Officials with the U.S. Court of Claims said they sympathized with the families, but there was little if any evidence to support claims of a vaccine-autism link.

The evidence "is weak, contradictory and unpersuasive," concluded Special Master Denise Vowell. "Sadly, the petitioners in this litigation have been the victims of bad science conducted to support litigation rather than to advance medical and scientific understanding" of autism.

etc.  Now that this is behind us, it's okay to ask why it took a court to examine the evidence for the link, even when the evidence was known to be fabricated.   At what point in a civilization's demise are the doctors so uninterested in their own work that they turn to lawyers to tell them what's what?

"But the doctors already knew, it was the public."  Oh, ok, I'll rephrase: at what point in a civilization's demise are doctors so uninterested in their work of informing the public of what is healthy and what is not, that they leave it to lawyers to decide and journalists to disseminate?

Lawyers for the families said they were disappointed.

No doubt.

"I must decide this case not on sentiment but by analyzing the evidence," said Special Master George Hastings Jr.

"Unfortunately, the [parents of the autistic child who blame the vaccine] have been misled by physicians who are guilty, in my view, of gross medical misjudgment," Hastings concluded.

Wait, what? Decide not on sentiment?  You mean you can make reasoned judgments without knowing who got paid how much?  You mean doctors can make serious conceptual errors that aren't the result of financial influence?

The hell you say, sir.  The hell you say.