And so, as we approach the end of week one of the vaccine trial, its been truly fascinating to read (albeit a day behind my US counterparts) the ongoing proceedings.
One of the things that fascinated me was the culling of the ‘expert witness’ list. Before Monday – the start of the trial – the expert list comprised:
Jim Adams PhD
Harland Austin D. Sc.
David S Baskin MD
Jeffrey Bradstreet M.D.
Richard Carlton Deth PhD
Mark Geier MD
M. Eric Gershwin MD
Phillippe Grandjean, Ph.D.
Sander Greenland, Dr. PH
Boyd E. Hayley, Ph D
Robert Hirsch PhD
Arthur Krigsman MD
Cathy A Lally, Master P.H.
Mary Megson, MD
Elizabeth Mumper MD
Andrew J. Wakefield, MB, BS, FRCS, FRCPath
And on Monday, the people left from this list were:
Arthur Krigsman MD.
Amazing. I can only surmise that the others were considered as liabilities. Certainly when one considers the stupidity of Haley, Adams, Geier and Wakefield then this looks like a good move. They would’ve been crucified on cross examination. It comes to something when only one person from the original list is considered a safe bet and then he is also crucified on cross examination.
Q. Doctor, your C.V. states that you’re a clinical assistant professor at New York University.
Is that correct?
A. Correct.
Q. Are you currently on staff there?
A. Correct.
Q. When was the last time you taught a class at NYU?
A. I haven’t taught there.
Q. You’ve never taught a class at NYU?
A. I’m on staff there.
Q. Are you salaried?
A. From NYU?
Q. Yes.
A. No.
Q. Have you ever been salaried at NYU?
A. No
I listened closely to the Petitioners opening statement and was bewildered. I’ll quote the ACHAMP blog:
Mr. Powers argued that over the last five years, since the Omnibus Autism Proceeding commenced, the Respondent in the Proceeding, with the Department of Justice acting as its counsel, had been standing “shoulder to shoulder” with industry and that it had placed many obstacles in Petitioners’ way. He noted obstacles of a short statute of limitations; very limited rights of discovery to gain necessary background information to build a case, particularly discovery from the Vaccine Safety Datalink; and selective use of materials from MMR litigation in the United Kingdom that was inaccessible to Petitioners; among other uncooperative tactics.
Not only are most of these things not _quite_ as painted, it seemed to me that Powers was presenting a long litany of excuses to be presented when the case fails. He’s simply fuelling the conspiracy theorist fire.
Also stoking the flames of that fire is one David Kirby. He made a recent HuffPo blog entry that berated critics for inflating the possibilities of what might happen if the parents win:
Critics of the autism claims also contend that a victory in court by any of the families would drive panicked parents away from immunizing their children at all, resulting in new epidemics of infectious disease and lots of sick and dying youngsters…..Nobody wants to see measles, or mumps, or polio sweep the country. But I don’t think that will happen.
Yeah? Its already happening you idiot.
In the course of 10 days, officials confirmed four pertussis cases, including the hospitalization of one child to treat respiratory symptoms. All of the cases afflicted children under 5 years old, and one in an infant just a couple of days old, according to Ravalli County Public Health Nurse Judy Griffin…..There have been more than 450 cases of pertussis in Montana so far this year, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. The infection rate is much higher than average years, when about 30 cases are reported….”Parents should check immunization records and make sure they’re up to date,” Nurse Judy Griffin said.
(Columbia) The state health department said yesterday that an infant has died from whooping cough. It is the first death reported in South Carolina from the disease in nearly three years….The health agency said it’s important children receive pertussis vaccinations on schedule.
A whooping cough epidemic has hit Deschutes County. Health officials say that in the past six weeks, 18 cases of pertussis have been identified in the county. In all of 2004, there were only two cases of pertussis in Deschutes County.
An increase in cases of the highly contagious whooping cough is prompting state health officials to urge stricter compliance with childhood immunization schedules….Cases have increased annually from 22 statewide in 1996 to 120 last year…Oklahoma’s childhood immunization levels continue to lag behind those nationally, officials said.
Kids are dying again. And in some areas of the US the disease causing those deaths is at epidemic (real epidemic as oppose to autism epidemic) proportions. And thats just one disease that vaccination removed the sting from for many years. In my country (UK) we’ve recently had a Mumps epidemic due to Andrew Wakefield’s unfounded scaremongering regarding the MMR vaccine. And worse:
Take-up rates of the jab dropped throughout the UK, down to less than 70% in some areas, after a small-scale study published in The Lancet in 1998 by Dr Andrew Wakefield suggested a link to autism.
