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Autism is John Donvan's special beat at ABC. Of the 28 stories Donvan has filed for World News in the past 28 months, ten of them have been about the mental disorder. Put another way, Donvan's ten autism stories represent more than a quarter of the entire three-network coverage (36 stories) of the disorder during that period.
So it was no surprise that ABC not only assigned Donvan to an autism-related ruling by a federal court, it also made Donvan's healthcare report its lead on this day of such heavy fiscal and political news. The court found that the MMR vaccine, given to children to prevent measles-mumps-rubella, is safe. "Not even close"…"no link shown"…"unconvincing"…"unsound and unpersuasive"…"Alice in Wonderland" reasoning…"a complete rejection." This was how Donvan reported the court's dismissal of the claim by 5,000 families with autistic children that MMR shots had damaged their brains. The lawsuits have caused a split in the Autism Speaks advocacy organization, Donvan added, with some members resigning in protest against its call for continued investigation of vaccine safety.
NBC and CBS covered the immunization ruling too. NBC's Pete Williams reported that public health officials criticize the autism lawsuits for eroding faith in the virtues of shots. Outbreaks of whooping cough, measles and meningitis have been blamed on immunization backsliding. CBS' in-house physician Jon LaPook advised that autism resources need to be spent on early diagnosis and treatment instead of costly research into a potential vaccine link and, "if it is not caused by vaccines, figuring out what is causing it."
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