Every year the Court of Federal Claims holds a “Judicial Conference”. The point seems to be a good one: get the Special Masters (Judges) and the lawyers together to discuss the system. The Vaccine court is essentially non-adversarial and it is a pretty small community.
As noted in a letter from the Chief Special Master discussing this year’s Judicial Conference:
I believe wholeheartedly that the Bench and Bar must communicate periodically to improve the system of justice. I believe this Conference program – the panel discussions of general vaccine policy issues and of the information underpinning vaccine compensation decisions – can provide that important dialogue.
Sounds great. Let’s face it, the community of professionals involved is fairly small: a few Special Masters, a few law firms. The purpose of the Vaccine Act was to make a non-adversarial program. They should take advantage of that to make the system work as well as possible for the people.
This year’s Conference was going to be different: amongst other events, they were going to hold a couple of panel discussions.
The first panel is tentatively titled “Vaccines: Balancing Benefits with Parental Concerns (the autism issue?).” It will be moderated by Sharyl Attkisson, a reporter with CBS Evening News. The panelists will be Arthur Allen, author of “Vaccines”; David Kirby, author of “Evidence of Harm”; Dr. Ed Marcuse, Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Washington, who has served as a member and Chair of HHS’ National Vaccine Advisory Committee, and as a member of CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices; and, Dr. Bernadine Healy, Health Editor, TJS News and World Report and former Director of the National Institutes of Health. There is no doubt that this discussion will be lively and informative.
Yep, that’s what David Kirby has been talking about, to the point of adding it to his bio for his recent speaking engagements.
Well, the word on the street is that this first panel has been can canceled. There are no public details of why. I would not expect to hear the details of “why”. That leaves the field open for people to interpret as they will. We see way too much of that in the autism community, so I’ll try to stick to my own predictions and my own view of the panelists.
I can already imagine the posts to the yahoo EOHarm group and other places. I hope to be pleasantly surprised, but I suspect to hear talk about how the subject was “too controversial” and how “controversial reporters” are being kept from talking.
I don’t know why this panel was canceled. I do know that I would not have wanted to participate. It doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that there would be people, perhaps a majority, on the panel whose opinions I disagree with. I agree that discussion is important, and I think getting the right message out is vital. But I wouldn’t want to share the panel with people it has to do with the methods used by some of the people on the panel.
So far, I have found Dr. Healy’s comments to be without substance. Notice that I didn’t say without merit, but without substance. I’ve heard vague statements about how people were “scared” to look for susceptibility groups. I’ve heard about how the vaccine question was put to rest “too soon”. Nothing that really backs those statements up; they stand as opinions. Nothing about the actual science that exists–especially about the lack of quality of the science that purports to support the vaccine-causality question. I’ve heard opinions, but not facts. I see someone who has made a minor media splash, but not someone with autism credibility.
I honestly don’t know why she was on the panel.
My major issue with the panel would have been the fact that it included Mr. Kirby. While someone like Dr. Marcuse could be said to be lending their credibility to the panel, Mr. Kirby would be using the panel to enhance his own credibility.
Why should David Kirby be be allowed to represent himself as an expert (on similar footing as, say, Dr. Marcuse?) and add to his credibility by being on this panel at all? David Kirby is certainly no expert. He has a book riddled with errors. He has blog post after blog post demonstrating his lack of scientific acumen. The one thing he would bring to the table would be his information about Hannah Poling. In that he is an expert, but only because he is the only one given the information. I don’t see how his, well, interesting interpretations would be of benefit to the members of the Court.
But, being wrong is the smaller issue. If you aren’t wrong sometimes, you aren’t pushing the envelope. I am certainly wrong at times, as has been demonstrated on this blog quite recently.
But when I am wrong, I am wrong in my quest to figure things out. If I am correct, it is in the quest to figure things out. It isn’t about me. but asking and, hopefully sometimes, answering questions about autism. (OK, and sometimes venting a little). One thing you will never hear from me: “This isn’t my crusade“. If I am wrong about vaccines, I can’t walk away. If I am demonstrably wrong about vaccines and autism, you’ll see me fighting hard on the other side. Autism isn’t something I can leave behind if a new book deal comes through. If someone leaks a Court document to me, it won’t be a boost to my career. And this doesn’t even touch on blog post after blog post misusing the CDDS data to create the image of an epidemic or little hints of “bombshells” which may or may not materialize. Again, being wrong isn’t the point. Being wrong in search of self promotion, that I have issues with.
If I could, I would give a gold star to Arthur Allen for agreeing to be on this panel. Not because I agree with him, but because it was obviously going to be a painful experience based on the makeup of the panel. Maybe I haven’t been watching closely, but the only times I’ve seen his name mentioned as a panelist for this Judicial Conference has been in David Kirby’s announcements.
I would give a great big gold (heck, platinum-iridium) star to Dr. Marcuse for even considering being on the panel. Of the entire panel, he’s the one person with real credentials in the field of vaccines.
If I were Dr. Marcuse or Arthur Allen, I would have considered seriously pulling out of this panel discussion once the details became known.
