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Vaccine Court Judicial Conference: Panel Discussion Cancelled

3 Jul

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.

Plaatsvervangende schaamte

2 Jul

<blockquote>McCarthy gave a popular voice to a viewpoint that had largely been rejected by mainstream institutions – that the sharp increase in autism in recent years has an environmental cause, such as toxins in childhood vaccines.</blockquote>

<blockquote>”Jenny McCarthy is the biggest thing to happen since the word autism was coined,” says Dan Olmsted, editor of the blog Age of Autism, which attracts thousands of readers a day</blockquote>

<blockquote>Because Ackerman got McCarthy involved, Olmsted says, that view is “not out on the loony fringes any longer.”</blockquote>

Source

“Plaatsvervangende schaamte” is a Dutch phrase. In his 2003 novel ‘Helloland’, Nick Walker defines it as:

<blockquote>This means a shame in humanity. A shame in being human. You see someone acting  foolishly or stupidly and you do not laugh at him, you do not feel Schadenfreude, instead you feel a sense of humiliation  that this is how your species can behave.</blockquote>

There’s nothing else I can really add to this post, sorry.

It isn’t RhoGaM either

30 Jun

If it’s a vaccine, or similar to a vaccine, especially if it contains thimerosal you gotta figure someone, somewhere has blamed it as a cause of autism. Such is the case of anti-D immune globulins, like RhoGaM. RH-negative mothers are given these shots while pregnant to protect their RH-positive babies.

If you are thinking like I was at first, “RhoGaM…where I have heard this recently?”, probably the most famous case involving RhoGaM is that of the Sykes family in what became Sykes v. Bayer. This was blogged extensively at neurodiversity.com, including the recent dismissal of the suit. On the way, the Plaintiffs subpoenaed Ms. Seidel (the more than a mere mother who runs neurodiversity.com). Said subpoena was quashed, and Mr. Shoemaker, the attorney who subpoenaed Ms. Seidel was sanctioned for what was deemed a misuse of his powers as an officer of the court.

But, I digress…Back to RhoGaM and similar products.

Earlier this month, a study by Lisa Croen (and other people familiar in the epidemiology of autism) was published:

Maternal Rh D status, anti-D immune globulin exposure during pregnancy, and risk of autism spectrum disorders.
Lisa A. Croen, PhD; Marilyn Matevia, MA; Cathleen K. Yoshida, MS; Judith K. Grether, PhD

It’s worth reading, and, I would bet money, is soon to be attacked. Why? Take a look at the last line of the abstract:

“These data support previous findings that prenatal exposure to thimerosal-containing anti-D immune globulins does not increase the risk of autism. that prenatal exposure to thimerosal-containing anti-D immune globulins does not increase the risk of autism.”

One could speculate whether the parties in Sykes v. Bayer were aware that this paper was in press, and whether that had anything to do with the dismissal. Without any more information, it would be just that: speculation.

Something that rises above speculation, but is below the level of a conclusion of the paper is this question: does this mean that this level of thimerosal exposure to pregnant women (at least at the times similar to that of RhoGaM injections) is off the hook in general? Or, to put it more simply, does this tell us that thimerosal containing flu shots given to pregnant woman are likely not a contributor to autism risk?

This is an interesting question in some circles. In the shifting sands of the desert that is the thimerosal-caused-autism science, the thimerosal containing flu shot is gaining prominence. Ignore the fact that a minority of pregnant women get the flu shot. Somehow, these flu shots are supposed to be taking up the slack left behind by the phase out of thimerosal from the pediatric schedule. (I can hear people now, “oooh, he’s perpetuating the myth that thimersosal is gone. There are trace amounts left. Trace amounts!” Another of the sand-dunes of the desert.)

OK, for the ultra involved, I bet some people fixated on the statement: “These data support previous findings…”. Some people will be angry with the thought that Croen et al. seem to be ignorant of “Neurodevelopmental disorders, maternal Rh-negativity, and Rho(D) immune globulins: a multi-center assessment.” By Geier, Mumper, Gladfelter, Coleman and Geier. Yep, our good friends the Geiers. I believe that is also our new friend, Dr. Mumper as well.

But, rest assured, Croen and company are aware of Dr. Geier’s team and included their work in their analysis.

