Italian MMR Autism Decision Overturned
This article reviews a recent ruling from an Italian Court of Appeals that overturns a widely ridiculed decision by a Provincial Court in 2012 that claimed that the MMR vaccine (for measles, mumps and rubella) causes autism. Apparently, that court rejected all other science, and only accepted the fraudulent work of Mr. Andy Wakefield to validate the claims about the vaccine and autism. The Italian MMR autism decision has started to return as a zombie trope. Probably as a result of the kerfuffle about the anti-vaccine propaganda movie, Vaxxed.
In June 2012, a provincial court in Rimini, Italy granted compensation to the family of a child named Valentino Bocca. The family alleged that the MMR vaccine Valentino received as part of his childhood immunizations caused his autism, and the court compensated them on that theory. The lower court’s decision was never on very firm grounds: it depended in part on testimony of an expert witness who relied, in turn, on Andrew Wakefield’s debunked study. Unfortunately, this Italian MMR autism decision has been used by anti-vaccine activists as part of their claims that vaccines cause autism.