Did Vaccines Cause Autism? The US Government has paid for 83 children who became autistic after vaccination

Today a press conference was held to announce publication of a study of Vaccine Injury Compensation Program decisions-- 83 were made in favor of children who developed autism after vaccination.  The peer-reviewed study by Mary Holland, Research Scholar and Director of the Graduate Legal Skills Program, NYU School of Law; Louis Conte, Robert Krakow, and Lisa Colin, was published in the Pace Environmental Law Review . 

However, the DHHS has claimed, "HHS has never concluded in any case that autism was caused by vaccination.” Really?

In an article by Vera Sharav of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, Sharav notes: 

The catalyst for this Pace law review of VICP published compensated cases, was the case of Hannah Poling.  In a 2008 report submitted to the VICP (which was leaked to the press) the Health and Human Services administration "conceded"  that vaccines had triggered Hannah Poling’s encephalopathy and subsequent developmental regression. HHS’s description of the child’s condition implied a distinction between “autism-­like symptoms” and “autism,” although there was no ambiguity that Hannah Poling in fact had autism.

In 2010, the VICP court award Poling $1.5 million, while denying other similarly injured children compensation. Nevertheless, in March 3, 2011, HHS baldly disclaimed its own 2008 "concession" document, stating in its Statistics Report: “HHS has never concluded in any case that autism was caused by vaccination.”

WHAT WILL IT TAKE FOR GOVERNMENT TO ACKNOWLEDGE A LINK BETWEEN VACCINES AND AUTISM?

Of note, a key similarity among the 83 successful claims, including the Poling case, claims which produced more than $96.7 million in settlements and awards, is semantics not evidence of injuries: the families who were successful in their claims did not assert that autism was their child’s primary injury.