Similarly, Geier and Geier found that the frequency of maternal Rh-negative status among 53 consecutive non-Jewish Caucasian patients with ASD referred to their genetic clinic was significantly higher than the frequency among 926 non-Jewish Caucasian pregnant women who presented at their clinic for prenatal genetic care (28.3% vs 14.4%, P ” .01), and all ASD patients with Rh-negative mothers received RhIg during pregnancy. Given the authors’ belief that thimerosal-containing vaccines cause autism, it is likely that the ASD patients who seek out their clinical services are skewed toward higher perceived mercury exposure. For that reason, these study findings may be biased and should be viewed with caution.

And, yes, they also note the Holmes “baby haircut“study as well. But that study has been through the wringer so many times, it’s best to move along.

As they indicate, Croen et al. are not the first to look for and fail to find evidence of a link between Rh status and immune globulins. Miles and Takahashi’s 2007 paper, Lack of association between Rh status, Rh immune globulin in pregnancy and autism found, well, a lack of association.

Of course this isn’t going to be the end of the discussion. The Miles and Takahashi study was met in short order by a comment by Bernard, Blaxill and Redwood. I’d bet the cash in my wallet that a response to the Croen et al. study is in the works.

And, unfortunately, that is the problem we as a community have to deal with. As noted (with some sadness, I am sure) in the Omnibus testimony of Dr. Mumper, the question of thimerosal and autism is a closed book to the scientific community. There are a few studies still ongoing, but indications are that they will also show no effect.

It will be hard enough to keep the interest level high amongst legislators as the science quashes the guilt factor of vaccine induce autism. It will be even more difficult if we are perceived to be clinging to the failed theories and ignoring good science.

Autism isn’t “a novel form of mercury poisoning“. Not from vaccines, not from immune globulins, not from plumes of mercury from China. Let’s stop moving goalposts and patting ourselves on the back for being flexible. Instead, let’s accept that falsifiable hypotheses have had their chance and been falsified. That’s learning.

A call to the the Special Masters: No Splinch, No Splunge

29 Jun

When a person in the Harry Potter world apparates but leaves some piece of him/herself behind, it is called “splinching“. In the world of Monty Python, “Splunge” means “I’m not saying yes and I’m not saying no and I’m not indecisive”.

At some point in the not-too-distant future, we should see a decision in the first part of the Autism Omnibus Proceeding, with the decision in the second part following a some time later.

What do these two things have in common? We need a clear, definitive decision from the Special Masters. No splinch. No splunge.

It will come as no surprise that I am expecting a the decision to go against the petitioners. Don’t get me wrong, I think it would be great if every person with a disability got the support–either as a lump sum, public services, or some combination of the two–that they needed for their lives. But, the problem is, I just don’t think that the petitioner’s science even comes close to proving this case.

No matter what happens, I expect that the losing side will appeal to the Federal Circuit. Should the decision go against the petitioners, and they lose the appeal, expect this to spill over to civil court.

For that reason, we need a clear, decisive well… decision. We need the Special Masters to write the sort of decision that tells the Federal Circuit, “this idea has no merit”. We need a decision that tells the civil courts, “don’t even let this one through the door” (think Blackwell).

I’m not saying I am right. I am not saying that this would be news to the Special Masters. I’m certainly not saying that this could influence them in any way.

What I am saying is that we are a very factionalized community. We need to move forward, and the vaccine issue is keeping that from happening. Progress will likely mean leaving some people behind with their old ideas. But the sooner we can move forward, the better. The sooner we can talk about issues that matter, the better. The sooner we can fight as a group for respect, rights, appropriate services, rather than fighting amongst ourselves, the better.

The Special Masters would likely see a strong decision as the best way to support the vaccine program (good idea, too). But, it would be one of best things they could do for the autism community.

Experts with an agenda and newcomers with an agenda

28 Jun

Everyone knows that a good meeting needs to have an agenda. Most people also knows that science being forced to fit a pre-conceived agenda is usually useless.

