Over 5,000 petitioners have filed suit in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (“NVICP”) alleging vaccines caused autism in their children. Due to similar issues, experts, and discovery for each case, the cases were filed under the Omnibus Autism Proceeding (“OAP”) in the NVICP. The decision was made that six test cases would be tried so that certain uniform issues pertinent to every case could be decided. These cases were tried over the past two years.
Unfortunately, the Special Masters in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (“NVICP”) have now ruled that in all six test cases the petitioners have failed to meet their burden of proof on general causation and specific causation. In other words, the petitioners lost since the Court believed that there was not sufficient scientific evidence to support the allegation that vaccines can and have caused autism in the past. The following are the decisions on three of the test cases.
03-12-10 Entitlement Decision in Dwyer
162 03-12-10 Entitlement Decision for Mead
182 03-12-10 Entitlement Decision for King