In 2004, mumps cases in the England and Wales rose from 4,204 in 2003 to 16,436 in 2004, nearly a four-fold increase.
And in the first month of 2005, there were nearly 5,000 cases. Most were among young adults born before 1988 and who would, therefore, not have been offered MMR as a child. In the second paper, Dr Ravindra Gupta, from London’s Guy’s and St Thomas’, working with colleagues from King’s College London, found cases have also occurring in very young children who would have been eligible for the MMR – measles, mumps and rubella – vaccine…..Dr Gupta (…) said uptake of MMR among two-year-olds in the UK fell from around 92% in early 1995 to around 80% in 2003/4.
In October 2004, experts predicted that due to falling vaccination uptake, the UK would start to suffer from ‘small outbreaks’:
The medical newspaper Pulse has warned that there could be a measles epidemic this winter on a scale last seen in the 1960s. It said that lowering levels of immunity meant as many as 12% of children and 20% of adults could be hospitalised if infected by measles.
And now, this year, 18 months after this warning, we have the UK’s first measles induced fatality in 14 years.
The 13-year-old who died last month lived in a travellers’ community. It is thought that he had a weakened immune system; he was being treated for a lung condition. The boy died of an infection of the central nervous system caused by a reaction to the measles virus. The Health Protection Agency described his death as shocking.
The Times also says that of the 72 reported measles cases last month, 9 required hospitalisation – this tallies almost exactly with the 2004 prediction of a hospitalisation rate of 12%.
Kirby has his own ‘dire warnings’ about what might happen if the parents lose:
And then there is the Middle East. Osama, for one, has a very extended family. We are exporting thimerosal containing vaccines to many Muslim nations. Some vaccines contain not only mercury, but products derived from pigs. I don’t need to tell you where I am going with this train of thought. You already know.
Actually, I do. You’re trying to instil fear of Muslims into people to support your meaningless rhetoric you nasty little racist.
Left Brain Right Brain 
I find it amazing that you call you David Kirby an idiot. Fortunately for your ego, I will not stoop to that level. But I WILL tell you something else. Both my children have had 4 DTaP vaccines, right on schedule. Neither of them have immunity to pertussis as evidenced by recent titers. Additonally, they both had ALL their vaccines, including varicella. Guess what? IT DOESN’T WORK!!!! I’m home from work today taking care of my dear son who has the chicken pox. So much for vaccines.
Also, I feel so sorry for your daughter and your apparent refusal to try to help her through DAN!. My daughter is doing amazingly well, all because of her DAN! She now speaks, is making friends, and sleeps through the night. Autism should be treated as it is…a multi organ metabolic illness that impacts a child’s brain. You can not “teach” a sick body. You can, however, heal it. I pray for you daughter that you eventually wake up to this.
Diane, instead of praying, you should learn a bit about diseases and immunity. Pertussis immunity is not permanent. I has pertussis, coughed for 8 weeks, not pleasant at all. A couple of years ago I had my titres tested and nothing to show for that ordeal. I have a friend who has had pertussis 3x as an adult (as a pediatric nurse, she is high risk and gets coughed at a lot). I got a pertussis booster – I can highly recommend that.
Chicken pox immunity is not very good. My son had chicken pox twice, so have 10% of chicken pox sufferers. Guess what, my vaccinated daughter did not get them from her brother (yeah for *any* disease avoided). My prediction is that your DS will not get many lesions and have a much easier time than unvaccinated children. Keep his fingernails filed short rather than to cut them, so he cannot scratch – good luck.
While at the Allen/Kirby debate, I watched how Kirby gauged the audience as to how far he could go with his references (scare-mongering) regarding the alleged “Chinese toxic mercury plume”, China as a country and … _”Communism”_. At that time, I found him to really be leaning toward bigotry.
“Also, I feel so sorry for your daughter and your apparent refusal to try to help her through DAN!”
Diane, spare us from your condescending cr*p. Besides, we can reply to you exactly with the same tone:
I’m sorry you’re spending a fortune and submitting your child to DAN protocol, because our children are progressing really well without any of this dubious, dangerous, unproven and expensive treatments.
And, once again, with that Osama bit, David Kirby shows what an idiot – and weak writer – he is.
Diane is right, Kirby is not an idiot.
