SO THERE ARE MORE HANNAH POLINGS WE JUST DON'T KNOW ABOUT? GOTCHA, JUDGE.

http://www.ageofautism.com/2008/03/so-there-are-mo.html

(Managing Editor's Note: Schafer Autism Report has just run this letter they received:)

We Were Compensated, too

We were also compensated by the Federal Government in 2002. Our child suffered the same diagnosis after her routine immunizations. Encephalopathy with autistic like symptoms. I am not sure why people think this is the first case? Maybe they are just the first to go so public. I wonder how many other families have been compensated for the exact same symptoms? When we settled with the government I did not get the impression that we were that unique; quite the opposite as I spoke to the Special Master (the judge for the compensation program). - Misty Hiatt Read their story here.

By Dan Olmsted

Thanks to Michael Belkin for passing on this quite remarkable passage from an AP story (HERE) on the Poling settlement: "The case may not be a first," said Gary Golkiewicz, chief special master for the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

He oversees the special 'vaccine court' which rules on requests for payments from the vaccine injury fund. 'Years ago, actually, I had a case, before we understood or knew the implications of autism, that the vaccine injured the child's brain caused an encephalopathy,' he said. And the symptoms that come with that 'all [fall?] within the broad rubric of autism.'

And there are other somewhat similar cases, Golkiewicz says, that were decided before autism and its symptoms were more clearly defined."

Two thoughts on that: We've known the symptoms of autism since exactly 1943. And since the vaccine court is known to be gruesomely stingy, it's quite some admission to say there were other, earlier cases. Maybe some of our befuddled colleagues in the mainstream media ought to find out more about those cases that, according to the top judge, resulted in brain injury and fall "within the broad rubric of autism."

It's also worth pointing out that the AP writers spin this comment into the following pay-no-attention lead: "ATLANTA - For those convinced that vaccines can cause autism, the sad case of a Georgia girl, daughter of a doctor and lawyer, seems like clear-cut evidence. The government has agreed to pay the girl's family for injury caused by vaccines. But it turns out it's not that simple — and maybe not even a first."

Meanwhile, my head is spinning from the illogic of the whole thing.

Dan Olmsted is Editor of Age of Autism.