With that in mind, Gardiner Harris of the New York Times delivers an excellent report that discusses a meeting being held today that will…:

<blockquote>….call together some of the world’s leading experts on an obscure disease to discuss the controversial case of a 9-year-old girl from Athens, Ga. [Hannah Poling]…. [and]…a 6-year-old girl from Colorado [who] received FluMist, a flu vaccine, and about a week later “became weak with multiple episodes of falling to ground” and “difficulty walking,”….She was hospitalized and underwent surgery and was finally withdrawn from life support. She died on April 5, according to the report</blockquote>

(inserts mine)

You can expect the usual suspects to come out with horror show after horror show about this poor little girl who died and how The Evil Vaccines ™ are to blame. However, the truth is that – as with all previous convolutions of the autism/vaccine hypotheses, correlation does not equal causation.

<blockquote>”After caring for hundreds of children with mitochondrial disease, I can’t recall a single one that had a complication from vaccination,” said Dr. Darryl De Vivo, a professor of neurology and pediatrics at Columbia University who will present at the meeting on Sunday and is one of the premier experts in the field.</blockquote>

De Vivo also said:

<blockquote>as many as 700,000 people in the United States had flawed mitochondria, and in roughly 30,000 of them the genetic flaws were expansive enough to cause disease</blockquote>

In an email conversation with Sullivan (a regular commenter and author at this blog), Sullivan pointed out how this 700,000 – an opinion offered by an expert in the field – differed wildly from the <a href=”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/the-next-big-autism-bomb_b_93627.html&#8221; rel=”nofollow”>1 in 50</a> estimation offered by David Kirby which would result in 6,000,000 cases. Thats a fairly wild discrepancy.

Harris also quoted a great aunt of Hannah Poling who simply parroted the ‘green our vaccines’ nothingness:

<blockquote>What’s the schedule and number of vaccines?” Ms. Dunkle asked. “What’s the content of those vaccines?</blockquote>

In the case of the little girl who died, she had already received one set of vaccines with no incident. In the case of Hannah Poling, it is far from clear that the vaccines administered resulted in her autism diagnosis.

The bottom line for me is:

<blockquote>Many experts said infections could be so devastating to those with mitochondrial disorders that the risks associated with vaccines were far outweighed by the benefits. Still, none dismissed the notion that a vaccine could cause a decline in such children.</blockquote>

Which is, of course, true. Nobody disputes that people sometimes have adverse reactions to vaccinations. This is true of kids with mitochondrial issues as well as autistic people as well as people with no other issues at all. Its sad to me that people want to castigate vaccines for being imperfect. Nothing in life is absolutely assured and it is quite obviously far better for children to be as healthy as possible with a very small chance that a side effect may occur. This is even more true for kids with mitochondrial issues. Consier this statement:

<blockquote>Most of these kids [with mitochondrial issues] get a common cold, and either during the cold or soon after, the parents notice a drastic deterioration,” said Dr. Bruce H. Cohen, a neurologist at the Cleveland Clinic.</blockquote>

(inserts mine)

Now, if you said to these parents – we have a vaccine for the common cold. The chances of it working are very, very good but not 100%. The chances of it causing an adverse reaction are very, very low but not 0%. The chances of it causing a _fatal_ adverse reaction is even lower but still not 0% (I’ve got a figure of 1.3%<sup>1</sup>). The chances of your child becoming seriously ill following the common cold is very high. Do you want your child to have this vaccine?

I would imagine most of these parents would break your arm in the rush of trying to sign the acceptance papers.

Now, lets lengthen that scenario. The common cold vaccine is announced to the rest of the world and adopted into vaccine schedules. The usual suspects say how silly it is and how the common cold is ‘nothing’. They refuse to vaccine against the common cold. Herd immunity drops. A child catches a cold and sits next to a child with a mitochondrial issue at a GP’s surgery (for example). The vaccine the mito child has received doesn’t work – because we all know vaccines don’t work 100% of the time.

What will this ‘nothing’ common cold do to this mito child?

Society has an obligation to protect the weaker members of its society.

On that same theme, I noticed a new paper in my Inbox today. It discussed death rates of autistic people compared to the general population:

<strong> Mortality and causes of death in autism spectrum disorders: An update.</strong>

<blockquote> This study compared mortality among Danish citizens with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) with that of the general population……In all, 26 persons with ASD had died, whereas the expected number of deaths was 13.5. Thus the mortality risk among those with ASD was nearly twice that of the general population</blockquote>

Nearly half of the 26 deaths of autistic people were due to Epilepsy rather than autism itself.