While he absolutely is scientifically illiterate, he is incredibly adept at whipping a tiny fraction of society into a frenzy (something an idiot could not likely do). This small group of people have driven the sales of his book to such a level that he will do nothing else except feed that frenzy until it dies out completely.
As an author it’s got to be a bit humbling that only the smallest percentage of owners of his book actually buy into his story, participate on his yahoo list, and go to his little rallies. I suppose at the end of it all, he feels the paycheck makes it ok.
The original list of experts reads like the who’s who of crappy scientists. The revised “list” reads like …. well … a shorter who’s who of crappy scentists.
Why does Arrianna Huffington give this idiot a soapbox to spread his bigotry and potentially deadly nonsense. A couple of years ago Kirby described the Chinese as surely about to start a war with the US over TCV’s now it’s the whole Middle East who are mindlessly going to follow Osama bin Laden, not because of thimerosal but because of pig proteins in vaccines? Are there even any pig proteins in vaccines? On the EoHam list they were all incensed and tearing out their hair over the horror of peanut oil being used as a ajuvant in vaccines… turns out peanut oil is not ever used as an ajuvant in vaccines, not any in anyone’s pediatric vaccine schedule anyway. The antivaxers or people on a vendetta against public health agencies as Kirby seems to be, are scarcely a good source of info on vaccines.
Who is supporting this man? He’s made it clear that he didn’t get much writing from the book and I don’t think he got millions for selling the book rights. Someone is paying him to “advocate” in the media, seems to me. He’s paying a good chunk of cash each month for the rent on his place in Brooklyn, according to him. He’s not writing articles for the NYT any more, I don’t think he’s writing for The Advocate now, though maybe he is.
This from a man who put all kinds of scientific falsehoods in his book, like “vaccines contain aborted fetal tissue.” It’s obvious to me that the man is on a vendetta against vaccines, but won’t come out and say so.
“Oh, I love vaccines myself, but you know the Chinese are going to start world war three over our vaccines and those wacky muslims are going to have even more incentive to kill us because of our vaccines…” One might make the argument that it’s Kirby who is a terrorist, a terrorist against public health. He certainly is slime below slime.
Leila … Please feel free to spell out the word CRAP on the internet. Surely that is equal to calling someone an IDIOT. Also, thanks for your concerns about my financial well-being, but first of all, I would spend my last penny to recover my daughter and have her lead a productive, happy life. Secondly, health insurance is a beautiful thing. Most employees offer it. Maybe you can get a job and realize the benefits.
Catherina…I actually did consider giving my children a booster for pertussis, but the doctor said that it is not to be found a single dose vaccine. In other words, it had to be given within the DTaP. I find that problematic and do not feel he needs to be further vaccinated for diseases to which he has immunity. Also, he’s only 4 so one would think that the four shots he had within his first couple of years would have done it. Now with the chicken pox…well, you get my point. Anyway, his nails are short, he does have a mild case and I am more annoyed at these doctors than concerned about this escalating into anything more than a few days at home.
Diane,
if he is only four then he will have some protection against pertussis, titre or not. I would not give a dT containing vaccine now as the tetanus portion is sure to cause a reaction in a child so recently immunized.
I am intrigued by all of those former expert witnesses no longer appearing. I would be interested to find out why. I live in an area where two of them are popular in the biomed community. I do have some biomed friends and I like and respect them in many ways, but when they tell about some of the things these doctors have told them — like, “all the metals are coming out of his limbs first (lab results supposedly show this), we must keep up chelation until the point where the metals leave his brain, it might be a while but be patient” — well, one wonders what to say. From my experience it is a huge red flag when a doctor tells you not to trust any other doctors, and that only he/she knows the “right” tests and the “right” labs, etc.
Yes, Leila, you’ve got a lot of nerve insulting Diane by not having a job. (Even though you, um, never said you didn’t have one … ?)
_”I find it amazing that you call you David Kirby an idiot.”_
Why? When someone is behaving like an idiot, it should be no surprise to hear them called as such.
_”Guess what? IT DOESN’T WORK! I’m home from work today taking care of my dear son who has the chicken pox. So much for vaccines.”_
I must’ve missed the newsflash that claimed vaccines prevent these diseases in all cases.
In an ironic twist of fate, it seems likely that the documented rise in measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox etc etc in both our countries that has resulted from the fall of in vaccination has hit your kids.
