Ever since Andrew Wakefield published his study in 1998 saying that certain vaccines were responsible for causing autism in children, a relatively small but vocal group of people has continuously argued to the world that children should stop being vaccinated. This is despite the fact that the study was almost immediately called into question,and no one has ever been able to repeat the results to confirm Wakefield’s findings. In fact, the findings were retracted,and the doctor himself stripped of his medical license for falsifying data in 2011. Still, people continue to argue that vaccinations are to blame for autism and that they should bear responsibility for their child’s condition, even though the only effect that can actually be proven so far is that unvaccinated people have caused a significant uptick in diseases that were once thought to be under control. How did all of this insanity begin?
Blame the Lawyers: Wakefield Was Paid
One of the most unfortunate revelations of the scandal involving Dr. Wakefield and his falsification of results is that he conducted the study after receiving over $600,000 from a law firm that wanted to sue vaccine manufacturers. This is bad for so many reasons.
First off, it casts a very dark shadow over medical research in general and begs for more insight into how studies are conducted and who the people running them are involved with. Not that skewing numbers to imply certain results is a new phenomenon, but typically that kind of hackery is something you would expect to see from a company’s study into the defects of its own products – you go into it knowing that everything has to be taken with a grain of salt. A law firm paying a medical professional to fake results is an entirely different beast.
Which brings us to the second point: even just one law firm doing this makes everyone practicing personal injury law look bad. Personal injury attorneys get a bad enough rap for being vultures and ambulance chasers without also having to contend with allegations of deliberate fraud so that they can sue for damages. The goal of a good personal injury lawyer isn’t to manipulate data, it’s to stand up for individuals that have been wronged, often by large and powerful entities that have no desire to make up for their errors or change their ways.
It also means that lawyers were at least partially responsible not only for diverting needed funds from real research into the causes of autism, but also for encouraging parents to stop vaccinating their children.This is a truly serious problem that has led to countless cases of injury by disease and even a number of deaths. In California in 2010, unvaccinated people were in large part responsible for an outbreak of pertussis that killed 10 and made more than 9,000 sick.August saw 21 members of the Eagle Mountain International Church diagnosed with measles, and nationally the number of people with measles this year is triple what it usually is.
Has This Caused The Anti-Vaccine Lobby to Back Off?
You would think that all of these outbreaks of diseases that had been incredibly well contained for decades, along with fraud being shown in the one study that argued there was a link between vaccines and autism, might cause anti-vaccination groups to reverse course. Unfortunately, you would be very wrong. Instead of backing down and showing relief that they can start vaccinating their children again, many who’ve taken a stance against vaccination are simply arguing that there’s a conspiracy to discredit Wakefield and his findings. Mind you, there is little evidence of this kind of widespread effort to mislead people (outside of what Wakefield himself did in his own study, of course), but that doesn’t seem to matter to people against vaccinations.
Some have suggested that doctors need to work harder to educate their patients about the importance of vaccinations and their relative lack of harm. Others have said that a more assertive stance from physicians may help, citing studies that show an increase in vaccinations when family doctors tell parents that it’s time for their child to have them done rather than asking how mom and dad would like to handle the issue. Here’s a radical suggestion: why not sue those who don’t vaccinate and consequently cause others to get sick?
Does Preventable Disease Constitute an Injury?
Before delving into this question, let’s get one thing straight up front. This isn’t something that’s going to happen, and there are plenty of good arguments out there for why it shouldn’t. Vaccination isn’t mandatory. People in this country are free to make their own choices – even if those choices end up harming them. And, ultimately, those who want to protect themselves from getting a disease through contact with an unvaccinated person have a pretty simple solution: get vaccinated themselves.
Still, it’s an interesting legal question to think about. Follow this line of thought, if you will. A vaccine is known to prevent a specific disease. The parents decide not to give this vaccine to their child. That child later contracts the disease and suffers because of it, likely even passing it on to others. Should this constitute a personal injury claim? Or even a form of child abuse?
Then there’s the question of how all of these unexpected cases of previously “eliminated” diseases are impacting our already overburdened medical system. When doctors and nurses are forced to treat people for something that wouldn’t have occurred had they been vaccinated, it takes them away from other patients and may lead to lower quality care for everyone. Has “injury” been caused in situations like this?
None of this is meant to demonize those who chose not to vaccinate. It is a personal choice, and it’s understandable that lots of parents are scared. After all, autism isn’t easy to deal with in many cases, and it’s a problem that’s getting worse. According to the CDC, back in 2000 about 1 in every 150 children was diagnosed with autism; by 2008that number had grown to 1 in 88. And a recent revision to these numbers shows that as many as 1 in 50 kids were being diagnosed by 2012. The worst part, however, is that medical experts still don’t know what’s causing it to happen. But continuing to attack vaccinations without any real evidence that they are to blame doesn’t solve anything – it just takes focus (and funding) away from genuinely helpful research.
About the Author:
Steven Slootsky is a 1985 graduate of Nova Law School, which means he’s been a practicing Fort Lauderdale injury lawyer for more than 2 decades. He founded the Law Offices of Slootsky, Perez & Braxton in 1991. The Fort Lauderdale-based accident attorney is a member of the Florida Bar, as well as the Federal Bar for the Southern District for the U.S. District Court. During his career as a personal injury lawyer/auto accident compensation attorney, Steven has served as the co-chair of the Workers’ Compensation section for Broward County, Florida. He is also a Bronze member of the Florida Workers Advocates, a former member of the board, and serves as an “Eagle” member of the Florida Academy of Trial Lawyers.
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