I would like to ask the kind permission of those who continue to try and make a story from nothing about autism and vaccines that we be allowed to move the debate onto areas that really, really need a big light shining on them. The heavy death rate of autistic people from comorbidities such as Epilepsy would be a great place to start.

[1] I got this using the <a href=”http://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/index.html”>VAERS DB</a> (yes, I know the limitations but I wanted to use a DB given credence by the autism/vaccine believers). Out of a total amount of entries of 227,795 there were 3009 reported deaths.

USD Summer Autism Institute: Autism Hub panel discussion

28 Jun

Five of the hub bloggers, myself, Dad of Cameron (Autism Street), Bev (Asperger Square 8), Estee (Joy of Autism), and Steve D (One Dad’s Opinion) spoke at the University of San Diego “Summer Autism Institute”. We had been granted an hour and half to fill. We divided that time up into several small sections (Steve was officially in charge, but it was a group effort) and we each took a piece or two of the time and developed presentations to fill (or overfill, as the case may be) our time slots.
I spoke about “Bias, Stigma and Stereotyping and their Effects on Autistic People.” I also presented Kevin Leitch’s “Dear Dr. Kartzinel” video. In my next post I’ll try to explain what it was I said in presentations in more detail. For now I just wanted to share with you two photos of the 5 hub bloggers as we appeared in the afternoon. In the photos, Bev is speaking and if you look carefully you can see that her powerpoint slide displays her wallet card for understanding mysterious autistics.
When this photo was taken, I believe Bev was listening to someone in the audience ask a question. From left to right in the photo are: Estee, Steve D, Do’C, myself and then Bev, standing.

The two versions of the photo were taken by a mom from the Los Angeles area who was attending the conference. She said that the second photo was taken with a special lens she had purchased at a “Always Talk About Celebrating Krystals Now” (ATACKNow) fundraiser.

It would appear that Bev has a more deluxe and expansive crystal aura than I do. I’m jealous, but I guess that goes without saying, people carrying lots of quantum energy of the jealous type just don’t have big crystal auras. I am working on it.

I hadn’t realized that Steve D, DoC, Estee were indigos. And what about D’oC? His aura is about to go supernova or something.

Tags: ,

Autism Hub at USD and on NPR

25 Jun

Under the care of Dave Seidel and HollywoodJaded, the Autism Hub has gone from strength to strength. They are to be massively congratulated for all that the Hub has become.

However, two other people have driven the Hub into new areas this past year. These two people have demonstrated both singly and jointly exactly the ethos I hoped the Hub would have. Parents and autistic people speaking together.

One of the key areas Steve and Bev have worked in is getting the Hub to an academic audience and a public audience. Steve has worked tirelessly to arrange not one, but two Autism Hub based presentations to an academic audience. I’ve blogged it already but the University of San Diego is currently holding a conference at which Autism Hub bloggers are taking a large part.

Autism Hub at USD

Also on this issue, Steve and Bev appeared on National Public Radio station KPBS show ‘These Days’ to talk about the USD conference and the Autism Hub.

You can listen to the show in MP3 format. Bev and Steve do a fantastic job and it was great to hear the personification of the main idea behind the Hub (that of autistic person and parent to autistic people speaking together).

I wanted to offer a hearttfelt thank you to Steve and Bev for doing all that they have. It really does matter and it really is important. Thank you.

“Judge Sanctions Lawyer for Issuing Subpoena to Blogger Kathleen Seidel”

24 Jun

Reprinted from:
Citizen Media Law Project http://www.citmedialaw.org 
Copyright 2007 Citizen Media Law Project and respective authors.

Judge Sanctions Lawyer for Issuing Subpoena to Blogger Kathleen Seidel

June 23rd, 2008
by David Ardia

A federal magistrate judge in New Hampshire has sanctioned Clifford Shoemaker, a Virginia attorney, for abusing the legal process by issuing a subpoena to Kathleen Seidel. Seidel publishes the blog Neurodiversity, where she writes about autism issues. In February 2008, she wrote about a lawsuit against various vaccine manufacturers, Sykes v. Bayer, in which the plaintiffs Lisa and Seth Sykes sought to link exposure to mercury to their son’s autism. (For more on her statements about the lawsuit, see my previous post: Blogger Kathleen Seidel Fights Subpoena Seeking Information About Vaccine Litigation.)

