A 16-year-old boy with autism and his family are suing a medical clinic for administering vaccines they believe caused the boy's autism. The Tennessee-based case is unique for a number of reasons, the first being that it's the first time in 30 years that a vaccine case such as this has been heard in a U.S. court.

This is because in the U.S. there is a federally operated vaccine injury compensation program (VICP) that Congress created under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act.

The U.S. Court of Federal Claims in the District of Columbia (Washington D.C.) handles contested vaccine injury and death cases in what has become known as "vaccine court."

The VICP is a "no-fault" alternative to the traditional civil court lawsuit and was established in 1986 after a string of high-profile lawsuits slammed vaccine manufacturers.

The federal VICP compensates vaccine victims not from a fund paid into by vaccine manufacturers, but through a federal trust fund that collects a 75-cent surcharge on every vaccine given.

The 16-year-old Tennessee boy, Yates Hazlehurst, was denied compensation from the VICP, so the current lawsuit is giving him a second chance at justice.

CDC Blocks Key Whistleblower Testimony From Autism-Vaccine Case

A key part of the case hinges on testimony from Dr. William Thompson, a research scientist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Center for Immunizations and Respiratory Diseases (NCIR).

He was a co-author of four key studies the CDC has used to refute a link between the MMR (mumps, measles and rubella) vaccine and autism, as well as thimerosal-containing vaccines (thimerosal is a mercury-based preservative) and autism.