The federal government has conceded that vaccines contributed to a Georgia child developing autism, however, that does not mean the government is conceding that there is a link between vaccinations and autism, observers say.

The Georgia girl developed an autism-like symptoms after becoming sick within 19 hours of being vaccinated when she was 19-months-old. Further tests showed she had an underlying genetic mitochondrial disorder

After the lawsuit against Pentagon's Vaccination Policy was dismissed Friday, employees of Defense Department said that they will appeal the suit. Service members claims that the government forced them to undergo unproven and inefficient anthrax vaccination, said Mark Zaid, their attorney.

The case was filed against the FDA, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Pentagon, was dismissed by the federal judge, Rosemary Collyer saying that the Food and Drug Administration found the vaccine to be safe and approved its used

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday announced that it has destroyed 12 million doses of Dryvax, the original smallpox vaccine. Other health departments and the military were also advised to do the same by Feb. 29.

Dryvax - produced by scraping virus off the skin of infected calves is now replaced by a new-generation smallpox vaccine, ACAM2000. The new live, vaccinia virus smallpox vaccine was licensed for use in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration in August 2007. It is derived from plaque purification cloning from Dryvax

Children aged 6 months to 18 years old should be given influenza shots every year to fight off new strains of the flu virus that also mutates continually. This is the new recommendation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The recommendation, though not mandatory, would allow parents to understand that children can benefit from vaccines and it would be readily available to local physicians and administer to 30 million children nationwide

A federal advisory panel on Wednesday recommended that all children not just those under 5 but over the age of 6 months should be vaccinated for influenza every year. However, infants younger than 6 months and those with serious egg allergies are exempted.

The recommendation, which is expected to be formally adopted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, would be one of the largest expansions in flu vaccination coverage in U.S. history since the 1940s. It would include around 30 million more children eligible for vaccination, although current vaccination rates suggest that only about 7 million would actually receive the shots