On March 24, 2008, Shoemaker, an attorney for the Sykes, served Seidel with a subpoena in connection with the Sykes v. Bayer lawsuit. The subpoena demanded that Seidel appear for a deposition on April 30, 2008, and that she produce a shockingly broad collection of information, including her bank statements, tax returns, communications with religious organizations, and personal correspondence with other bloggers.

On April 21, magistrate judge Muirhead granted Seidel’s well argued motion to quash the subpoena. The judge also ordered Shoemaker to show cause why he should not be sanctioned under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 for issuing the subpoena.  In response, Shoemaker filed a rambling opposition to potential sanctions in which he asserted that Seidel was engaged in a conspiracy with Bayer and others to harass him, his client, and various witnesses.  (With the help of Paul Levy from Public Citizen, Seidel filed a restrained response that made Shoemaker’s outlandish claims seem all the more, well, outlandish.)

Not surprisingly, the judge didn’t buy any of Shoemaker’s conspiracy theories and in a strongly worded opinion, made it clear that the subpoena was an abuse of the legal process:

Mr. Shoemaker made no attempt to avoid imposing an undue burden or expense on Ms. Seidel. To the contrary, I find that he sought to burden her by requiring production of every scrap of paper related to autism, her web site, her tax returns, and her communications with the government. He improperly imposes a requirement to create documents, e.g., a list of “names of persons helping, paying or facilitating . . . these endeavors.” The documentation sought is exhaustive. . . .

Shoemaker has not offered a shred of evidence to support his speculations. He has, he says, had his suspicions aroused because she has so much information. Clearly he is unfamiliar with the extent of the information which a highly-competent librarian like Ms. Seidel can, and did, accumulate. If Shoemaker wanted to know if Ms. Seidel was in part supported by or provided information by Bayer, he could have inquired of Bayer or limited the Seidel subpoena to that information. Instead he issued the subpoena calling for production of documents and a deposition on the day before he stipulated to dismiss the underlying suit with prejudice. His failure to withdraw the subpoena when he clearly knew that suit was over is telling about his motives. His efforts to vilify and demean Ms. Seidel are unwarranted and unseemly.

In the end, the judge didn’t order Shoemaker to pay a monetary sanction, but he did order the Virginia lawyer to attend ethics training and directed his court clerk to notify the Virginia State Bar so that it could consider disciplinary action on its own. 

Shoemaker and his client have a right to disagree with Seidel and, if they think they’ve been the victims of a conspiracy, to sue her.  But they don’t have a right to misuse the legal system to coerce a critic to “shut up.”  As I’ve noted before, we all lose when we allow that to happen.

(You can read more about the case in our Legal Threats Database entry: Sykes v. Seidel.)

 

This article is reprinted here under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Details on this license can be found on the Creative Commons website.

 

A step closer to ‘transparancy’ in Hannah Poling v. HHS?

24 Jun

For right or wrong, better or worse, the Hannah Poling case is being closely watched by the autism community. Recently, much of the discussion has centered on the fact that we don’t have a lot of the details.

Back in April, the court released a document detailing some of the discussions involving the release of information. You can read about it in the document and in Kev’s blog post about it. But, it seems to boil down to

1) the Polings would like the government’s expert reports made public. If that happened, the Poling’s would release their daughter’s medial records, but only for the HHS to discuss. The medical records would not in themselves be made public.

2) The HHS would like ” to disclose medical information regarding this case* in order for the Secretary to address inaccurate statements that were being made publicly concerning respondent’s position in this case.”

3) The Special Master (judge) notes that since the government’s expert reports have already been released to the public (in one case, posted in full on the internet), the question of making them public is moot.

