How anti-vaccination parents claim they ‘won’ in court

The legal standards have changed.

Specifically, in cases of alleged vaccine-induced injury heard in special court under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, there used to be a preponderance-of-evidence standard, similar to other civil cases.

No longer. That’s how Hannah Poling’s parents “won”:

back on science by dropping preponderance of evidence as a standard. Now, petitioners need merely propose a biologically plausible mechanism by which a vaccine might cause harm — even if their explanation contradicts published studies. In 2006, for example, Dorothy Werderitsh claimed in the vaccine court that a hepatitis B vaccine had triggered an autoimmune response in her brain that led to multiple sclerosis. Two large studies had clearly shown that hepatitis B vaccine could neither cause nor exacerbate multiple sclerosis, but the court ruled in favor of Werderitsh, elevating a hypothesis above epidemiological evidence.

As Paul Offit notes, in the last few years, 4,800 parents of autistic children, blinded by grief and deluded by pseudoscience, have lined up to sue.