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An Anonymous Coward writes:

The highest court of the European Union ruled [last week] that courts can consider whether a vaccination led to someone developing an illness even when there is no scientific proof.

The decision was issued on Wednesday in relation to the case of a Frenchman known as Mr. J.W., who was immunized against hepatitis B in late 1998-99. About a year later, Mr. J.W. was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. In 2006, he and his family sued vaccine-maker Sanofi Pasteur in an attempt to be compensated for the damage they claim he suffered due to the vaccine. Mr. J.W. died in 2011.

France’s Court of Appeal ruled there was no causal link between the hepatitis B vaccine and multiple sclerosis, and dismissed the case. Numerous studies have found no relationship between the hepatitis B shot and multiple sclerosis.

[...] the EU’s top court said that despite the lack of scientific consensus on the issue, a vaccine could be considered defective if there was “specific and consistent evidence,” including the time between a vaccine’s administration and the onset of a disease, an individual’s previous state of health, the lack of any family history of the disease and a significant number of reported cases of the disease occurring following vaccination.

[...] Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician and vaccines expert at the University of Pennsylvania, said the criteria used by the court made no sense — and are similar to those used by vaccine injury compensation programs in the United States.

“Using those criteria, you could reasonably make the case that someone should be compensated for developing leukemia after eating a peanut butter sandwich,” he said.

https://www.apnews.com/b0dd5e7933564f45bd3f4d55eedd40ae/EU-court:-Vaccines-can-be-blamed-for-problems-without-proof [apnews.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepatitis_B [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_sclerosis [wikipedia.org]

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