_”Also, I feel so sorry for your daughter and your apparent refusal to try to help her through DAN!.”_
Yeah….I wonder how Tariq Nadama’s mom feels after a DAN! doctor killed her son? How about those kids who’ve been chelated with garlic and vinegar? Or had their own piss injected into them? Or been hospitalised by megadoses of vitamins?
_”My daughter is doing amazingly well, all because of her DAN! She now speaks, is making friends, and sleeps through the night.”_
All because of her DAN? I feel sorry for your daughter that even her own mother can’t see how clever she is.
My daughters doing pretty well too. Should we have a competition? Or should we recognise that every child has different strengths?
_”Autism should be treated as it is…a multi organ metabolic illness that impacts a child’s brain.”_
Should it? I don’t think so.
_”You can not “teach†a sick body. You can, however, heal it. I pray for you daughter that you eventually wake up to this.”_
Hmmm….how do you account for the 60%+ success rate (by success I mean no more diagnosis of autism) that ABA claims? How do you account for the claims of a program like Son-Rise? No ‘multi organ metabolic illness’ there Diane. I don’t pray but I hope for your daughters sake you can snap out of your ‘multi organ metabolic illness’ crutch that your DAN! has given you to support your denial pretty soon. Maybe after you do, you’ll even be able to start assigning some praise to your daughter and not some quack as she progresses.
Hmm – the lawyers seem to be doing the best they can for the petitioners, hence the removal of their major liability experts. Must have been a sad sad day when Geier et al flunked the Daubert hearing.
After that – on the record and all – no point at all in having them appear. Look at what happened to Krigsman. The boys and gals for HSS (?sp) have done their homework.
Have to agree with BC (when did i ever not:), Kirby is technically not an idiot, according to the definition of an idiot – you know the scale which has idiot, imbecile and so on. However, idiot is probably the least perjorative term i could come up with when you consider how far some folks will go to earn a buck. It’s pretty appalling.
There is so much in this…
First, I am glad someone made a point of the middle-east scare mongering that Kirby was doing. “Osama”….I’m sorry, is he on first name basis? There are a lot of Osama’s. What if they were to criticize the US by using the name “David”.
Second, Diane’s case points out a very important part of the vaccine process. Some people will not get the immunity or will lose it with time.
So, here’s an example. Let’s say that I decide not to immunize my kids because of fear. OK, my kid gets pertussis and spreads it around the neighborhood. Let’s say my neighbor’s kid–who vaccinated but didn’t get the immunity–gets pertussis and dies.
The neighbors held up their responsibility, but because I was scared, their kid suffers. Get the point. It isn’t just about you and your family.
Third, Kirby wants to put phenol preservatives in place of thimerisol. Great, but after his scare-mongering, aren’t parents going to look at the MSDS?
Click to access MSDSwithVaxInsertInfo.pdf
Phenol is a “systemic poison and constitutes a serious health hazard…”
Matt
Kirby’s references to China and its pollution, and how these are somehow tired to autism, make me wince. They smack of “yellow peril.”
Kev,
two more things
First–I don’t have an issue with him saying he’s a “clinical assistant prof” at NYU, since NYU has him on their website
http://www.med.nyu.edu/people/A.Krigsman.html
He might be what we would call in my field “adjunct” faculty.
As to the long list that boiled down to one expert–there is also the possibility of basically a smoke screen. They made the respondents prepare for each of those guys, and then didn’t use them. Given how well prepped those lawyers are, consider how well prepped if they had been able to concentrate on the exact group they had.
Matt
It is odd that the expert witnesses are turning out to be different than the ones on the list. I think that list included people who had not actually agreed to be experts. Possibly some of the listed experts are going to be used in the “MMR only” and “thimerosal only” phases. Right now, only the “MMR/thimerosal combo” is being heard. The experts are testifying weakly that it is plausible that the MMR vaccine could cause autism, because persistent measles infection causes inflamation, which could have neurological manifestations. But if this is the case, the danger of a wild measles infection, rather than exposure to the attenuated virus in the vaccine, could be more problematic for the kids.
Reading the transcripts, there is actually very little evidence about autism. I think the petitioners might have been better off claiming the GI problems as their injury rather than autism. I just don’t see how they are going to make out the causal nexus.
I think that David Kirby is trying to find a way to keep his “evidence of harm” flame burning in light of the probable loss in the autism cases. He is setting up a scenario in which the government thimerosal conspiracy will extend to the Court of Federal Claims. That’s my best guess.
The Special Masters have already found that vaccines have injured claimants in non-autism cases. If international chaos was going to erupt because of this, it would have already.
