Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra features stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework, or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write an 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Lawsuit Alleges Vaccine Caused Autism in Children, 06/20/07
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june07/autism_6-20.html

Initiating Questions:

1. What do you know about childhood vaccines?

2. What does it mean if a person is autistic?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. What are many parents of autistic children blaming their children's disabilities on and what are they doing about it?

Some 5,000 parents of autistic children have filed a class action lawsuit that went to court this month, claiming that thimerosal, a preservative added to vaccines that contains the toxic chemical mercury, caused their children to develop autism.

2. What kind of courtroom is handling the lawsuits? How is it different from a regular court?

The proceedings are taking place in the "federal vaccine court," a court designed to adjudicate cases against vaccine makers while protecting the industry from bankruptcy. If the court rules that thimerosal can cause autism, any money awarded to the families will come from a government fund.

3. What is autism?

According to the National Institute of Health, autism is a condition affecting the body's nervous system that can impair thinking, feeling, communication skills and social interaction.

A person suffering from autism is often said to live in his or her own world, unable to recognize and relate to other people.

4. Why do many parents believe vaccines caused their children to develop autism?

The parents looked at studies that showed autism levels in the United States rose from one in every 10,000 births in the 1980s to one in every 166 births in 2003, according to the New York Times.

The parents also said infants began receiving higher doses of thimerosal in 1991 when several new shots containing the preservative, including a hepatitis B vaccine, were administered along with the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. They contended the total amount of mercury present in the combination of vaccines exceeded government regulations.

5. Why do many scientists and pediatricians insist vaccines do not cause autism?

All major scientific studies have so far disproved the theory, including a comprehensive study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control in 2003 that analyzed over 125,000 children born between 1991 and 1999.

Scientists also say the level of harmful mercury in each shot is minimal, equaling the amount found in a tuna fish sandwich.

6. What do those same scientists and pediatricians believe is responsible for the rise in autism diagnoses?

Skeptics of the autism-thimerosal connection believe the rise in the number of autism diagnoses is predominantly due to social factors.

The autism spectrum has expanded over the past 20 years and today encompasses a much greater range of affected people, particularly those with only mild forms of the syndrome. Children who may once have been labeled either "mentally retarded" or "learning disabled" are now classified as autistic, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Such classification usually qualifies the student for financial aid, as well as special education assistance.

7. What is a possible outcome to the lawsuit? Why does the parents' case have a chance to succeed in the "vaccine court?"

If the vaccine court decides in favor of the nearly 5,000 families, a settlement worth millions of dollars is likely.

To rule in favor of the parents, the court only needs to find "a link between autism and the shots is more likely than not," and does not require scientific proof, according to the Associated Press.

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. Although there is no scientific proof that vaccines cause autism, why might so many parents be convinced that vaccines are to blame? What role, if any, might emotions and personal experiences play?

2. Why do scientists and pediatricians defend the need for childhood vaccines? What might happen if schools and communities made vaccination optional?

3. If you were the judge, would you side with the parents who believe the increase in autism diagnoses is a direct result of vaccines, or with the medical community which believes a lack of concrete evidence renders the parents' theory invalid?

4. Research other cases that have taken place in the vaccine court (a branch of the Federal Court of Claims). Why does the U.S. government feel a need to protect the vaccine industry? What other cases have been brought to the court?

Write a 300-500 word essay on any of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra (extra@newshour.org). Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.