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''Michelle Cedillo v. Secretary of Health and Human Services'', also known as the omnibus autism proceeding (OAP), was a court case involving the family of Michelle Cedillo, an autistic girl whose parents sued the United States government because they believed that her autism was caused by her receipt of both the measles-mumps-and-rubella vaccine (also known as the MMR vaccine) and thimerosal-containing vaccines. The omnibus proceeding required the petitioners to present three test cases for each proposed mechanism by which vaccines had, according to them, caused their children's autism; Michelle was the first such case for the MMR-and-thimerosal hypothesis. The family sought compensation from the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP), but in order to qualify they were required to prove that it was more likely than not that their children's autism was caused by their vaccines. The scientific community had concluded that vaccines did not cause autism years before the first cases were heard, and concern was therefore expressed that the relatively lax evidentiary standards of the NVICP could lead to compensation being awarded in spite of the compelling scientific evidence to the contrary. This, some vaccine supporters argued, might have serious adverse public health effects by discouraging vaccine manufacturers from producing more childhood vaccines. Though the NVICP had existed since 1988, it was not designed to handle the thousands of cases it received from 1999 to 2007, which led to the establishment of the Omnibus Autism Proceeding in 2002. The trial opened on June 11, 2007 in Washington, DC. The Cedillos' six expert witnesses argued that thimerosal-containing vaccines degraded Michelle's immune system, which in turn made it possible for the weakened measles virus in the MMR vaccine to cause a persistent infection leading to autism. In support of this hypothesis, the Cedillos' witnesses relied on the reported detection of measles virus in Michelle's gastrointestinal tract by John O'Leary's Unigenetics laboratory in Dublin. However, the government's expert witnesses conclusively demonstrated that O'Leary's positive results were caused by contamination in the Unigenetics lab rather than an actual infection. On February 12, 2009, the special masters ruled that the Cedillos were not entitled to compensation as they had failed to demonstrate that thimerosal-containing vaccines in combination with the MMR vaccine could cause autism. The special masters concluded, among other things, that the government's experts were considerably more qualified than those testifying on behalf of the families, with special master George Hastings stating that "the Cedillos have been misled by physicians who are guilty, in my view, of gross medical misjudgment." ==Background== (詳細はNational Vaccine Injury Compensation Program was established in 1988 in the United States by the passing of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, and is funded by a 75-cent tax on each vaccine dose. The program's aims were to maintain a steady supply of vaccines while, at the same time, allowing victims of vaccine injury to be compensated more efficiently than was previously possible. The program operates according to a no-fault principle.〔(NVICP at the HRSA website )〕 The family of Michelle Cedillo sought compensation from this program. Cedillo, a then 12-year-old female wheelchair user from Yuma, Arizona, was involved in the first of three test cases chosen by the government to represent the approximately 4,900 other vaccine-autism cases that had been brought before the court. Michelle Cedillo was born on August 30, 1994, and received thimerosal-containing vaccines during the first fifteen months of her life. On December 20, 1995, she received an MMR vaccine. Theresa and Michael Cedillo filed a vaccine injury claim on behalf of their daughter on December 9, 1998 for encephalopathy, but on January 14, 2002, changed their petition to a causation-in-fact claim, meaning they were arguing that Michelle developed autism as a result of the combined effects of thimerosal and the MMR vaccine. They did this as a result of a meeting that had taken place the previous year, between Theresa Cedillo and Andrew Wakefield, at a Defeat Autism Now! conference. In 2001, many other families also filed suit in the NVICP, also because they believed their children's autism had been caused by vaccines and they were therefore entitled to compensation. The following year, the Office of Special Masters of the United States Court of Federal Claims held a series of meetings to decide how to deal with these claims, and that July, issued an order establishing the Omnibus Autism Proceeding. According to the Cedillos, Michelle was developmentally normal until she received her MMR vaccine at the age of 15 months, at which point she developed a 105-degree fever, began vomiting and developed diarrhea. Michelle was diagnosed with autism 18 months after receiving her MMR vaccine.〔 According to the ''Washington Post'', the legal standard to which the cases were subjected in this trial meant that "the outcome will hinge not on scientific standards of evidence but on a legal standard of plausibility—what one lawyer for the families called '50 percent and a feather'." It was in 2002 that, given the large number of litigants seeking compensation from the NVICP, the Omnibus Autism Proceeding was established. Its aim was to resolve pending vaccine-autism claims "aggressively but fairly." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Cedillo v. Secretary of Health and Human Services」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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