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"Recently, there has been increased concern regarding a possible causative role of vaccinations in autistic children with an underlying mitochondrial cytopathy (cellular disorder)," the authors wrote. "For one of our 25 patients (Hannah, who DOES have autism, contrary to claims by Gerberding, Offit et al, who erroneously insisted, without ever meeting the child, that she only had "features" of autism), the child's autism/neurodevelopmental deterioration appeared to follow vaccination. Although there may have been a temporal relationship of the events in this case, such timing does not prove causation."

Maybe not - but one must wonder, then, why medical personnel at HHS's Vaccine Injury Compensation Program conceded that the "cause" of Hannah's "autistic encephalopathy" was "vaccine induced fever and immune stimulation that exceeded metabolic reserves."

When I first reported this story, the researcher I spoke to told me there had been 30 children in the study, and two of them (8%) showed signs of brain injury from vaccines. Of the five children since excluded from the final published review, one must have been the second vaccine-related regression.

Most of the children had regressed following illness-induced fever, the doctor told me. But now I wonder how accurate that statement was.

Why? Because we now find out that nine of the children (36%) had so-called "multiple regressions," and nothing in this review indicates that any attempt was made to determine if vaccines, febrile infections, or some other factors acted as triggers in the subsequent regressive episodes.

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The December 1st issue of Time Magazine carries a special section on "The Year in Medicine," which mentions the case of Hannah Poling, the young girl with autism who received compensation from the federal vaccine injury program. Like many news accounts back then, Time has called the case "rare," because it involved an underlying dysfunction of Hannah's mitochondria, the little powerhouses within each cell that produce energy.

The widespread misconception that Hannah's case was "unique," and without any bearing on other autism cases, was promulgated by opinion leaders such as CDC Director Julie Gerberding and the newly rich vaccine inventor Dr. Paul Offit, (who told Newsweek that his share of the royalties from the vaccine was "like winning the lottery.")

(Yeah, I think it's safe to say that certain interests have liability fears around this issue... fears that could undermine diligent reckoning and research.)

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