As noted previously, a panel discussion for the Court of Federal Claims judicial conference was canceled. The exact reasons were unknown.
This letter or email from the Court (from Chief Special Master Gary Golkiewicz to the participants) announcing the cancellation has been posted by David Kirby to the EOHarm group (with a statement that Mr. Kirby will shortly post this, presumably to one of his blogs).
I am very sorry to inform you that it was decided to cancel the panel program, on which you were scheduled to participate, as part of the Vaccine session of the Court’s Judicial Conference. By way of explanation, the Court’s planning process starts with defining a broad overarching theme, moves to identifying speakers, and subsequently focuses through meetings and discussions of the planning committee on actual content of the panels. This process moves very quickly as materials must be to the printers by mid-July. As the planning of the vaccine session developed, it became apparent that the discussion anticipated from this panel did not fit the goal of furthering the Bar’s understanding of litigation under the Vaccine Compensation Program before the Special Masters or the Court’s judges (in fact, another non-vaccine related panel was eliminated after discussions determined that it did not meet the Conference goals of focusing on litigation related issues.) While I have no doubt that your discussion of vaccines’ benefits and concerns is extremely important to the overall understanding of the immunization program, and would be enlightening to all, it is simply a discussion not consistent with the Court’s Conference but is better suited to another forum. Thank you for your support and my sincerest apologies, Gary
From my limited perspective, I agree with the above. I’m sure that the panel would have been interesting and given some additional understanding of the varied viewpoints of the immunization program. However, the line I see as the heart of the letter is:
“….it became apparent that the discussion anticipated from this panel did not fit the goal of furthering the Bar’s understanding of litigation under the Vaccine Compensation Program…”
I’m sure that Mr. Kirby could give a condensed version of his recent talk, but would that further the understanding of litigation issues? Dr. Healy could, well again I am not really sure what she could bring other than the opinions of a prominent doctor in another specialty. Mr. Allen could have presented a better researched view of vaccines than Kirby and Dr. Marcuse could have trumped them all with actual research from his specialty. But, again, does this promote an understanding of litigation?
OK, I am being disingenuous. Mr. Kirby definitely could have added to the understanding. He could have added to the understanding of how this subject will not go away, not matter how much science is thrown at it. He could demonstrate how bad science will continue and how people will cling to “Medical Hypotheses” and self-contradictory statements.
It has been said that if you want to study genetics, fruit flies are a great testbed. This is because you can watch many generations in a relatively short period of time. Mr. Kirby, and likely Dr. Healy, would have been able to demonstrate to the Court that if you want to watch the “genetics” of bad science, the “mercury hypothesis” is a great candidate. The more research that is thrown at it, the more in mutates into something new. Mr. Kirby could have taken them through the “novel form of mercury poisoning” to thimerosal in vaccines, to illegal immigrants keeping the CDDS numbers high, to toxic plumes from China. He could have explained how the Verstraeten study was flawed because it was ecological in nature, but how the “generation zero” data is somehow valid in his view. He could have done this without even a hint of irony at his own misuse of the CDDS data for his own simplistic ‘ecological’ based arguments.
I guess that would have been entertaining at least.
Left Brain Right Brain 
A small recognition, perhaps, of how little Mr Kirby’s writing has contributed to actual understanding, and has rather furthered speculation and misinformation.
I agree that Kirby’s presentation would have exemplified the rapid mutability of the antivaccine mythologies of the people he tends to associate with and who may be paying him to speak here and there. But I think you are being to kind by saying his presentation would have been interesting or informative. think it would have been very predictable and canned. If anyone attending this conference wants to know what they missed they can read his blogging or maybe get the video he’s offering of his recent speech in New York. As far as I know he hasn’t added any newly mutated ideas to his schtick in the last month or two. I think his ideas are bizarre, and self-contradictory. I guess not unlike the ideas presented by the PSC to the Special Masters in the Omnibus Autism hearing.
Who is supporting this guy now, anyway?
But I think you are being to kind by saying his presentation would have been interesting or informative.
I don’t think this would be the way to get real information about the vaccine/autism theory. But, they have experts testifying in court to do that. That isn’t the purpose of this conference.
Having someone like Mr. Kirby present at a meeting of Special Masters and Lawyers would inform people of culture (for want of a better word) behind the movement.
But, what of the proposed goal of the session, “Vaccines: Balancing Benefits with Parental Concerns (the autism issue?).”
OK, Mr. Allen and Dr. Marcuse would have been able to discuss the benefits. Mr. Kirby could have given his stump speech about being pro-vaccine. Would Mr. Kirby have taken responsibility for contributing to the climate of fear about vaccines? Would he have noted that much of the basis for his book and later writing is now being shown to be baseless? Would he have addressed that people like him could reduce parental concerns dramatically by admitting their own mistakes, rather than just quietly making small concessions (https://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/?p=851) about how thimerosal most likely wasn’t behind the increase in the autism count in California?
Would Bernadine Healy noted that her statements are increasing fears of vaccination, while not using any facts?
I think the session would have been interesting. I don’t think it would have met the goals of the session.
The way to balance benefits with parental concerns is to get real, good information out. At this point, that will likely take more studies on safety.
But, all the studies in the world won’t help if people erode confidence in the system. Hello, David Kirby, Bernadine Healy: you are a big part of the problem. If you can’t recognize that enough to reign in your own statements. Do a quick google search and see how often your baseless statement that studies haven’t been done because the researchers are ‘scared’ to find the possible susceptibility groups. Then listen to someone like Jeffrey Brent point out that there is no evidence–even amongst his autistic patents–that such a susceptibility group exists. Mr. Kirby, you devoted an entire recent blog post to your unending campaign against the reputation of the CDC. A new study appears to be on the way demonstrating that thimerosal in vaccines doesn’t increase the risk of autism. Instead of this allaying parental fears, you are working to undermine it before it appears.
There is great confusion out there now about the meaning of the Hannah Poling case. Guess what, a lot of that has to do with the fact that the one person given special access to the information botched the science and continues to do so. Yes, that is David Kirby. Then you have people making vague claims of researchers being scared (as noted above). Why should these people be given the privilege of presenting to the Court on behalf of the public?
Thanks for the response, I don’t know what the folks were thinking when they invited Kirby. I’m guessing they didn’t know much about his track record in the way he has reported autism science and pseudo-science, never mind the ways he has spoken of autistic people in very inaccurate ways that affects our lives and our children’s lives directly. If the vaccine court is going to give Kirby some kind of credibility by asking him to speak to them, then they are themselves adding to the problem of “parental fears,” of the sort stirred up by professional and non-professional fear mongers. And the court is giving credibility to someone who mocks the idea of the existence of a million ASD adults in the US and tried to use rhetoric and bad data to “disappear” a considerable number of autistic adults in Scotland.
Now the court could do worse than to invite Kathleen Seidel to tell them about the “culture” of fear mongering from the point of view of a parent who fears what is being done to autistic people of all ages because of that fear mongering.