Diane, I do have a job with great health benefits. But last time I checked, the DAN doctors and their tests/treatments are not usually covered by health insurance. Even if they were, I wouldn’t spend a cent of my money on quacks. I go to my son’s primary pediatrician who’s been there since the day he was born, and who agreed to order all the allergy/immunology tests that I requested (to rule out casein and gluten intolerance, yeast overgrowth and other things – my son had none of that).
I ran a quick check over the routine pediatric vaccines and didn’t find any made in pig tissue culture. I found monkey kidney cells and human diploid cells, but Porky the Pig was notable by his absence.
I also don’t think that the vaccine manufacturers are adding bacon or sausage to the vaccines.
Does anybody know what Kirby’s referring to?
Does he?
Prometheus
BTW, the “fetal tissue” canard is referring to two human cell lines – used to make some vaccines – that descend from fetal cells that were collected in – if I remember correctly – 1968 and 1974. It’s not as though the vaccines are grown in freshly aborted fetuses, although that’s what Kirby and others of his ilk would like us to think.
I think I figured out why they took all those witnesses off the list. They want to “save” them for future trials. When (not if) their testimony all gets all blown away, what are the lawyers going to present in the other trials? With no witnesses, there are no trials, with no trials; there are no lawyers’ fees. Against another defendant they might try to settle to avoid court costs and defendants legal bills, but this is the US Government. These lawyers are on salary.
If the lawyers blew the whole case in the first trial, who ever has been funding this might get a little POed. Let’s see, how much have plaintiffs paid these lawyers so far?
Prometheus: “Does anybody know what Kirby’s referring to?”
Kirby gets confused so easily. Somewhere he read about Chinese Hamster Ovary cells, Guinea Pigs, Swine Flu, Porcine secretin cures autism.
It’s all hogwash.
NM wrote:
“Kirby gets confused so easily. Somewhere he read about Chinese Hamster Ovary cells, Guinea Pigs, Swine Flu, Porcine secretin cures autism.
It’s all hogwash.”
Applause!
Diane, YOU are an idiot. It is NOT DAN! that is helping your daughter. You’re doing something else right. And don’t think you are going to get an NT daughter by following DAN!. She’s on the Spectrm for life and don’t you forgt it! All you can do (and this is what people like Kev are doing) is make things as comfortable as possible. Comfort leads to help – you don’t have to pay a cent for that! Got the guts to do it?
On subject – something people are missing. I tried to listen to the second petitioners rep (the female), and it was hard because she wasn’t using the mic properly. I loved it when the respondent’s rep had a go at both of them for addressing the gallery instead of the bench!
But I did pick up something very interesting. Two things actually.
1. There is apparently only 25 micrograms of thiomersal in each vaccine (I think – I couldn’t hear the woman properly when she identified “25 micropgrams of” what?). Now that is 0.000025 percent of a gram!. Even multiple doses wouldn’t amount to a milligram! Give me a break!
2. The case falls down instantly with that note that Michelle suffered the flu for four days with a temp of 105F! Bingo! Perfect conditions for a sensory overload and NOTHING TO DO WITH MERCURY! I hope that’s what the experts concentrate on when the respondents have their turn.
That’s the theory I hold at present thanks to a posting about a month ago on Best’s blog by a Dr.Good. I added it to my Wiki article on the myth of mercury poisoning last night.
Bartholomew, you may be right about Kirby, but that makes him even more dangerous than he would be if he was an intellectually deficient moron. In my book at least – that still makes him an idiot, in terms of his lack of integrity.
Kirby is smart. It takes such smarts to be able to manipulate, to pretend, to distort facts, and make things up entirely without showing what you are really up to. He can say with a straight face that autism prevalence has increased in China and Mexico, when there have been no prevalence studies conducted there. When he debated Arthur Allen in San Diego, it was pretty easy for Kirby because he was able to make things up as he went along, while Mr. Allen had to stick with the truth. Kirby pretends not to know what the California DDS codings and IDEA codes really are. He treats them as real prevalence data, which they are not — at least not to a good epidemiologist. He pretends to buy into Olmsted saying things like the Amish don’t vaccinate and don’t have autism, even though Kirby knows very well that no one has done a prevalence study of the Amish and that the one study on vaccination done with the Amish indicates they do vaccinate. He knows that he can appeal to American morality and American anxiety about our global moral leadership at a time when the world has so little respect for our country. So Kirby is smart. He is smart because he knows how to unite and inspire a vulnerable audience.
