rather a combination of two texts published on the media outlet “Natural News” on September 3rd, 2013 and September 8th, 2014. Both texts are filled with false claims, which were presented in the “Dnevno” article as “news” and transmitted without any verification of the source or the truthness of their claims. Apart from falsifying their authorship, at the moment when “Dnevno.hr” published the text as their article, the texts were already three and four years old, and the claim from the headline that this was “extraordinary news” was misleading.
Despite all this, the published article was transferred on around twenty different online media outlets and blogs from BiH, Serbia, Montenegro, and Slovenia. The spread of this disinformation continues to this day, with the latest articles having been published a couple of weeks ago. Since almost every sentence in the text is either a complete fabrication or a very serious manipulation of facts, we publish the text analysis in the continuation of this article for better clarity.
Three major false narratives appear in the article: two of them connected to the US institutions (US Court of Federal Claims and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), and one connected to the UK Ministry of Health. All three contain claims that these institutions have confirmed in their work that there is a causal link between vaccination and autism, which is completely incorrect.
Here, we will address the alleged “confessions” of the Court of Federal Claims. Since these are the claims that have been repeated for years without any truth basis and are a part of the broader “conspiracy theories” that increasingly represent a threat to public health and human well-being, we believe that fabricating and transmitting them is worthy of thorough scrutiny. The text that follows is thus very extensive, however, we believe that it is important to read it. Let us start with the first and most important unsubstantiated statement.
You will not hear about this in the mass media, however, The Federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has again secretly admitted that MMR vaccine (a combination of measles, mumps, and rubella) does, indeed, cause autism.
What is “The Federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program”?
The US National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program was established on the basis of “The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act”, or Vaccine Act for short, which was adopted in 1986. Through the program, a special compensation protocol for cases in which vaccination caused adverse reactions have been established. As part of the program, a special division within the Court of Federal Claims has been established to deal exclusively with such cases and is popularly referred to as the “Vaccine Court”.
Never before has this court in any way, “secretly” or publicly “acknowledged that MMR vaccine causes autism”, contrary to the claims of this and many other media outlets which deal with conspiracy theories and the promotion of pseudoscientific theories. Let us take a look now at the facts of this Court’s work and its decisions in all cases where claims for damage have been filed on claims that the vaccine caused autism.
How did it all begin?
Even though the court was established in the late 1980s, by 1999 it did not receive any complaint in which there is a claim that autism has occurred due to their child’s vaccination. This can be clearly seen from the records maintained by the US Department of Health, which shows that a total of two such complaints were filed in 1999 and 2000. This number jumped a few years later, with a peak in 2003 when 2,436 such applications were received.
It is probably no coincidence that the first claim for damages on this basis occurred a year later after a study was published, which first hypothesized the causal link between vaccination and developmental and gastrointestinal disorders. This study was published by Andrew Wakefield, a UK gastroenterologist, which will be discussed more in the following analyses. In short, Wakefield’s study was withdrawn from the journal Lancet after a number of irregularities in its implementation were identified, because of which Wakefield was left without a license to practice medicine.
From the moment this study was published, the story of the cause-and-effect relationship between vaccine and autism began to gain momentum in the British and American media, which lasts even today, despite the fact that the study itself has been overthrown, and that none of the many studies that have been conducted did not offer any evidence for this hypothesis. However, it can undoubtedly be seen as the key source of the idea that there is a causal link between vaccines and developmental disorders, specifically autism, which encouraged parents to start seeking compensation on this basis.
How did the court decide on these cases?
When the number of such claims began to increase, the Federal Court approached them very seriously and systematically. A detailed review of the “history” of these processes was given by Judge George Hastings in the decision on the request of the married couple, Briana and Marcie Hooker, which was published in April this year. As this is a comprehensive text containing numerous information, we will present here only the main ones. Nevertheless, the whole document can be seen on the already imputed link.
