The Hidden Story of Hannah Poling

Larry Law

In 2002, the vaccine injury court was facing an overwhelming load of cases. Their solution for expediting them was to take 5,500 claims from parents alleging vaccines caused their child's autism and put them into a single group. Six "test cases" (later narrowed down to three) were selected to be heard. The results of the test cases would determine the outcome of the other 5,497 cases. This arrangement was called the Omnibus Autism Proceeding (OAP). Seven years would pass before they finally got a  judgment by the vaccine court.

​To prepare for the OAP, lawyers for the parents of these injured children sifted through all the claims. One case in particular stood out. The case involved Hannah Poling. Hannah was the daughter of Dr. Jon Poling who worked for the world famous Kennedy Krieger Institute. A fellow doctor at the Institute who had observed and worked with Hannah was Dr. Andrew Zimmerman. Dr. Zimmerman had been the expert witness called upon by the U.S. government on many previous cases to testify that vaccinations did not cause autism. However, Dr. Zimmerman changed his mind on the matter after living through Hannah's situation. He learned first hand that vaccines indeed could cause autism as he shares below in J.B. Handley's book, How to End the Autism Epidemic:

On November 30, 2007, Dr. Zimmerman penned a two-page letter to the Poling's attorney saying, 'The cause for regressive encephalopathy in Hannah at age 19 months was underlying mitochondrial dysfunction, exacerbated by vaccine-induced fever and immune stimulation that exceeded metabolic energy reserves. This acute expenditure of metabolic reserves led to permanent irreversible brain injury. Thus, if not for this event [her vaccinations], Hannah may have led a normal and productive life.'

Supporters of vaccines try to portray mitochondrial disorders as rare, but the data indicates anywhere from 20 to 50 percent of children with autism have some type of mitochondrial disorder. Mitochondrial disorders can be genetic, but they are also caused by toxins in the environment. A healthy child could receive one batch of vaccines and develop a mitochondrial disorder and then receive a second batch and develop autism. Dr. Zimmerman wrote in a 2006 study reporting on Hannah, "Young children who have dysfunctional cellular energy metabolism therefore might be more prone to undergo autistic regression between 18 and 30 months of age if they also have infections or immunizations at the same time."
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So what did the vaccine court and the U.S. government's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) decide to do with this irrefutable evidence?  They conceded that Hannah could have had a healthy life if she hadn't been injured by the vaccines. They offered her parents 20 million dollars but they removed Hannah's case from the OAP. Hannah's father, Dr. Poling, explained later that this was a unilateral  decision by the government and he had nothing to do with the concession. HHS wanted the Poling case to go away in order to save the vaccine industry and keep Dr. Zimmerman's opinion from becoming public. One could only imagine what would have happened if America had learned the truth: vaccines cause autism and the US government just paid 20 million dollars to silence the family whose case proved it beyond a reasonable doubt. The public would still know nothing about this case because of the gag order placed on the family, but a lawyer leaked the story. J.B. Handley reported:

Like many children, Hannah 'consistently met her developmental milestones during the first eighteen months of her life.' On July 19, 2000, Hannah received five vaccinations at one appointment (DTaP, Hib, MMR, Varivax, and IPV), and her mother, a trial attorney, reported that Hannah 'developed a fever of 102.3 degrees two days after her immunizations and was lethargic, irritable, and cried for long periods of time.' Twelve days after her vaccine appointment, Hannah 'presented to the Pediatric Center with a 101-102 degree temperature, a diminished appetite, and small red dots on her chest.' She was diagnosed by the emergency room staff with 'a post-varicella vaccination rash.' The judgment continues with a seemingly endless list of trips to doctors and emergency rooms for ear infections, inconsolable crying, painful urination, bowel distress, and many other physical problems. Finally, in February of 2001, roughly seven months after Hannah's fateful vaccine appointment, she received an autism diagnosis from Kennedy Krieger by Dr. Andrew Zimmerman himself, and he noted that Hannah had regressive brain damage after her vaccine appointment.
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Dr. Zimmerman's opinion had triggered the settlement in Hannah's case. Earlier, Dr. Zimmerman had provided a separate opinion about one of the other test cases, that of Michelle Cedillo. He felt that Michelle's autism had not been caused by vaccines, and a written memo he provided would be a primary reason that all three remaining test cases would lose in the Omnibus, impacting 5,500 families. No one knew that Dr. Zimmerman held a different opinion about Hannah Poling. But after Dr. Zimmerman gave his private opinion about Hannah Poling's case, he was effectively uninvited from being part of the vaccine court ever again.

When the unidentified lawyer leaked Hannah's story, it made most of the mainstream news channels for several nights. Dr. Julie Gerberding, Center for Disease Control (CDC) director, led the spin effort on CNN. She said that Hannah's case was exceptionally rare. It was so unique that it had no bearing on the vaccine-autism issue. She said that Hannah had a unique mitochondrial disorder and it had no bearing on whether vaccines caused autism in normal children. Hannah's father, Dr. Jon Poling, knew this was a gross misrepresentation of the facts. He said, "The only thing unique about my little girl's case is the level of medical documentation. 5 to 20% of patients with ASDs have mitochondrial dysfunction" [a number we now know is closer to 50% as of 2018].
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Soon after conceding Hannah's case, the Omnibus court ruled against the 5,500 families and completely exonerated vaccines as the cause of autism.  Seven long years but the verdict was finally rendered in February 2009. There would be no government compensation for the 5,500 families whose children were injured by vaccines.

Since this Omnibus case, thousands of parents have learned that if they mention autism in their child's injury claim, their case automatically loses. If they say 'brain damage' or 'encephalopathy,' then they may have hope of being compensated for their child's injury. It is clear, however, they can't even imply  vaccines caused their child's autism.

Over the years, attorneys who represent vaccine injured children have discovered by digging through thousands of claims that there were many other cases like Hannah's in which significant compensation was paid. Those cases were also sealed and buried from the public. The government's deception continues to this day in 2020. With autism now affecting 1 in 30 children, we will eventually reach a critical mass of parents who all say the same thing--my child was normal before they recieved their batches of vaccines! It will be parents who demand accountability from their government.

​For more information on vaccines, see my book.