Last Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the second of the three defense verdicts in the test cases alleging that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine causes autism. Cedillo v. Secretary, HHS, No. 2010-5004, slip op. (Fed. Cir. Aug. 27, 2010). Although the Cedillo decision turns on the specific facts of the case and does not contain an across-the-board rejection of the vaccines-cause-autism theory, Cedillo adds to the (more…)

Last Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the second of the three defense verdicts in the test cases alleging that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine causes autism. Cedillo v. Secretary, HHS, No. 2010-5004, slip op. (Fed. Cir. Aug. 27, 2010). Although the Cedillo decision turns on the specific facts of the case and does not contain an across-the-board rejection of the vaccines-cause-autism theory, Cedillo adds to the (more…)

Last Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the second of the three defense verdicts in the test cases alleging that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine causes autism. Cedillo v. Secretary, HHS, No. 2010-5004, slip op. (Fed. Cir. Aug. 27, 2010). Although the Cedillo decision turns on the specific facts of the case and does not contain an across-the-board rejection of the vaccines-cause-autism theory, Cedillo adds to the (more…)

Last Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the second of the three defense verdicts in the test cases alleging that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine causes autism. Cedillo v. Secretary, HHS, No. 2010-5004, slip op. (Fed. Cir. Aug. 27, 2010). Although the Cedillo decision turns on the specific facts of the case and does not contain an across-the-board rejection of the vaccines-cause-autism theory, Cedillo adds to the (more…)

Rarely, if ever, have we come across litigation as socially detrimental and scientifically baselessas the claims, mostly centered in the Vaccine Court, that mercury-containing Thimerosal, or vaccines generally, cause autism. We’ve commented on this litigation before, mostly in the context of “junk science.”

Well, stick a fork in it, it’s just about done. Yesterday, the Federal Circuit affirmed the first of several decisions by Vaccine (more…)

The other day we learnedthat the U.S. Supreme Court will decide Vaccine Act preemption in Bruesewitz v. Wyeth. We’ll have plenty of time to obsess about the Bruesewitz case itself in the coming months, so today we’ll just use it as a convenientexcuse to get a couple of things out of the way.

Good-Bye Colacicco
Remember Colacicco v. Apotex? At one point it was all (more…)

The BBC is reporting that the British Medical Journal Lancet has issued a full retraction of the notorious 1998 article that claimed there was an increased risk of autism associated with use of the MMR vaccine. Among the grounds for the retraction: the lead author “was in the pay of solicitors who were acting for parents who believed their children had been harmed by MMR” and that author “was ruled last week to have broken research rules.”
(more…)

It was inevitable, we guess. Just as we ended up creating a new express preemption scorecard for medical devices after
, we’ve decided to do the same with the drug/vaccine preemption after
Wyeth v. Levine
(yes, we know
doesn’t address vaccines, but since we have to change one, we’ll change them both).
It’s basically the same as our other scorecards. It will be in chronological order after
, and we’ll mention the drug, the basic result, (more…)