This panel discussion was only a fraction of the Judicial Conference. The rest is, as far as I can tell, still going to happen. For example, the second vaccine panel discussion appears to be still “on”:
The second panel will utilize some of the information from the first discussion and apply it when discussing the effects of decisions under the Vaccine Compensation Program. The title for the second panel is “Vaccine Compensation Under the Act: A Mix of Science and Policy?” This panel will be moderated by Senior Judge Loren A. Smith, who was the Chief Judge when the Vaccine Program first began at the court in 1988. The panelists will be Kevin Conway, a petitioners’ counsel since the Program’s inception; Randolph Moss, a partner at WilmerHale and co-chair of the firms’ Government and Regulatory Litigation Group, who represents vaccine manufacturers; Dr. Paul Offit, the Chief of Infectious Diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, RotaTeq; Marguerite Wilner, former Vice-Chair of the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines; and Ruth J. Katz, Dean of the School of Public Health at The George Washington University. Previously, Dean Katz served as counsel to the Subcommittee on Health and the Environment in the U.S. House of Representative (then chaired by Congressman Henry A. Waxman), where she helped develop the National Vaccine Act. With these different perspectives, this promises to be an interesting discussion! ! ! !
That does sound like an interesting discussion. How does the Court does mix science and policy? How should they balance the two? Those seem likekey questions.
And there is another panel on ethics involving expert witnesses:
In addition to these two “must see” vaccine discussions, this year’s Conference offers an Ethics panel that vaccine practitioners will find quite meaningful. Judge Mary Ellen Coster Williams will moderate a discussion regarding ethical issues involving expert witnesses. The panel will include Special Master Denise Vowel1 and a law professor, Joseph Sanders from the University of Houston. With the extensive involvement of experts in vaccine litigation, this panel discussion should provide important information and considerations to all vaccine practitioners.
I hope it is a very productive Conference for the Court. It already seems to likely to be one of the more memorable Conferences, and it hasn’t even happened yet.
Left Brain Right Brain 
Couldn’t the people who arranged these panels have included a certain Geier on the ethics panel? If not a Geier, how about that lady who claimed affiliation with UCSF because she took a course there, used their library and went to their parties? How about that dude who took a report from the Cedillo hearing and did a “find” and “replace” thingy with his word-processor, replacing “MMR” with “thimerosal” essentially and submitting it as his second report. Then there was that fellow whose memory was really spotty about the times he’d been in trouble with medical licensing boards in a couple of different states. And that one guy who claimed getting the “Rock Award”… which turned out to be a… rock …. that seemed to have been given him as a joke or something… That was the guy who sold Mannatech supplements or something. How about that one man who used to recommend that his little autistic patients be subjected to exorcism?
_”If I were Dr. Marcuse or Arthur Allen, I would have considered seriously pulling out of this panel discussion once the details became known.”_
Word has it that Marcuse was strongly considering doing just that. Or already had.
“With these different perspectives, this promises to be an interesting discussion?” Yeah, right, the only somewhat dissenting opinion will be from the Petitioners’ Counsel…Sounds like a lynching.
Since the former Special Master probably participated in the Program as it was meant to be – a quick and simple process to compensate individuals damaged by vaccines, maybe he could explain to the rest of these dimwits that this is not a traditional, adverserial, court of law; and that the standard of proof is meant, by design to be different than in a traditional, adversarial court room.
Since vaccine manufacturers have no apparent morality and they view a certain number of deaths and disabilities among those “treated” with their products as acceptable losses, the least they can do is butt-out of the compensation system designed to (barely) compensate those who have lost loved ones to death or lifelong disability.
(“If I were Dr. Marcuse or Arthur Allen, I would have considered seriously pulling out of this panel discussion once the details became known.”)
I heard that Roy Grinker pulled out too, some weeks ago when he found out the names of the participants. A good idea not to give Kirby or even Healy the impression that people consider them experts.
But they should have invited someone from a vaccine manufacturing company.
The reason is this: if David Kirby is funded by the anti-vaccine people to do on his self-congratulatory and egotistical tours, then other speakers should be allowed to represent the pharmaceutical industry. You know what would happen if someone from pharma was there? The anti-vaccine orgs. that fund Kirby would have a fit! For them, it’s ok to have a representative from one of the anti-vaccine groups, but not the pharmaceutical industry — hypocrites that they are.
Liz Parker,
By “former special master”, I assume you are talking about Loren Smith, who was a Court of Federal Claims Chief Judge when the vaccine act was implemented.
I don’t think she was ever a Special Master. However, you will see with a little research that the current Chief Special Master has been in place since the Act was implemented and, in fact, used to work for Chief Judge Smith.
I bring this up not to correct what are really minor points, but to make clear that there is at least one presence on the Court who can provide consistency.
As to the idea of whether that panel would be akin to a “lynching”, I doubt it. The Petitioner’s attorney may be in the minority on this panel, but the people are likely to approach it with a sense of importance to the topic and dignity. The other panelists include, after all, a person who helped craft the Vaccine Act and will be moderated by a Judge.
“. . . [T]his is not a traditional, adverserial, court of law; and that the standard of proof is meant, by design to be different than in a traditional, adversarial court room.”
I haven’t been able to understand how this viewpoint can be supportive of the petitioners’ position. It is clear that the petitioners did NOT have to prove that, for example, measles virus replicated in the guts or brains of these children; however, it’s equally clear that the respondents proved beyond doubt that the studies that suggested that possibility were incorrect. How can you expect the petitioners to achieve even a low standard of proof for something that has been demonstrated to be flat-out wrong?