Oh, yeah, Kirby is way smart. The way I see the ‘Evidence of Harm’ movie ending is with David Kirby, cocktail in hand while reclining on a white-sand beach, reprising the Matty Walker role.
I must disagree with my friends – I don’t think Kirby is smart. I think he’s cunning.
Kirby is not that smart. Consider his proclamation that autism rates were dropping in 4 states. He didn’t even bother to check how unusual or common that might be, and ended up looking pretty foolish.
In a room full of idiots, the moron rules.
Kirby is smart but evil.
He isn’t using his intelligence to make the world a better place, he is using it to enrich himself by exploiting the parents of children with autism.
He is like the shopkeeper who sells torches to a mob that is burning witches at the stake and puts up handbills advertising it. Egg the mob on so they buy more torches. Are the witches guilty? Not my department says David Kirby. I am just a shopkeeper. “Special! Witch burning tonite! Torches, $10 each, 3 for $25.” “Fire resistant rope”, “perfume to mask the smell of burning flesh”, “Ear plugs to block the sound of screams”.
Torches don’t kill people, people with torches kill people.
OK. I will go with cunning.
Kirby is a cunning runt.
Don’t say it Andrews 🙂
In other news: of the top three winners in the Wakefield legal aid scandal, today’s omnibus witness was #3. Wakefield made a little more than 439,000 pounds, and Kinsbourne was just behind him with over 434,000 pounds.
Nice work if you can get it. I wonder what he’s being paid to testify in the Omnibus hearing.
The petitioner strategy at the Omnibus hearing was essentially to attempt an ambush of the DoJ. They didn’t reveal their experts, or much of their case, until February, leaving the other side scrabbling to deal with what they put up.
Kinsbourne, the professional witness, was on today. He was an utter disgrace. He came over like a greedy old man, who knew next to nothing about the case he was making. Again and again: “I don’t know”. Yet he admitted to pocketing $300 an hour from all the various lawsuits he’s been tied up in.
Wakefield, O’Leary, the Gieirs: couldn’t show they face. They simply couldn’t give evidence under oath.
The real victims are all the families who’ve been suckered by these people – families who will like as not never come to terms with the fact that they were conned by their heroes.
The HHS hasn’t even opened yet, but the Cedillo case is over. One of the special masters was practically rolling their eyes today.
I read the PDF of Dr. Byers testimony, and he met plenty of trouble in the cross examination.
All his logic about baby Michelle case (he staunchly refuses to generalize to any other cases), is mutually intelocked and also dependent on other experts opinions.
He thinks Michelle must have had a bad reaction to the MMR vaccine because measles RNA was found in her gut years afterwards. He thinks the measles must have caught and created gut inflammation because Michelle’s immune system must have been dysfunctional at the time of the MMR injection. He thinks mercury from other vaccines administered months before the MMR must have suppressed her immune system because his buddy Dr. Aposhian told him heavy metals can interfere with the immune system.
If any of the other experts are shown to be wrong on any point (for exemple the identification of measles RNA is a lab mistake, or if Michelle is suffering from Crohn’s disease instead of measles enterocolitis), and his whole logic falls apart.
I seem to have created a bit of a stir on this board. I will try to respond to some of the comments directed towards me with the time that I have currently.
Matt – I did my part. Both my kids had all their vaccines. Yes, my son has the chicken pox. No, he does not have immunity to pertussis. I have done my part for “herd immunity”. But if he was to contract pertussis, which I hope he does not, and gives it to a neighbor’s kid who subsquently dies from it, which I certainly would not want to happen, it would not because I was only concerned about my family.
Kev – My daughter was a very sick child. We were very lucky to get her into an excellent DAN! doctor very shortly after her diagnosis. (12 days after, actually.) He is not a quack. He had a successful pediatric practice in our town for 26 years and is well respected. He left that practice to focus on treating autistic kids. My daughter has a severe intolerance to gluten. She used to cry from constipaton. We challenged her with a bagel on Christmas day. Without going into details, let’s just say it was not pretty. No more bagels for her. We do not get involved with questionable practices. No injected piss (I must say I’ve never heard of that one) or anything that I cannot do research on and deem safe and appropriate. That is a parent’s responsibility.
Additionally, I am by no means dismissing the educational component. My husband and I are both teachers. My daughter is in an integrated preschool class and thriving. As far as the 60% success rate you mention….I have read everything I can about Autism since July 2005, and have never heard of a success rate of 60%. Lovaas got the high forties, and even that has never been replicated. The Son-Rise program is one I find interesting, but at this point we do not have the need to go there as I see it.
