One of the test cases in the OAP was settled and removed from the process. She was subsequently identified as Hannah Poling, the daughter of Dr. Jon Poling, a neurologist at Johns Hopkins. Writing several years prior to the settlement, a research team including an expert witness who testified for HHS in the OAP, Dr. Andrew Zimmerman, made a clear connection between vaccine injury and autistic regression along with a more nuanced causation theory. “Autistic spectrum disorders can be associated with mitochondrial dysfunction…. We describe a female patient in whom developmental regression and autism followed normal development and subtle laboratory abnormalities suggesting mitochondrial dysfunction led to a diagnostic muscle biopsy…. Young children who have dysfunctional cellular energy metabolism therefore might be more prone to undergo autistic regression between 18 and 30 months of age if they also have infections or immunizations at the same time.”