Lawyers Bias CDC Vaccine Reporting System
Posted on: Monday, 6 February 2006, 09:01 CST
Eighty seven percent of all thimerosol-related reports made to the CDC's vaccine reporting system in 2002 were made by lawyers. And more than 25 percent of reports that correlate the vaccine preservative thimerosol to the development of autism in young children are filed by lawyers, not health care providers. These results are detailed in the February 2006 issue of the journal Pediatrics in a study conducted by the HealthPartners Research Foundation.
The U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System is designed as an early warning system for doctors alerting them to possible adverse connections between vaccines and medical conditions. Some researchers have used VAERS to document a possible connection between vaccines and autism. Anyone can report into the system. Litigants use trends in this data to seek compensation under the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program as evidence that as the number of immunizations has increased and the presumed load of thimerosol has increased, the rate of autism has increased.
"This knocks the legs out from under one of the main arguments that the vaccine preservative thimerosol causes autism in children. The researchers who make that claim, are often basing their data off of this reporting system," says Jim Nordin, M.D., head of HealthPartners Disease Surveillance System and co-author of the study.
"Lawyers are manipulating this system to show increases that are based on litigation, not health research," says Michael Goodman, Ph.D., researcher with HealthPartners Research Foundation and lead author of the study. "Pediatricians need to be aware of who is making the reports in the VAERS system. When a concerned parent asks, 'Do I need to be worried about thimerosol in my child's vaccine?' The doctor cannot base their response on trends in the VAERS data."
The percentage of lawsuit-related reports related to the preservative thimerosol rose from 0 percent in 1991-2000 to 87 percent in the year 2002. Researchers, doctors and policy makers using the VAERS data to make decisions need to take the reporting source into account in assessing trends.
About HealthPartners Clinics
HealthPartners 580 physicians provide health care services in medical and surgical specialties at 22 HealthPartners Clinics in the Twin Cities, as well as in hospitals in the Twin Cities and western Wisconsin. For information, visit http://healthpartners.com.
Contact: Ashley Burt Phone: 952-883-5304 Contact via http://www.marketwire.com/mw/emailprcntct?id=F1B24E5507F5AB3F
SOURCE: HealthPartners
Source: MARKET WIRE
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