Judge "Not Satisfied" That Whooping Cough Vaccine Causes Permanent Brain Damage

Abstract

A report is given of the British High Court ruling which, unless overturned on appeal, will stop all future payments under the government's no fault scheme for compensation for permanent brain damage caused by pertussis vaccine. The Lord Justice indicated that although he had believed that the vaccine could cause brain permanent brain damage when he had embarked on the case, he was more impressed by the "quality of evidence and reasoning" of the ten experts called by the vaccine manufacturer than by the mechanism of injury proposed by the nine experts called by the plaintiff. He also concluded that examination of data compiled by the National Childhood Encephalopathy Study failed to show that brain damage was caused by the vaccine rather than by an underlying condition. (KIE abstract)