Swedish Autism & Vaccination Lawsuit

Posted by Martin R on February 20, 2010
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Yesterday the parents of a 17-y-o Malmö boy who suffers from autism lost a case in the Swedish court of appeal, Hovrätten. They had sued their insurance company for not recognising their claim for compensation. The parents blame the boy’s condition on common vaccines, which would have entitled them to insurance money, while the company holds that autism is almost always congenital and never caused by vaccines. The court found the science presented by the defendant convincing and ruled in the company’s favour.

I’m glad that the judicial system values scientific knowledge. But I am saddened that this already burdened family would now have to pay the costs of a lawsuit they entered into on the basis of medical misinformation spread by the alternative medicine movement. Luckily the insurance company, Trygg Hansa, has announced that it will remit the debt.

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Comments

  1. #1 Noah David Simon
    February 20, 2010

    Malmo. where news is empathy for idiot lemmings listening to alternative terrorist enabling freaks and they chase Jews out like Judenrein. a place of empathy for the gullible and bigotry from the left. Word is that you have one of the highest rape statistics in Europe. It isn’t working. so sorry about the fools that tried to sue and were misled by stupidity. As a Jewish parent with an autistic kid (and I didn’t try to get the free ride) I have this to say to you: shape up Sweden.

  2. #2 Martin R
    February 20, 2010

    Huh?

  3. #3 Ahcuah
    February 20, 2010

    Martin,

    I’m wondering why these folks would want to sue. It’s my understanding that Sweden has very good health care (and insurance to pay for it), and that thus these parents are already getting a fair bit of assistance to help them deal with the expenses and travails of raising an autistic kid.

    Was this a case of the parents hoping to hit a jackpot of some sort with a win, or was there really some sort of need that was not being provided by the Swedish health care system?

  4. #4 Martin R
    February 20, 2010

    I don’t know. The kid certainly wouldn’t have been denied treatment and training on the public buck. Maybe the parents had some agenda to try to establish a legal precedent in the medical question? Or they were just greedy? The really funny thing is that the court debt landed on the kid!

  5. #5 ebohlman
    February 20, 2010

    One possibility is that the parents wanted money for “alternative” treatments for their son, treatments that wouldn’t be covered by the national health-care system because they’re based purely on belief and have no evidence in their favor. I doubt, for example, that Sweden’s healthcare system would approve Lupron to treat “premature puberty” in a 17-year-old.

  6. #6 Maju
    February 21, 2010

    Well, the case is that in Sweden vaccines are not optional but compulsory. If you happen to believe that vaccines are perilous (with or without reason) you can’t refuse your children to get vaccinated. It’s a clear case of the medicalization of private life, a blatant abuse.

    “the company holds that autism is almost always congenital and never caused by vaccines”.

    This is very controversial. Autism is probably an epigenetic phenomenon and hence early careless medical intervention, as happens in all the developed world nowadays, may perfectly be the cause (or one of the causes) of autism. However you can hardly hold that in court, specially when it’s the pharmaceutic companies and physicians who make the research themselves without enough guarantees.

    Some decades ago leeches and mercury were considered good remedies by most respectable physicians. Time will tell but I suspect that a lot of things that are now considered normal and even “good” will in the future be thought as pathetic pseudoscience. But who will compensate the victims? Nobody.

    Sad.

  7. #7 Sjö
    February 21, 2010

    @Maju: Vaccination isn’t compulsory in Sweden.

  8. #8 Tony Bateson
    February 22, 2010

    Autism is decidely not congenital. Autism is not present in unvaccinated peoples nor in the unvaccinated population of the UK.

    As a commentator said, since the same pharmaceutical companies who sell and make huge profits from vaccines also do the research what other outcome could be possible? But I can’t think what these companies will do when people get persuasive evidence that autism follows vaccination because the Internet will surely deliver that result in time.

    Tony Bateson, Oxford, UK.

  9. #9 Martin R
    February 22, 2010

    Come on, that’s just dumb. The countries where there are few autism diagnoses are the ones with few competent doctors. Their autism sufferers receive the diagnose of “village idiot”.

  10. #10 Pär
    February 22, 2010

    Noah, you’ll be happy to hear that Sweden, and in particular Malmo, is indeed shaping up. At the time of writing, an 8-meter concrete and steel wall enclosing the Malmo suburbs suspected of housing terrorists is being erected. Phase 2 will see the citizens of the aforementioned areas being stripped of their civil and eventually their human rights. The final phase consists of carpet bombing the buildings with white phosphorous.

    Officials expect any inconveniences to cease completely by the end of May.

  11. #11 Glendon Mellow
    February 26, 2010

    Commenter #8, Mr. Bateson of the U.K., care to show us a link to the study that proves there are no unvaccinated people with autism in the U.K.?

    I’m glad “the Internet” will begin delivering scientific results at some time. Can the Internet also buy me a pony?

  12. #12 Luna_the_cat
    February 27, 2010

    @Tony Bateson:
    I also live in the UK, and you speak complete bullshit.