Judge Hastings states that, following the rapid number of such applications, the Court decided to initiate two sets of “test cases”, with the intention to determine whether there are scientific and medical grounds for allegations that vaccines can cause autism. In this case, they have established a partnership with the “Petitioners’ Steering Committee” which brought together about 180 legal representatives of parents in such cases. The Association was given the opportunity to “obtain all available evidence indicating that vaccines may contribute to autism and present that evidence in a series of ‘test cases’, that researched the question of whether vaccines can cause autism, and if so, in which circumstances.” One of the test cases referred to the theory “that the component of measles in the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR vaccine) could cause ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders).” Another one was testing the theory that “mercury contained in vaccines involving thimerosal could directly affect a child’s brain, thereby significantly contributing to the cause of ASD.” The tests were conducted as a part of a special procedure called “Omnibus Autism Proceeding”.
The processes resulted in decisions that completely reject the validity of both theories. Hastings points out that these cases were not taken lightly, and that they were given serious attention:
The “test case” decisions were comprehensive, analyzing in detail all of the evidence presented on both sides. The three test case decisions concerning the PSC’s first theory (concerning the MMR vaccine) totaled more than 600 pages of detailed analysis and were solidly affirmed in many more pages of analysis in three different rulings by three different judges of the United States Court of Federal Claims, and in two rulings by two separate panels of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The three special master decisions concerning the PSC’s second theory (concerning vaccinations containing the preservative “thimerosal”) were similarly comprehensive.
All told, the 11 lengthy written rulings by the special masters, the judges of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, and the panels of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit unanimously rejected the petitioners’ claims, finding no persuasive evidence that either the MMR vaccine or thimerosal-containing vaccines could contribute in any way to the causation of autism.
Trials on the test cases were conducted during 2007 and 2008, while the decisions were made in 2009 and 2010. Hastings further states that, prior to the adoption of these decisions, the Special Court has often met claims for reimbursement of court costs in such cases, although it was never concluded that there were grounds for payment of the compensation itself. Such decisions were made on the basis of an assessment of whether there was a “reasonable basis for a claim”, even if the request itself turned out to be without merit.
After lengthy and exhaustive processes in the test cases showed that none of the theories about the link between the causes of autism and vaccines offered valid evidence, the judges of this Court started warning the applicants and their legal representatives that such processes, either initiated or continued, after findings that there is no scientific basis these claims, would not be considered as a “reasonable basis” for seeking reimbursement of court costs. Finally, in his decision, Hasting concluded that in this particular case the reimbursement of court costs could be considered as justifiable only if the costs incurred prior to the irrevocable proves that the case has no basis in medical or scientific evidence.
Rating:
The claim that this Court has “acknowledged” any causal link between vaccine and autism, according to any of the presented theories, is completely incorrect. On the contrary, after a thorough review of all of the evidence presented, the Court came to the conclusion that such claims cannot be considered to have merit, which is an opinion they maintained to this day. Thus, we rate this claim as fake news.
In a recently released decision, completely censored for the public, the boy Ryan received hundreds of thousands of dollars after the Court ruling found that the MMR vaccine led to a confirmed diagnosis of encephalitis and later to autism, says Huffington Post.
Ten-year-old Ryan Majobi first developed encephalopathy a few days after receiving a dose of MMR vaccine in 2003, after which he developed autism. “Ryan suffered an injury from a vaccine determined by law – and that is encephalitis within five to fifteen days of receiving the vaccine,” admitted the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). ‘This case is suitable for financial compensation’, added the Court’s reasoning. However, even though both the US Government and the Court have acknowledged that MMR vaccine caused encephalitis, they do not want to go publish with the documents, thus it is clear that something is hidden from the eye of the public.
What does the Huffington Post article really say?
For starters, the Huffington Post article which is referenced was published on January 14th, 2013, while the judgment in the case of Ryan v. Secretary of Health and Human Service was published on December 13th, 2012. Therefore, this is not a “recently released” solution.