Leila — My health insurance covers EVERYTHING from the DAN! doctor.
Finally, Phil. People may call me many things, but you are the first to call me an idiot. Fortunately, I have enough confidence in my intelligence to not take that one seriously. In terms of comfort, my daughter gets an incredible amount of love, hugs, kisses and comfort. Fortunately, she no longer needs it for sick GI system.
Gotta run… my kids want my lap. Comfort time.
Byers could not tell what was in thimerosal. She sort of got smug and laughed her way through parts of the testimony. At one point she said something like, “now let ME give YOU a scenario” to the DoJ lawyer, Matanowski. He said, “no, thank you, that won’t be necessary.”
Kinsbourne was next to useless and refused to say specific things, almost quoting what Byers had said about not being able to say specific things about causation that could be applied in other human bodies, just that they were pretty sure that it was pretty straight forward, thimerosal destroyed Michell’s immune system, but no one saw any sign of this for the 14 months in between vaccines (according to one part of the transcript I read it was 14 months) but she was in this horrible, but entirely hidden state of ill health, and then the MMR gave her a fever and symptoms of autism and this was followed by years of diarrhea and arthritis, and inflammation of the eyes, so that now she can’t walk well, or see well.
Kinsbourne said something like it was funny (amusing) that Bradstreet called himself “the good news doctor.”
Diane – you haven’t caused a stir at all. You’re far from the first person to come on here armed with no facts and a lot of DAN! crap.
Diane –
Here’s the thing: Your daughter has a gluten intolerance – severe as you say. Your daughter has autism. These are unrelated, according to the current body of medical knowledge. Period. If you can show otherwise, step up and do so.
If you carefully research each treatment, as you say, I am shocked that you are not aware of this. By exactly what mechanism does gluten intake result in autism, pray tell?
The point you may be missing with your current worldview is this – take time to carefully consider whether you are attributing that your daughter “speaks, is making friends, and sleeps through the night” to your daughter. You are very clearly stating in your comments that you DO NOT believe this would be possible without YOUR efforts and those of your DAN! doctor. Give the kid some credit. Your narcissism is what makes you such an easy target for the DAN! community. Do you think everyone who buys their line is unintelligent? Far from it. Good luck.
Diane,
Please state for the record your REAL association with DAN, the folks involved in the thimerosal lawsuits, and other ties to the mercury militia.
I’ve seen your act before (under a different name) and it is suspiciously familliar.
Just today I was wondering to myself, “Where the heck has Anonimouse been?”
It’s interesting that the original Wakefield hypothesis was that autism was caused by being stoned on opiods from wheat and dairy… or maybe that was one of the first of his hypotheses… anyway… take out the dairy and wheat and the kid stops acting stoned, which is what autism is… being stoned on opioids…. and there’s this epidemic of kids all made autistic (stoned) because of measles and dairy and gluten from wheat…
But for some reason, after meeting up with the biomedder parents, Michelle’s parents must have learned about this dairy and wheat GFCF diet thing… you’d think they would have had her on it for years now, since her Crohn’s disease was so bad and since she had Wakefield’s famous “autistic enteropathy” and everything…. but Michelle is still autistic. When her diarrhea got better it was because of powerful and dangerous drugs, apparently…. Whatever, she’s still autistic, and surely she’s been gfcf for years. Maybe Michelle’s autism wasn’t caused by measles after all…
Steve – Gluten and cassein are not digested easily by many autistic kids. The proteins get lodged in small sacs in their intestinal walls and then cross over the into the blood and head toward the brain as optiates. I’m shocked that you need me to tell you this since you present yourself as current on “medical knowledge”.
Anonimouse – I am Diane, and have never, to my knowledge, been anyone else. I do believe that vaccines have a relationship to autism. I also believe that the government and the pharmaceutical industry have a real interest in making sure that this is never admitted. First of all, they will look like horrid people and secondly, it will cost them a load of money. In terms of the lawsuit, I have filed for my daughter, but her case will not be heard for many years to come. It is my hope (and belief) that she will recover prior to that at which time I will opt out of this litigation. My association with DAN is that I believe they are helping my daughter and her treatment has allowed her to learn all she has through her comitted parents, teachers and therapists. I am incredibly proud of her. She works harder than anyone I know and she is proud of herself as well. I hope you can find in your heart to do the same for your child.
