Stalling For Time, Mainstream Death, Underground Immortality

A few days ago I posted about how bad a time the autism = mercury poisoning via thiomersal/vaccines believers were having of late. There was the Fombonne study which revealed yet more lack of correlation between vaccines and autism, then there was the first legal try-out of the quality of the science and the scientific experts accumulated to demonstrate the relationship between thiomersal and autism which was dismissed due to the terrible quality of both. This was followed by the state of Hawaii refusing to ban thiomersal as there was no scientifically sound reason to do it and just as a nasty kick in the teeth, the latest quarterly reports of autism cases in California reported that there was still no drop in the figures despite the long term removal of thiomersal from mainstream vaccines.

Possibly then its no coincidence that on the 18th July, the Petitioners in the Autism/Vaccine Omnibus court cases filed a request to delay the deadline for submitting their case for general causation. The deadline (which has already been adjusted for petitioners several times before) was the end of 2006. Petitioners now want it extended to June 2007. They say this is to ensure the expert academics don’t have to curtail their teaching duties and also (because its in the summer holidays) allow families to attend.

Well, that’s one opinion. My personal opinion is that the RhoGAM case was a pretty large wake-up call and people suddenly realised that the ‘expert’ witnesses were _far_ from expert and that the body of science was shoddy in the extreme.

The petitioners also make some amusing requests regarding how this case is followed. Firstly, they want the court to allow for all 5000 families to attend in a central location such as Houston or Chicago. Maybe a resident of one of these cities can suggest a legal arena with a 5000 seat capacity?

They also suggest that the whole thing is played out via live web casts for those unable to attend in person. Strikes me that these requests are simply there to provide argument and thus stall for more time. In short, petitioners legal team are actively trying to turn this into a media circus, not a trial.

Most tellingly of all, petitioners want to _limit_ the amount of time each expert can be cross examined for. I wonder why. Well, no, I don’t. If I had Haley or the Geier’s in my corner I’d want to limit the amount of time they can speak too.

I feel sorry for the Special Master here. If he lets them have the extra time then he knows he’s setting a precedent. These petitioners have had ample time to prepare their case. If he refuses the request then he’ll be savaged and no doubt be painted as a Big Pharma Shill.

So is this the rag tag end of the thiomersal hypothesis? Yes and no. In scientific terms there’s still no evidence whatsoever to indicate a causative link between thiomersal/MMR/vaccines and autism. This aspect never really got off the ground at all. When we turn to epidemiology (is there a positive numerical correlation between thiomersal and autism?) then what we hear, as Holmes once famously explained to Watson, is the sound of no dogs barking.

Every quarter for the past two or three years, Rick Rollens has compiled the quarterly data from the CDDS without fail. David Kirby describes it as ‘the gold standard’ of numbers relating to autism. Every quarter, as caseload (as defiend by Rollens) grew it was trumpeted as proof that the thiomersal in vaccines caused an increase in autism…..except for the first time I can remember, Rollens has not compiled these stats this quarter. Kirby has not announced them on the Huffington Post blog. Schafer has not mentioned them in the SAR. No dogs bark this quarter. Why? Because thiomersal use is almost gone in vaccines and yet still the autism numbers rise.

Lenny Schafer recently said:

Myself and other autism activists believe there is enough evidence to support a causative relationship between mercury and autism in a court of law, in front of a jury, where standards of evidence are different than that of the narrow focus of scientific findings. And if you can convince a jury, you can convince the public.

He’s, of course, wrong as the recent RhoGAM hearing indicates. The standard of determination for scientific hypothesis’ is still, and always will be, science. I’ll close this first part of this post with a quote from one of my favourite poets – Yeats.

_Turning and turning in the widening gyre_
_The falcon cannot hear the falconer;_
_Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;_
_Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,_
_The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere_
_The ceremony of innocence is drowned;_
_The best lack all conviction, while the worst_
_Are full of passionate intensity._

*~Second Coming.*

I’ve long been fascinated by conspiracy theories. How they grow, how they operate etc. The autism/vaccine hypothesis has mutated into a conspiracy theory now as it fulfils many – if not all – of the sociological and psychological requirements to be deemed as such.