Further, there is no statement that “the Court ruling found that the MMR vaccine led to a confirmed diagnosis of encephalitis and later to autism.” Although the author of the article, David Kirby, shows in various ways that he is personally inclined to such interpretations of the lawsuits he writes about, he does not explicitly state at any point of the article that the Court found that MMR vaccine caused autism, because that statement is simply not true.
What Kirby does write about the Court’s official stance is the following:
The government did not admit that vaccines caused autism, at least in one of the children (…) In 2009, Ryan’s case was transferred to the vaccine court’s Autism Omnibus Proceedings, according to the docket. A year-and-a-half later, the government conceded that the MMR vaccine had indeed caused Ryan’s encephalopathy.
HHS agreed that “Ryan suffered a Table injury under the Vaccine Act — namely, an encephalitis within five to fifteen days following receipt,” of MMR, records show. “This case is appropriate for compensation.”
Whether HHS agreed with Ryan’s parents that his vaccine-induced brain disease led to ASD is unknown. The concession document is under seal.
In relation to the Court’s decision in the second case, according to the Jillian Moler, Kirby states:
HHS did not admit that vaccination caused encephalopathy or autism, but merely decided not to dedicate more resources to defending the case.
Thus being said, there is no statement in Huffington Post’s article that matches what was stated in the article that dnevno.hr has published.
The credibility of the source of the claim
One of the claims in Kirby’s article, which refers to the “acknowledgment” of the causal effect of a vaccine on the development of encephalopathy, in addition to being problematic in itself, is also wrongly translated in the article. Namely, the term “Table injury” is translated as “injury from a vaccine determined by law” which is not its true meaning.
What is “Table injury”?
“Table injury” literally represented “injury from the table”. The Vaccine Injury Table is prescribed in the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, and in which possible adverse reactions to vaccines are listed. Although, as it is pointed out, adverse reactions occur in a very small number of cases, if they do occur, the injured party has the right to compensation. The reactions and symptoms listed in the table are the basis for such compensation if they occur under the conditions prescribed in the table, that is, for a period of time and with the onset symptoms listed therein.
In cases in which the claimants claim compensation on the basis of the “injury from the table”, the obligation to prove is limited to providing the evidence that the injury occurred within a defined time period and with the symptoms listed in the table. If compensation is requested for an injury that is not listed in the table (such as autism), the applicant must provide convincing evidence, including medical and scientific findings, that the injury did in fact occur as a result of vaccination.
Sudija Hastings se u svojoj odluci osvrće i na ovakve slučajeve i naglašava da je američki Kongres, prilikom uspostavljanja sistema naknada za zaštitu od vakcina, otvoreno priznao da bi “pretpostavke za ozljede iz tabele mogle rezultirati naknadom za neke ozljede koje zapravo nisu doista bile uzrokovane vakcinacijom”, navodeći sljedeći citat:
“Odbor uviđa da postoji javna rasprava o učestalosti bolesti koje se slučajno pojavljuju u kratkom vremenu nakon vakcinacije. Odbor, dalje, uviđa da usvajanje ovakve pretpostavke o povezanosti sa vakcinama, može dovesti do toga da će odšteta biti dodijeljena i djeci čija bolest nije zaista povezana sa vakcinom.”
This claim is already a problematic interpretation of the judgment. Kirby’s conclusion that “US Government has acknowledged that MMR vaccine caused encephalitis” was derived from a written statement by the Department of Health that the boy has “suffered an injury from the table, specifically encephalitis.” As it is already mentioned, this is not the same case, because in such cases the causal-and-effect link is not proven, but rather, it is proved that an “injury from the table” has occurred under the conditions prescribed by the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, in which case the compensation is granted. The statement that the boy has suffered a “table injury” cannot be equated with the statement “the vaccine caused the injury.” Such a statement does not exist in the court document that is considered here.
Rating:
Given that the allegations in the original articles were misrepresented, and that the parts of the original article actually published contain misrepresented facts, we rate this claim as fake news and disinformation.