“The proteins get lodged in small sacs in their intestinal walls and then cross over the into the blood and head toward the brain as optiates.”
Really? Actually what those kids need is a dose of _paregoric_.
Actually, in the US omnibus hearing, the opiates thing was abandoned. The claim was made by the leading expert for the petitioners (Kinsbourne – ha!) that it was measles virus acting directly on the brain. All that stuff about casein and gluten was simply dumped. Too crazy even for him.
Sorry.
“The proteins get lodged in small sacs in their intestinal walls and then cross over the into the blood and head toward the brain as optiates.”
Donna, haven’t you heard? There are ways to detect opiates and opioids and some nice scientists looked and didn’t find any. The opioid excess theory was dismissed long ago, though a few old school DAN! doctors never heard the news.
I’m shocked that you need me to tell you this since you present yourself as current on “DAN! knowledgeâ€.
Finally, Phil. People may call me many things, but you are the first to call me an idiot.
To your face I’ll wager.
Fortunately, I have enough confidence in my intelligence to not take that one seriously.
Well good for you – it’s nice to have confidence in something that is a figment of your imagination.
In terms of comfort, my daughter gets an incredible amount of love, hugs, kisses and comfort. Fortunately, she no longer needs it for sick GI system.
No longer needs comfort?? What sort of mother are you?
If you think you have an NT daughter now, you need to rethink your priorities PDQ. THAT is what contributes to your laughable intelligence level – if the way you present yourself here is any indication. For example;
Gluten and cassein are not digested easily by many autistic kids. The proteins get lodged in small sacs in their intestinal walls and then cross over the into the blood and head toward the brain as optiates.
DAN! brainwashing at it’s best, and you don’t have the smarts to realise that this has NOTHING to do with Autism at it’s roots. If anything it’s a symptom – and nothing more. Just like stopping sneezing isn’t going to cure one’s hay fever for example.
Just on Kirby’s intelligence level – how about we all agree that he should call himself;
David Kirby, Super Genius
(Wonder how many gadgets he’s bought from Acme to back up his views lately? LMAO)
Phil — You know what? I think you are a total ass. Do not take what I said about not needing comfort for a GI tract and turn it around to your liking.
People here are questioning my facts and practices. But where are YOUR facts????
You follow the Omnibus hearings in order to laugh in the faces of people who have a true belief that their children were injured by vaccines.
Kev has decided not to treat his daughter, to leave her as an autistic individual because that is who she is. Doesn’t bode too well for her future.
OH…and we should all forward information about poor little (no sarcasm here) Madeleine McCann whose parents felt it more important to go out to dinner that to watch their children. Here’s the information…..Her parents are like you. Taking their own interests and desires over the needs of their kids. Unfortunately, we all know the ending to that very sad story. God help you all.
And you effectively accuse me of jumping to conclusions, Diane. Hello, Pot calling Kettle!
Kev has decided not to treat his daughter, to leave her as an autistic individual because that is who she is. Doesn’t bode too well for her future.
That’s a crock of crap for a start!! Who are you to say that Megan has a poor future? Are you her mother? NO!! Kev knows NOW that his daughter is Autistic, and is in a position to prepare her the future in the best way possible – and with the TRUTH behind him (that Autism can not be cured).
Comparing Megan to poor Madeleine is a sick act by you. Completely reprehensible.
You follow the Omnibus hearings in order to laugh in the faces of people who have a true belief that their children were injured by vaccines.
Well, they weren’t. It’s my opinion (and I’m entitled to it) that Michelle was the victim of a sensory overload that activated the dormant Autistic gene. The cause – that severe bout of the flu (105F body tempreture). What I want to know – and I didn’t see this in the evidence – is why wasn’t she in hospital? If she was then good, but the flu has NOTHING to do mercury! And don’t give me this “weakening the immunity” BS. We are talking about (at the most) 150 micrograms of thiomersal. Do you know how much a microgram is? Virtually NOTHING!
Practical facts.
And if that makes me an ass in your eyes…..
GOOD!
If I’m an ass in the eyes of a woman who has been brainwashed by DAN! I take that as a compliment.
You want to really prepare your daughter for the future? Embrace Autism. Because it’s here to stay. If you don’t, YOU are the McCanns (to use your sick comparison).
Idiot (yeah I said it again).
I have to say that the tone of this exchange has become very unpleasant. Surely there are enough places on the web to read abuse related to autism.
As far as I’m concerned, Kev’s site serves little purpose if it becomes contaminated by this kind of stuff.