    There are substantial populations of completely unvaccinated children in religious communities in the Netherlands…and their rate of autism is just like in the neighbouring, vaccinated populations. The lies that you get off Age of Autism or mothering.com are just lies. They bear no resemblance to reality.

    Thing two, is that vaccines are probably the least profitable of any product that pharmaceutical companies make. If they just wanted profit and were not persuaded to act in the public interest in some regards, then it would be FAR more profitable to stop vaccination and allow the resurgance of vaccine-preventable diseases, which require much more expensive treatments.

    And thing three, you are waiting for “the internet” to deliver you convincing evidence that autism and vaccination is linked? Well, gee, what it has now is as convincing as what it will ever have (for certain broad values of “convincing”, such as the level of “convincing” evidence that the Queen is part reptilian, as per Icke). The more studies there are, the more it becomes apparent that there is no link between vaccination and autism at all.

    Meh. Idiot.

  13. #13 tony bateson
    April 13, 2010

    Luna_the_cat obviously knows something my hundreds of contacts in the autism community do not know. I tell you what I don’t get anything off web sites I do the work I meet the people I find the facts. What do you do? Why don’t you put your whatever where your mouth is and debate the issue with me in any public forum anywhere. Your language is pathetic so we may not even speak the same but I am happy to put my money where my mouth is – show me an unvaccinated autistic person in the UK and I will concede you do know something and make a generous payment to an autistic charity of independent choice! Come on I am waiting!

    Tony Bateson, Oxford, UK.

  14. #14 Martin R
    April 13, 2010

    Show me one, that’s ONE SINGLE PERSON with autism who has never worn shoes, and I’ll concede that possibly not all autism cases are caused by shoes.

  15. #15 Nomen Nescio
    April 13, 2010

    shoes? bah! it’s dihydrogen monoxide, i tell you! toxic stuff, fouls up your lungs in large doses, but noone who’s ever imbibed even a small dose has failed to eventually die. and every single autistic person’s had contact with it, too — that CAN’T be coincidence!

  16. #16 Martin R
    April 14, 2010

    Gimme a break, shoemaker boy. Everybody knows you’re on the payroll of Big Sneaker.

  17. #17 Abdul jaleel a.kalkhan
    August 8, 2010

    Greeting
    I am a lawyer from Iraq was working and living in the UAE and I am a resident
    Been trying to contact the private institutions with autism to know the status of my daughter, 9 year old as the diagnosis suggests that it Altouhidwofaqa infected with the reports attached.
    It was registered at the Center for Autism in Baghdad in 2003, but Pace by the conditions of my country, Iraq due to wars, including the recent war has made the country’s circumstances are very difficult as the country is devastated and lack of services in all respects and neglect and ruin the existing suffered by all the departments and hospitals. And everyone suffers for it, including children autism.
    Because of this, we traveled to the United Arab Emirates to work as well as for the purpose of addressing the child was registered at the Center for Autism
    Although the country in which sophisticated means, but this aspect is not a way that meets the needs of autistic children the means and capabilities and expertise. So began the search for institutes and Australian institutions with the expertise and means to assist the development of capabilities of children, disease
    Autism was your organization has its own expertise and staff and methods developed and since my daughter’s condition of a simple kind and features smart and has the ability to develop and learn and respond, and only need to Institute has a staff and expertise to give them the opportunity of her life through you and that we can be learned and improved their
    I ask your help for my daughter is still a child
    Please accept my sincere appreciation
    Abdul jaleel abdul nabi Kalkhan
    Jaleel_a96@yahoo.com
    Jak.1962_k@yahoo.com
    Jak_b62@hotmail.com
    +971509377982

  18. #18 Abdul jaleel a.kalkhan
    August 12, 2010

    Greeting
    I am a lawyer from Iraq was working and living in the UAE and I am a resident
    Been trying to contact the private institutions with autism to know the status of my daughter, 9 year old as the diagnosis suggests that it Altouhidwofaqa infected with the reports attached.
    It was registered at the Center for Autism in Baghdad in 2003, but Pace by the conditions of my country, Iraq due to wars, including the recent war has made the country’s circumstances are very difficult as the country is devastated and lack of services in all respects and neglect and ruin the existing suffered by all the departments and hospitals. And everyone suffers for it, including children autism.
    Because of this, we traveled to the United Arab Emirates to work as well as for the purpose of addressing the child was registered at the Center for Autism
    Although the country in which sophisticated means, but this aspect is not a way that meets the needs of autistic children the means and capabilities and expertise. So began the search for institutes and Australian institutions with the expertise and means to assist the development of capabilities of children, disease
    Autism was your organization has its own expertise and staff and methods developed and since my daughter’s condition of a simple kind and features smart and has the ability to develop and learn and respond, and only need to Institute has a staff and expertise to give them the opportunity of her life through you and that we can be learned and improved their
    I ask your help for my daughter is still a child
    Please accept my sincere appreciation
    Abdul jaleel abdul nabi Kalkhan
    Jalee_a96@yahoo.com
    Jak.1962_k@yahoo.com
    Jak_b62@hotmail.com
    +971509377982