Dan Burton: “In the late 1980s, Congress passed a bill that established a Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund. It was supposed to be a…”

“In the late 1980s, Congress passed a bill that established a Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund. It was supposed to be a nonadversarial fund that was to help children and their parents when they were damaged by vaccines. We have found in the last few years that we have had a tremendous increase in the number of autistic children in America. We went from 1 in 10,000 children who are autistic to 1 in 200; and now many scientists and doctors around the world and in the United States believe it has been caused by mercury in vaccines. There is a product in vaccines called thimerosal; and 50 percent of thimerosal, which is a preservative in vaccines, is mercury. Mercury causes damage to the neurologic system and to the brain; and yet we have been putting it in needles and then into our kids for many, many years, mercury which has a cumulative effect in the brain and does cause things like autism and other neurological disorders. Most parents do not know that. When we established this fund in the late 1980s, there was a 3-year window when people could file if their children had been damaged by vaccines. Many parents with autistic children did not know about the fund until the 3 years had elapsed. We are trying to get that changed so these thousands and thousands of parents with autistic children have the opportunity to apply to that fund to get the kind of restitution that they need to take care of their kids.”