Court: Autism not linked to MMR vaccines

WASHINGTON, March 12 (UPI) -- A special U.S. "vaccine court" ruled Friday there is no evidence supporting a causal link between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism, officials said.

The Vaccine Injury Compensation Act of 1986 set up the special court to hear cases and compensate people who suffer adverse reactions to vaccines.

Special masters appointed to hear three vaccine cases in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims denied the claims of the parents of children with autism that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccines caused their children's autism, MedPage Today reported.

In one case, special master Patricia Campbell-Smith said the parents of a boy with autism failed to provide "a sound medical theory causally connecting" the child's condition with vaccination and that the petitioners' theory of vaccine-related causation is scientifically unsupportable.

These three cases, along with three cases that failed last year, are being considered by some as test cases for thousands of pending cases.

The Coalition for SafeMinds, an autism and mercury advocacy organization, said in a statement Friday that it regrets the ruling against three families who argued that vaccines that contained the mercury-based preservative thimerosal contributed to their children's autism.

"The denial of reasonable compensation to families was based on inadequate vaccine safety science and poorly designed and highly controversial epidemiology studies supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention," the statement said.