And so, the next twist in the Autism Omnibus is revealed. Writing in Spectrum Publications in a piece rather hopefully entitled ‘The Next Hannah Poling’ David Kirby writes:
….the boy who was selected to replace Hannah Poling as the first-ever thimerosal “test case” in so-called Vaccine Court, has just been found with many of the same unusual metabolic markers as… you guessed it, Hannah Poling.
……..
….the court announced that the replacement thimerosal test case was also being withdrawn, in order to “proceed to an individual hearing on a different theory of causation.”
……..
“We want to pursue an additional theory, not a different theory,” the boy’s father told me. “We are by no means abandoning the thimerosal theory of causation but, in the context of the test case, the thimerosal theory would have eclipsed our other evidence, including evidence of metabolic dysfunction,” such as impaired mitchondria and low cellular energy.
The boy is Alexander Krakow, son of EoH regular, lawyer Bob Krakow. Up until very recently, lawyer Bob could be heard trumpeting the evils of thiomersal to the exclusion of just about everything else (MMR aside of course). Now, however, the Krakow’s have a new hypothesis (DK refers to ‘theory’ through his article but it isn’t a theory) – but note they still give a shout out to thiomersal anyway.
Now, much as DK and the Krakow’s might want to think this is important, it really isn’t. This situation is in no way similar to Hannah Poling’s. In that scenario, HHS said she was vaccine damaged (but again, despite what DK says, there was no concession she had been made autistic by her vaccines – an opinion the medical evidence and mitochondrial experts agree with) and they recommended awarding damages uncontested. In Alexander Krakow’s case, his _parents_ have withdrawn him from the Omnibus. No science has been presented, HHS have not said anything at all about his medical conditions. All we have so far is the Krakow’s opinion that their son has a mitochondrial disorder.
This is especially interesting in the light of the report of the Krakow’s own hand-picked medical expert, DAN doctor Elizabeth Mumper – not only _a_ DAN! doctor but the ‘Medical Director’ of ARI.
This report prepared by Mumper states:
In my best professional judgement…..it is more likely than not that the thimerosal in the childhood vaccines Alexander Krakow received was a substantial contributing factor to his neurodevelopmental problems.
So the ARI medical director blames thiomersal. What did she have to say about mitochondria?
Well, nothing. The word ‘mitochondria’ is not mentioned once in the whole report.
In his article DK talks about Alexander Krakow having the same ‘markers’ as Hannah Poling. He neglects to say what they are however, or how he concludes they are markers. He also neglects to mention how the DAN! medical director singularly failed to detect any of these so called ‘markers’.
Perhaps the biggest mark against Alexander Krakow having ‘mito induced autism from vaccines’ is the fact that his medical report (which stated the thiomersal dunnit) made no mention of a fever or raised temperature. If I recall correctly, it was a key part of the Hannah Poling scenario that the vaccines had given her a fever and it was this which aggravated her underlying mitochondrial disorder and in turn caused her autism. Alexander Krakow’s medical report mentioned no fever at all.
David must also be aware of the fact that the ‘markers’ he refers to are, at best, markers of mitochondrial issues. Lots kids with mito issues have them. They bear no relation to vaccine injury. I was disappointed to see this issue being talked around but I have some hopes that later this year – towards the autumn maybe – this issue will be made abundantly clear.
So, all in all I am deeply puzzled as to how this is ‘the next bombshell’ or even how Alexander Krakow can be considered to have any kind of mitochondrial related autism issue. The HHS definitely did not concede this case and my guess is that they will be more than happy – given Bob Krakow’s own expert medical report into his son – to contest when their case comes up separately.
My further guess is that we will see some more people switch horses sometime fairly soon. I’m also guessing that – like the Krakow’s – it will be done against their lawyers advice.
Left Brain Right Brain 
What I wondered was if a dad (or mom) was in the omnibus and the dad was close to the lawyers and knew something of what they had on tap for experts for the thimerosal causation portion… and if that dad had heard or read all of the testimony up until now in the Autism Omnibus Proceedings… and especially, if that dad was a lawyer his little self…. well wouldn’t that dad maybe see that he was on a rapidly sinking ship and well, escape much as rats are known to leave sinking ships?