But, it was enough for the American public that the Court acknowledged the severe illness of the boy Ryan after receiving the vaccine, and thus the news echoed as extraordinary for anyone who has been trying to open the eyes to the ‘parents’. How many children have had encephalitis, meningitis, autism, asthma, and other post-vaccination disorders after vaccination, which the parents did not associate with the vaccine because of ignorance? Only a very small number of people whose children get sick decide to painstakingly fight the courts and the pharmaceutical industry, and that is the key to everything. The public’s ignorance of the possible complications discourages the parents from fighting the vaccine industry. That is why so much work is being done that cover up the direct linkage between vaccine and autism, and many other neurological disorders, warns Neutral News.
The credibility of the sources and validity of the claims mad
Based on everything we have stated before, it is obvious that this claim also does not have any factual basis. The aforementioned Court did not prepare the parents any “painstaking fight” – on the contrary, it initiated a special procedure exactly to determine whether the growing number of autism claims was based on merits, providing an opportunity to the attorneys of the applicants to “join their forces” and prove their claims. In accordance with all professional and ethical standards, it was concluded that such a claim does not exist, which resulted in a 600-page document on this, which could by no means be considered as a “cover-up”. Although the final conclusion of all the proceedings was that there was no basis for compensation, the Court did, nevertheless, in many cases granted the parents compensation for legal costs, on the grounds that, prior the decision on “Autism General Procedure”, there could have still been a reasonable basis for such requirements. The overall conduct of the Court makes it clear that there was never a collision between “the Courts and the pharmaceutical industry”
In addition, calling on to “public ignorance of possible complication” is completely absurd, given those unproven theories that vaccinations cause autism is spreading (exactly because of articles like this) to such extent that they have already begun to threaten the immunization rate of many countries, including countries in the region.
Finally, let us take a look at the portal that is the source of all claims made before.
Natural News, the real source of this content, is an online media outlet owned by Mike Adams, a Texas dietetic supplement manufacturer and seller. Other than Adam’s product advertisements, the portal also published articles on “alternative medicine”, recipes for healthy living according to his dietary programs, and various conspiracy theories, mainly related to nutrition and treatment issues. Natural News is one of several online media outlets that Adam uses to promote his market and sell his products, and his products are in no way a credible source of such information, seen as that he has a very clear agenda for challenging official medicine for commercial profit.
Who is the person behind the source of this news?
Mike Adams introduces himself as the “Health Ranger” and describes himself as an “activist turned scientist.” In his biography, he claims that he has “graduated from a prominent university in the Midwest” to which he enrolled before finishing high school and that he “decided not to enroll in postgraduate studies even though he was offered numerous scholarships”. Adamas does not specify the name of the university, nor the area in which he graduated.
The information he offers about himself is without precise references, with bizarre details such as that he “crushed English, Math and Science exams when he enrolled in college”, that he was the first among his peers to have a computer, and that he solved Rubik’s cube in a record of 26 seconds. Adams further claims that he is “considered extremely talented in Tech-studies”, that he founded a multimillion-dollar software company that he sold in 2003; that he planted a 20-acre forest in Ecuador; that is a master of chest-to-chest combat and firearms and the author of “numerous self-defence and personal protection courses.” In addition to all of this, Adams states for himself that he is an extremely talented music composer, who has been competing in music talent competitions since the age of 12. For 2020, he announced that he will patent a revolutionary camouflage technology that will allow soldiers to be invisible while on the move, as in the movie “Predator”.
In a series of fantastic biographical lines, as well as numerous fields he “studied” (anthropology, literature, logic, labour law, Greek history, informatics, international trade, economics, etc.) and in which he “shows enviable knowledge” (psychology, cosmology, plant biology, chemistry, physics, quantum “phenomena”, agriculture, linguistics, politics, human rights…), for his actual studies he only states that he took “microbiology and genetics courses at the beginning of his studies.”
We rate this article as fake news, disinformation, conspiracy theory, pseudoscience, and clickbait. The articles in which these allegations were transmitted are rated as redistributing fake news.
We will publish a review of other claims made in this text in the analyses that follow.