You can always say “This is impossible” until it happens to you.

The parents of a 9-year-old girl with autism spoke Thursday for the first time saying their assertion that the illness was caused by childhood vaccines has been vindicated by the federal government’s decision to compensate them.

“We are very pleased with the government’s decision. It has been eight difficult and heartbreaking years since our daughter’s injury,” Hannah Poling’s father, Dr. Jon Poling, a neurologist in private practice in Athens, Georgia, told reporters Thursday, according to CNN.

The Polings will be paid from a federal fund that compensates people injured by vaccines. The amount of money has not been established yet.

The Polings said their daughter received nine routinely administered childhood vaccines in July 2000. Following the shots, the girl’s health rapidly declined. She stopped eating, failed to respond to verbal stimuli, and became prone to episodes of screaming and high fever, Terry Poling, Hannah’s mother, herself a nurse and trial lawyer, said.

“Not only did she lose brain function, she lost her growth, she lost her ability to walk. She lost everything," Jon Poling said.

The Polings told reporters that the money will help pay for Hannah’s care for the rest of her life. Jon Poling gave up his job at John Hopkins University to open a private practice in Athens to spend more time with his family. Terry Poling stopped her work as trial attorney to take care of Hannah full time.

On the other hand, U.S. health officials have consistently maintained that vaccines are safe. Dr. Julie Gerberding, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there was no change in that position.

“Nothing in any of this is going to change any of our recommendations. Our message to parents is that immunization is lifesaving. This is proven to save lives and is an essential component of protection for children across America and around the world,” she said.

Many experts say Hannah’s case is unique and that her rare condition led to a rare consequence. Hannah was diagnosed with mitochondrial disorder (which can be present at birth from an inherited gene or acquired later in life and impairs cell’s ability to use nutrients. If often causes problems in brain functioning and can lead to delays in walking and talking) and it seems that the shots she was given significantly aggravated her illness resulting in a brain disorder with features of autism.

Nearly 5,000 families are seeking compensation for autism or other developmental disabilities they blame on vaccines and the publicity around the Polings’ case will sure make them fight more for their cause.

Rates of children suffering from autism in California have risen despite the removal of the preservative thimerosal from childhood vaccines in 2001, researchers said in a study published in January in the Archives of General Psychiatry, a publication of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers analyzed autism rates in young children over a 12-year period and discovered the first hard evidence that thimerosal plays no role in autism.

It seems that removing thimerosal from all recommended infant vaccines as a precautionary measure in March 2001 had no effect on reducing the number of children suffering from autism. The only childhood vaccines that contain more than trace amounts of thimerosal are multiple-dose vials of some flu vaccines.

Photo Credit: CNN.com