So, maybe the omnibus lawyers might want a particular kid to be one of their test cases because of whatever, and a particular child’s pappa thought his chances of getting a pay-out would be better if he cut himself loose from the rest?
I disagree with Ms. Clark’s reading. What they have probably decided is that “for the good of the herd” they need to find many other Hannah Poling’s. The more concessions by HHS, the better it looks for them, even if only 0.1% of the petitioners can be compensated this way.
So it’s not that some of them are starting to drop a loser hypothesis in favor of a newer but more plausible one. It looks more like strategy.
Alexander Krakow is probably the closest to Hannah Poling they could find. Nevertheless, the case looks pretty weak from what I’ve read. I wonder what the next move is if HHS does not concede.
I knew there was something familiar about that last name….
I don’t know how you do it Kev.
I couldn’t make it past the first sentence in Kirby’s article, which looks like nothing more than blatant misinformation.
The courts have already commented on such apparent inaccuracies.
See: Page 5 of this document from the courts.
Joseph,
I can see how that might be the case, but then someone said that Krakow dropped out against the advice of the petitioner’s steering committee.
I wouldn’t want to call anyone a word that rhymes with fire or anything… but then again… where there’s smoke there’s … no not Geier….
I can imagine some folks having dreams about armies of these kids (you know, whose mito was ‘injured’ by mercury, or is it thimerosal?) marching onto the Capitol. We can rest assured any articles or press conferences will not mention a certain “M” word, they wouldn’t want to say anything about mito, now would they?
Did you catch Kristina’s entry a few days ago? She wrote on an article that has some comments from Dr. Shoffner. QUITE the read (and I think that’s all I can say, although I’d love to go on!).
Kev,
I agree with much of what you wrote. One point of clarification though: In the Poling-Zimmerman case study they outline a scenario where vaccines or illness could contribute to problems in children with mito dysfunction, and it didn’t require a fever.
“If such dysfunction is present at the time of infections and immunizations in young children, the added oxidative stresses from immune activation on cellular energy metabolism are likely to be especially critical for the central nervous system, which is highly dependent on mitochondrial function. Young children who have dysfunctional cellular energy metabolism therefore might be more prone to undergo autistic regression between 18 and 30 months of age if they also have infections or immunizations at the same time.”
This is a very interesting development. I’ve been wondering since they pulled Master Krakow what the reason is.
If the PSC (the lawyers bringing the vaccine/autism case to court) won’t argue the mito case for Krakow, how can Mr. Shoemaker state that they were going to make that argument for Ms. Poling?
It appears to this observer that the Polings got very (VERY) lucky that the HHS conceded. The PSC was likely going to present her case as yet-another-case-of-mercury-poisoning, and argument that seems unlikely to win and certainly not the argument that fits with Hannah Poling.
The alternative would have been to argue two cases of “mercury poisoning” and then one case of “mitochondrial disease aggravated by vaccines”, which seems unlikely given the fact that the PSC won’t make that argument now.
Shwartz, thats definitely a scenario. A scenario that contains the words ‘if’ and ‘might’. Its hypothetical.
SL – I did. I wrote about it too. 🙂
Did you catch Kristina’s entry a few days ago? She wrote on an article that has some comments from Dr. Shoffner
Which story? Can you provide a link?
Matt
Kev,
Absolutely, most of this is all hypothetical at the moment. The point is that “fever” is just as hypothetical as “illness”. Both can cause problems (probably different ones) in conjunction with mito dysfunction.
Schwartz, if they “can” cause problems, then it’s not hypothetical at all.
bones,
And your point is? You think that only Fever can combine with mito dysfunction, or both fever and illness?
Why do people try to avoid the fever issue?
DK–
“But the real bombshell was this: Hannah’s autism was caused by vaccine-induced fever and overstimulation of her immune system, according to court documents.”
People just skip over the word fever in that statement.
Decade – thanks for that quote. I was looking for that. Can you remind me where it was made?
that is from the Atlanta onstitution Journal–a story that makes it clear that the second rule 4 report was leaked to Kirby
Excellent – thanks Decade:)