In spite of recent courtroom losses, parents who blame their children’s autism at least in part on childhood vaccines say their legal battle is far from over.
“We’ve always been in it to the very end,” said Theresa Cedillo of Yuma, Ariz., whose autistic daughter Michelle became the focus of a key test case at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in 2007. Even though the special master in the case ruled against her, Cedillo said, “I am optimistic. We have met our burden.”
Cedillo’s daughter was born healthy in 1994 but, a week after receiving the standard measles-mumps-rubella vaccine in 1995, she ran high fevers and her development slowed. In 1997, she was diagnosed with autism. Now 15, Michelle requires constant monitoring because of frequent and life-threatening seizures, according to her mother — and her case is still pending. “It’s really sad.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear next fall the case of Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, a non-autism case that asks the justices to decide whether the federal vaccine law pre-empts state law tort claims of vaccine design defects. If Wyeth wins, then more than 5,000 families making autism-related vaccine claims may not be allowed to sue vaccine makers in tort actions after they are adjudicated under the so-called “vaccine court” system Congress devised in 1986.
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