Left Brain Right Brain

I just read something interesting on the web.  Someone was telling a petitioner in a Vaccine Court trial that she would have a better chance of winning if her expert witness didn’t use a research report by the Geiers.

Was this a blog?  Was this a yahoo group?  Nope, this was a decision on the Vaccine Court’s website.  This was the opinion of Special Master Vowell.

If that name sounds familiar, it’s because she is one of the three Special Masters working on the Autism Omnibus Proceedings.  What exactly did she say?

“I suggested that, in view of the criticisms leveled at Dr. Geier and his research, petitioner would be better served if her expert could opine favorably at the hearing without relying on the cited articles. “

and

“In attempting to assist this petitioner in presenting the strongest possible case for vaccine causation of her illness, I urged her counsel to caution her expert against relying on the Geier articles he cited.”

Ouch.

In case you were wondering, I wasn’t just reading the Vaccine Court decisions for fun.   I was prompted by something that Mark Geier said on NightLine.  Dr. Geier made a comment about “Wining” in vaccine court.

This struck me as a very odd statement.  Petitioners (plaintiffs) win.  Lawyers win.  Expert witnesses?  They can help someone win, but I don’t see them as “winning”.  Besides, there was something in the way he said it.  Something like when a kid says, “of course I did my homework” and you know you have to go check.  So, check I did.

I looked through the published and unpublished decisions and searched for “Geier” in each.  These go back to 1997 for published decisions.   “Decisions” include actual cases as well as pre- and post-trial actions.  The one quoted above is a good example of “pretrial”.  Post-trial Decisions are often about whether everyone should get paid what they billed.  Or, at least, this seems to be the case in more recent times.

Not all Decisions are trials.  Keep in mind, a single trial could have multiple Decisions.  I haven’t tried to group them together by case, I just made a list of all of the ones I could find involving Dr. Mark Geier.

With all that out of the way, what did I find?  There are 31 Decisions posted that involve Dr. Geier.  Of those, three are cases “won” where Dr. Geier was involved.  A further 3 may be considered “mixed” or “neutral”.  Figure that in 80% of the cases, the Petitioner and/or Dr. Geier loses.  I consider that a generous take.  It really is more like 90%.

Let’s look at those “winners”.

1999: The petitioner won the case.  “The court’s decision in this case is not based on Dr. Geier’s testimony, but neither will the court discard his testimony as unreliable.”  Not the most ringing endorsement.

2000: The petitioner won the case.  Dr. Geier submitted an affadavit which was used to “buttress” the case made by the expert witness who actually testified.

2006: Discussion of fees where Dr. Geier’s fees and use is found to be reasonable. ” In the instant case, $1562.50 in expert witness fees for Dr. Mark Geier’s services is reasonable.”

Yes, in the last 10 years, those are the “good ones”.   Not impressive.

I have seen people post that somehow the Special Masters are trying to discredit Dr. Geier because he is so effective.  People seem to imply that his recent stances on mercury and autism caused the Government to try to neutralize Dr. Geier. 

With that in mind I looked to see if the tone of the rejections has changed with time.  I didn’t really see that.  Keep in mind that some of the well known comments about Dr. Geier predate all these decisions.  For example, he was called “intellectually dishonest” way back in 1993!

Here is a sampling of quotes from other decisions through the past 10 years:

1997: Dr. Geier’s opinion, which is in an area outside his expertise, was not persuasive to the court.

1998: The court is unpersuaded by the opinions of Drs. Kinsbourne and Geier.

1999: This conclusion itself effectively renders the rest of Dr. Geier’s theory useless to petitioner in this case.

2002: “First of all, Dr. Geier is wholly unqualified to testify concerning the two major issues in this case”

2003: “Intellectual rigor is missing from Dr. Tornatore’s testimony and the stealth witness Dr. Geier’s submission after trial. ”

2004: “He is however a professional witness in areas for which he has no training, expertise, and experience”

2005: “The Special Master also noted that Dr. Geier’s opinions have been increasingly criticized in other vaccine cases. See Decision at 5. The Special Master identified seven cases in which Special Masters had rejected the expert opinion offered by Dr. Geier because the opinion related to areas outside Dr. Geier’s areas of education, training and experience.”

2006: This was a question of charges.  Dr. Geier charged $29,350.  In the end, they found $8,520 was reasonable.  It was  found that he was (1) not qualified as an expert, (2) charging for work on his own publications and (3) charging for time spent working in a related civil case.

“Since Dr. Geier did not possess the necessary expertise to testify in this case, the Court will reduce his hourly rate from $250.00/hour to $200.00/hour. Petitioner will not be compensated for costs that can be directly attributed to Dr. Geier’s original publications, attorney/lawyer consultations, and physician consultations. Additionally, the work billed for petitioner’s civil cases is not compensable.”

2007: Again Dr. Geier’s payment is cut. 

“For the reasons stated above, the undersigned finds 13.5 hours to be excessive. Dr. Geier  will be compensated for only those hours that are reasonable. Based on the undersigned’s experience with the Vaccine Program, Dr. Geier will be awarded compensation for five hours of  his time which is a reasonable, indeed generous, number of hours for a literature search and review of articles. ”

Again, that is just a sampling,  No attempt was made to be random.  The tone has been increasing against Dr. Geier, though.  As noted in 2005, “The Special Master also noted that Dr. Geier’s opinions have been increasingly criticized in other vaccine cases”.  So it is increasing.  But that is only increasing by going from Bad to Worse. 

You are welcome to go through the decisions and see if I have been quote mining.  One thing you will see is the possible reason why the Special Master has started warning petitioners to avoid Dr. Geier’s studies.  There are statements to the effect of, “If I had known Dr. Geier was useless as an expert witness, I would have hired someone else”.

Sounds like good advice.