On February 24th, on The Huffington Post site, Robert F. Kennedy Junior and David Kirby reported a ground-breaking court ruling concerning the MMR vaccine and autism.

Although the Washington federal Vaccine Court has recently ruled against three families who were claiming a link between the MMR vaccine, thimerosal and autism, the Court ruled differently in the case of Bailey Banks back in 2007, a case which has only just come to light.

The Bailey Banks Case

Back in June 2007, Special Master Richard Abell ruled that the parents of Bailey Banks, aged 10, had sufficiently demonstrated to the Vaccine Court that “the MMR vaccine at issue actually caused the conditions from which Bailey suffered and continues to suffer.”

The Vaccine Court awarded the Bailey family over $810,000 as a lump sum and between $30,000 and $40,000 per year for Bailey’s care, as compensation.

The Court ruled that the MMR vaccine had in fact caused the “acute brain damage” that was responsible for Bailey’s ASD. Special Master Abell ruled that the family had proven that the vaccine caused acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM), a brain inflammation illness, and that this led to PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified).

On hearing all of the facts of the case, the Court agreed that Bailey’s ADEM was caused by the MMR vaccine and this his ADEM was serious enough to cause permanent brain damage and developmental delays which are classed as PDD-NOS.

In Robert F. Kennedy’s words:

“The Court found that Bailey would not have suffered this delay but for the administration of the MMR vaccine, and that this chain of causation was… a proximate sequence of cause and effect leading inexorably from vaccination to Pervasive Developmental Delay.”

Kennedy also points out that this is not an isolated ruling and that a …