When conspiracy theories combine logical fallacies with lack of evidence, the result is a world view known as conspiracism. Conspiracism is a world view that sees major historic events and trends as the result of secret conspiracies. Academic interest in conspiracy theories and conspiracism has identified a set of familiar structural features by which membership of the genre may be established, and has presented a range of hypotheses on the basis of studying the genre. Among the leading scholars of conspiracism are: Hofstadter, Popper, Barkun, Goldberg, Pipes, Fenster, Mintz, Sagan, Johnson, and Posner, from whom the following list is synthesized.

Wikipedia.

Let’s work through some of ‘diagnostic criteria’ for conspiracies:

1. Initiated on the basis of limited, partial or circumstantial evidence; – TRUE ^{Began after FDA asked for review of mercury in ’97.}.
2. Addresses an event or process that has broad historical or emotional impact. – TRUE ^{‘Poisoning’ children is a highly emotive subject. Appeals to emotion are constantly made.}
3. Reduces morally complex social phenomena to simple, immoral actions – TRUE ^{Instead of seeing institutions as error-capable they are painted as evil}
4. Personifies complex social phenomena as powerful individual conspirators; – TRUE ^{Continued belief that those ‘in power’ at the CDC/FDA/AAP ‘know’ whats going on}
5. Allots superhuman talents or resources to conspirators;
6. Key steps in argument rely on inductive, not deductive reasoning;
7. Appeals to ‘common sense’ – TRUE ^{Lacking science, the fallback position is common sense.}
8. Exhibits well-established logical and methodological fallacies; – TRUE ^{One word – Geier.}
9. Is produced and circulated by ‘outsiders’, often anonymous, and generally lacking peer review – TRUE ^{Not sure about anonymous outsiders but definitely lacks peer review}
10. Is upheld by persons with demonstrably false conceptions of relevant science; – TRUE ^{Geier, Kirbys, Olmsted, Handley, Bernard, Schafer….etc etc etc}
11. Enjoys zero credibility in expert communities; – TRUE
12. Rebuttals provided by experts are ignored or accommodated through elaborate new twists in the narrative;
13. The conspiracy is claimed to involve just about anybody; – TRUE ^{FDA/CDC/me/George Bush/Every doctor on the planet}
14. The conspiracy centers on the “usual suspects”; – TRUE ^{Big organisations. CDC etc.}

So we can see that the autism/thiomersal/vaccine hypothesis more than qualifies as a conspiracy theory. The believers also fit the descriptions perfectly. Many autism/vaccines believers also believe in other related conspiracy theories. As an example, Kathleen recently posted another in her ongoing fascinating series of posts on the Geier’s where they were interviewed on radio. The host said:

Why are these things going on? Well, if you’d like to know why they’re going on, you need to get my talk on planned population reduction… And ladies and gentlemen, I hate to say this, but there really are people who want to hurt children… And if you doubt that, you need to get my book, Brotherhood of Darkness… Our government is poisoning us.

There really are people like Judy (sic) Gerberding and others at the CDC, who know exactly what they are doing, and they are evil. I’ve been to the CDC, I’ve met many of these people when I was back there, and of course, not the same people, I’m sure those people have gone on and probably been richly rewarded working for the drug companies or working elsewhere now, very prosperous after doing all the harm… We’re up against organized evil. We’re in a battle for the souls of men, and the survival of Christian civilization.

This is a vocalisation of the ‘human farming’ conspiracy theory. The host believes that:

some of our leaders have dedicated their lives to destroying our nation (US)

<source .

I have also heard conspiracy theories that state that (somehow) the 11/9 WTC attacks are (somehow) part of the autism/vaccine theory and that autism is a ‘disease’ constructed with the sole purpose of selling more pills.

Evidence of Harm also has a new member – John Scudamore of whale.to who’s site is a haven for conspiracy theories such as The Illuminati, Depopulation control, Big Brother, Black Ops. Charmingly, John has an entire section devoted to rubbishing medical charities:

the purpose of cancer research is not to find a cure for cancer but to perpetuate the cancer industry consisting mostly of research and chemotherapy

Another supporter of the theory (and in particular Generation Rescue) is David Icke who once declared himself as the Son of God and who believes that we are controlled by all powerful lizards.

It’s almost a necessity that the thiomersal/autism hypothesis becomes a conspiracy theory – it ensures its life beyond the point when the rest of the world has moved on (and we are very close to that point now) and gives people a reason to explain what they perceive as the bad in their life. Maybe these people are more to be pitied than argued with but their conspiracy theories affect my kids life directly. They still need challenging lest they sink into the same murky excuses for genocide that the recent re-painting of the holocaust as an event that never occurred occurs here too.