Following the ruling of a special federal court in favor of childhood vaccines, health experts in the United States hope parents will no longer hesitate to have their infants vaccinated against childhood diseases.

 

The US Department of Health and Human Services released a statement immediately after the ruling saying it hopes the federal court’s decision will “help reassure parents that vaccines do not cause autism.”

 

The ruling was against parents of three kids with severe autism who sought payments under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, a special fund designed to help parents whose kids suffer any damage following vaccination. The parents claimed that thimesoral, a preservative that’s no longer used in most routine children’s vaccines, caused autism in their children.

 

There are more than 5,000 similar cases in which parents of children with disabilities await for a decision on their cases. The controversy around childhood vaccines and autism was sparked by a 1998 paper in the British journal Lancet that linked developmental delays and MMR vaccinations. That paper is controversial; 10 of the 13 authors retracted it in 2004, but the lead author, Andrew Wakefield, has not.

 

Since then, other studies have concluded there’s no scientific evidence to link vaccines to autism in children.

 

The disorder, characterized by poor social interactions, impaired communication and repetitive behavior, affects as many as 1 in every 150 kids in the U.S., according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the past few years, more researchers have been exploring the possibility that the disorder involves an interaction of genetics and environmental factors.