Another update from the Autism Omnibus proceedings. This one I find worrying. It essentially presents two things for the courts consideration from petitioners (those who think vaccines cause autism):
1) That the scope of the hearings does _”not”_ :
…limit the scope of these proceedings to only those cases with a formal diagnosis of autism
2) That ‘Daubert’ is not utilised as the evidentiary standard.
The first one I find very worrying indeed. This essentially opens up a never ending series of possible cases surely? It also raises the ugly question of the honesty of the people raising this legal case. These are parents who hitherto have described their children as those who have been made autistic by vaccines (either just thiomersal or just MMR or a combo of both). Now, apparently, it is enough that:
…the injuries at issue here include neurodevelopmental disorders _similar_ to autism…
I have to wonder: just how many of these 4,700+ children have actually been diagnosed as being autistic? And how many are children being made to act as Trojan horses for a possible cash windfall for their parents? A disturbing, uncharitable thought to be sure but I don’t know what else to make of this.
Even more worrying is the petitioners attempts to make sure Daubert is not used as the means of determining evidentiary standard.
Lets remind ourselves of what Daubert is. Daubert is a legal precedent which:
[is] raised before or during trial, to exclude the presentation of unqualified evidence to the jury. This is a special case of motion in limine, usually used to exclude the testimony of an expert witness who has no such expertise or used questionable methods to obtain the information.
In plan terms it means that crap evidence cannot be presented to a court. I’m going to quote from Wikipedia directly:
In Daubert, the Supreme Court ordered federal trial judges to become the “gatekeepers†of scientific evidence. Trial judges now must evaluate proffered expert witnesses to determine whether their testimony is both “relevant†and “reliableâ€; a two-pronged test of admissibility.
a) The relevancy prong: The relevancy of a testimony refers to whether or not the expert’s evidence “fit†the facts of the case. For example, you may invite an astronomer to tell the jury if it was a full moon on the night of a crime. However, the astronomer would not be allowed to testify if the fact that the moon was full was not relevant to the issue at hand in the trial.
b) The reliability prong: The Supreme Court explained that in order for expert testimony to be considered reliable, the expert must have derived his or her conclusions from the scientific method. The Court offered “general observations” of whether proffered evidence was based on the scientific method, although the list was not intended to be used as an exacting checklist:
– Empirical testing: the theory or technique must be falsifiable, refutable, and testable.
– Subjected to peer review and publication.
– Known or potential error rate.
– Whether there are standards controlling the technique’s operations.
– Whether the theory and technique is generally accepted by a relevant scientific community.
What this boils down to is this – Daubert ensures that science presented as evidence is _good science_ . The petitioners are fighting hard to try and make sure Daubert does not become the way the omnibus case is judged:
…the notion that Daubert should provide the substantive criteria for resolving general causation issues in the omnibus proceeding ought to be explicitly dismissed.
Why? Well they _say_ its because Daubert is procedural, not practical, that Daubert interprets _Federal_ rules of evidence that do not apply in the Omnibus and that it is based on development of expert evidence through revealing documents which is not available in these proceedings.
Uh-huh, and of course the fact that Daubert demands a _scientific_ level of proof has nothing to do with things. Right.
Hilariously, what the petitioners want is to establish general causation in a Daubert-less series of hearings using a few ‘case studies’ hand picked from the 4,700 and then use _these_ as the body of general causation evidence to go on and establish specific causation in each single member of the 4,700. Stop and think about how poor the state of their science must be if they are arguing tooth and nail to do this.
Let’s not forget that three high echelon members of the mercury militia have all fallen foul of Daubert within the last year when trying to establish quack causes for autism: Martha Herbert, Boyd Haley and Mark Geier all came to realise that quackery and bad science is quickly exposed by such a hearing. And now – all of a sudden – the petitioners don’t want any truck with Daubert. Shocking.
Make no mistake – if they get their way, _which they may very well do_ – then a) these kids don’t have to be autistic and b) no science needs to be presented to establish general causation.
The closest recent bout of idiocy I can think to compare to this was when certain Southern US states stated that creationism was a viable science to be taught in a science class alongside actual science. They went on to win a a legal case as well if I recall. Don’t think that this one can’t be won by bad science too.
Left Brain Right Brain 
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
I sure as hell hope the court is thinking two steps down the road on this one. If they let these lulus collect, out of a misguided sense of charity, I daresay that will be the end of childhood vaccines being available in the United States. There’s little enough in it for the manufacturers already; if they find they can be held liable for any vaguely autistic-ish condition whether or not there is any science to back up the claim, they will be outta here.
Good point isles.
Of course isles is right, but the anti-mercury loons don’t care. I’d say that by and large they really do hate vaccines and would prefer they were unavailable.
But creationism is a valid science and there is no evidence possible that any of us existed prior to my typing this whence we were all spontaniously created complete with a set of memories like the replicants of Bladerunner, (which movie you will recall from that set of spontaneously created memories implanted just for the purpose of validating my discourse)
Have fun I am sure the lawyers will.
This comes as no surprise, especially after the thorough spanking that Drs. Haley and Geier received in their last turn at bat.
If the petitioners cannot get the Daubert standards waived, then they have no case – and they know it. Look to see the whole thing get rapidly flushed if the court declines to suspend Daubert.
On the other hand, if the court gives them this gift, they still have an uphill fight to show that thimerosal caused autism.
Another possibility is that the lawyers are tossing this one up with the knowledge that it is an extreme long shot (after all, the suspension of Daubert could be an easy route to a new trial) with the thought of using it as a means of saving face.
That way, after their case gets laughed out of court, the lawyers can turn to their clients and say, “Well, that Daubert ruling really gutted our case. They could then make vague legal noises while closing their briefcases and scooting out of town for a while.
As for the broadening of the definition, it is nothing that the medical and education communities haven’t already been doing. Doubtless, they’re trying to avoid having all 4700+ “diagnoses” challenged.
After all, some of the diagnoses have probably been made by some very questionable practitioners. Imagine the carnage if all 4700+ were reviewed and challenged one by one.
Taken as a whole, these requests suggest that the lawyers (if not their clients) realize that there is no science behind either the claim (that thimerosal causes autism) or many of the diagnoses.
Look to see things get interesting.
Prometheus
Speaking of airbrushing, Amazon.com removed Tito’s review of the book about him by Portia Iversen.
Here is one of Tito’s comments to that effect, there are more within the threads under other people’s reviews.
“here”:http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/AETCHWY4F15HQ/105-2292152-6260457?sort_by=MostRecentReview&x=6&y=7&display=public
In case that get’s removed, too, it says:
bq. My voice got removed ‘Strangely’, March 3, 2007
bq. I am Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay.
My voice got removed in this forum.
‘O conspiracy! Thou art yet alive?
In which way and in which guise…
Thou appear again and again….’
But can Autism be really silenced? True, I cannot speak well, although I try (I am getting better at it now).
But I can still write.
I was hurt by the ‘brutal’ description of me when I was struggling with my overstimulation and puberty in the ‘book’.
The Author must understand I do not have anything against the author as a person.
It is the book which hurts.
I am worried how that part would get shown in the movie, which was signed without even consulting us at a handsome price.
– Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay
Yeah well Tito needs a bit of clemenzia (that’s a Mozart joke)
In essence Tito here is a microcosm of the whole phenomenon, in that once autism was created as a phenomenon, those imbued with this new lable would eventually “bite back” and begin to redefine the phenomenon.
Essentially that is dialectical materialism in action, sad it is that my tutor at Brum doesn’t understand what I am talking about when I use such time honoured terms.