By the way read what John Stone said in the BMJ Instant Responses on 13 February 2002.

“I am a parent of an autistic child, who has been seen at the Royal Free hospital paediatric gastro-enterology department but who has not been diagnosed as suffering suspected MMR vaccine damage. I view the MMR debate from a disinterested position although I have a deep “interested” concern in the cause(s) of the rise in autism generally.”

1) Are you aware there is no valid science connecting vaccines with autism?

2) Would you recommend to friends and neighbours to get their kids vaccinated?

We hear “We are not anti-vaccine” all the time , yet the actual behaviour observed is either openly anti-vaccine or the people make unvalidated demands that vaccines have some ill-defined ‘standard of safety’ , all of this backed up by arguements from unproven personal experience or clearly biased reading of the literature.

There are several ways of making vaccines safer, which – coincidence I’m sure – the “We’re not anti-vaccine” people appear to overlook, instead preffering to act suspiciously like anti-vaccine people would.

“The reports weren’t provided because the experts who wrote them didn’t give permission.”

The shocking difference in this case is that it was an exlitigant who was trying to obtain a copy of an expert report by Dr Wakefield. (section 15)

http://www.informationtribunal.....earch.aspx

Wendy Stephen v IC
Additional Party The Legal Services Commission
EA/2008/0057

Which seems nonsensical, given that the wrap order was well in place before they began their application, which was to obtain the reports from the sealed file.

As far as I’m aware, they didn’t make the application because (as mentioned in the documents above) their own representative said that they would need to get the experts permission, which was unlikely to be given.

The issue of jutice Keith not giving permission appears to have originated with – and only been mentioned by – you.

There appears to have been no attempt by the PSC to obtain the reports, thus it seems rather unfair to talk about ‘breaching’ if both sides had access to the same process of obtaining the documents. It also seems unfair to talk about an imbalance of power when one side exercised their power and the other side chose not to.

Sullivan may have read Jst Keiths original wrap order. I will wait until they have spoken before assessing whether or not your interpretation of it is correct. Going on all available evidence that is unlikely.

It is not claims that interest me, but documentary evidence. The case you do give is where Justice Keith’s assented in June 2007 to the US Government’s request for the four manufacturer experts’ reports. Here a claimant’s friend sought unsuccessfully to bar the US Government’s application. But the above discussion thread is about the US petitioners’ attempt to obtain the UK claimant’s expert reports in 2008. The petitioners didn’t pursue the matter because of the secrecy J. Keith insisted on in June 2007 (apart from his releasing the 4 reports to the US gov). To repeat, in 2008 there were no claimants around to object to the US petitioners’ requests, had they been made.

PLR on March 4th, 2009 19:01:18
“There was also another case where the claimants came and opposed, when Merck applied for Prof O’Leary’s report for a case in Pennsylvania.”

It’s true the claimants opposed this on the grounds that this would allow the manufacturers to cherry pick, whist the claimants couldn’t. At the end of the day both sides agreed to secrecy; but for different reasons. The defendants so that no one got hold of their MMR safety studies; the claimants to preserve their evidence for when they had the resources to resurrect their case. Of course in June 2007 this secrecy was breached in favour of the manufacturers.

I can’t help reverting to what some of you may object to: there is a blatant imbalance in the power and resources wielded by the manufacturer defendants compared to the claimants/petitioners in both the UK and US. Of course this leads in a different direction about the politics of science and litigation. But for now we’ll leave it there.

I hope this helps

http://briandeer.com/wakefield/keith-oleary.doc

Quite simply, you’re looking for the wrong thing, and have been told what to look for a total of three times now. There is no excuse, or evidence, to continue insisting that a refusal was made.

The March document that you have already read indicates that the PSC’s own representative states that the reports needed the authours permission to be released, which was unlikely to be obtained. The July document indicates that the PSC decided not to make an application, on the basis of the March advice.

No one has claimed that the UK claimants ‘refused permission’ for their expert reports to be released – no request was made – but it is claimed that some groups sympathetic to them tried to stop the release at court.

I hope this will end your confusion, and you will stop interchanging ‘expert’ and ‘claimant’.

Or it could be that there are very good systems for denying damage. Even severe adverse reactions are unlikely in my experience to be recorded or monitored. NHS advice is to ignore such events. Of course, it is very easy for an unbiased scientist, or even Brian Deer, to go back over records and find no mention of an event – but this does not mean a parent’s memory is an error or that they are lying.

I have cited this many times and even tried to persuade the NHS to take this ghastly skeleton down:

http://tinyurl.com/6mpucs

but there it still is! So they urge parents to bring their children back for the second dose when they have had severe reaction to the first. What would Brian Deer advise (after all he is the expert now)?