The Special Master deferred ruling on the question (“styled as a motion for complete transparancy” by the Polings) until June 9. That date has come and gone. Nothing has been made public from either side as far as I can tell. However, on June 12, the following entry was made in the Hannah Poling Docket:

MEDICAL RECORDS [Exhibit(s) #73?78] filed by TERRY POLING. (Attachments: # 1 Index, # 2 Exhibit EXH73, # 3 Exhibit EXH74, # 4 Exhibit EXH75, # 5 Exhibit EXH76?1, # 6 Exhibit EXH76?2, # 7 Exhibit EXH77, # 8 Exhibit EXH78)(Shoemaker, Clifford) (Entered: 06/12/2008)

Hannah Poling’s medical records have been turned over, apparantly for the HHS to review. Based on the docket, it appears that HHS up until now has only had the expert reports as reference [edit: note comments below and another post–the previous statement was incorrect]

I hope that if not “complete transparancy”, at least “some transparency” will be forthcoming in this case.

And now we know…

22 Jun

I had a snarky version of this all planned out and then realized this is too important to risk burrying it in my own strange humor.

The CDC has had two big studies on thimerosal in vaccines ongoing as a part of their response to the 2001 IOM report. One of these came out last year, looking at neurological disorders except for autism. In the post on that study, by Thompson et al., Isles noted:

A CDC study released yesterday found no evidence to support “a causal association between early exposure to mercury from thimerosal-containing vaccines and immune globulins and deficits in neuropsychological functioning at the age of 7 to 10 years

But what of the sister study? The one on autism? It is expected this year, but we have yet to hear about it…until now. A hat tip is in order to David Kirby, who unearthed this document. Mr. Kirby selectively quoted it, made a few mistakes and reposted a corrected version here.

OK, now it’s my turn to selectively quote. I’ll admit upfront, I make mistakes, maybe this is one…but I don’t think so. When I read Mr. Kirby’s original blog post Friday evening, I had to read the CDC document. And when I did, I noticed that it basically tips CDC’s hand as to the results of the thimerosal/autism study.

The document is a report by CDC director Dr. Julie Gerberding entitled:

REPORT TO CONGRESS ON VACCINE SAFETY DATALINK

It mentions the followup study to the Thompson study:

Another VSD study that builds upon the 2003 thimerosal screening study and was recommended by the IOM in 2001 is the VSD thimerosal and autism study. This case-control study is being conducted at three MCOs in which children with autism are being evaluated by certified specialists using standardized diagnostic assessments. Medical records and interviews with the parents of both the cases and their matched controls will be used to verify vaccination histories and information on other potential confounding factors. This study is in progress and the expected date of publication is September 2008.

I am not a very patient person, I don’t want to wait until September. I really don’t want to wait until September and find out at the end of the month that the paper was delayed for some reason. Well, as far as the conclusions go, we don’t have to wait.

Based on what Dr. Gerberding write, we now know that the study is done and submitted to a journal. CDC, and likely other parts of the government, know the results. So, how is CDC responding? Dr. Gerberding tells us:

In 2004, the IOM performed a comprehensive review of the scientific evidence regarding thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism newly available since its initial review in 2001. In its 2004 report, the IOM concluded that “the evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism,” and further stated

While the [IOM Immunization Safety Review] committee strongly supports targeted research that focuses on better understanding the disease of autism, from a public health perspective the committee does not consider a significant investment in studies of the theoretical vaccine-autism connection to be useful at this time.

Although CDC concurs with the 2004 IOM findings, CDC is committed to completing its research undertaken in this area. CDC is currently completing the vaccine safety studies it undertook in response to the 2001 IOM report.

OK, so, with the data from their new study in hand, the CDC still agree with the 2004 IOM report. Further, they will continue the ongoing studies, but no mention is made of new studies to look specifically at thimerosal and/or mercury and autism.

Now, I realize that there are people out there who think that the CDC might sit on data and not react. But, let’s face it, the only result of the thimerosal/autism study that makes any sense given the actions at CDC is this:

Thimerosal Didn’t Cause an Epidemic of Autism

Based on the reaction from the CDC, there is no evidence of any increased risk for autism from thimerosal.

Yep, I’ve gone out on a limb on this. But I contend it is a pretty sturdy limb. Not like the feeble limb of thimerosal causation that got us to this point in the first place. That concept (it should no longer be graced with the title ‘hypothesis’) was based on methods that would have to take a few steps up the quality ladder to reach the level of the Verstraeten study that Mr. Kirby’s blog post is attempting to bash.

Thimerosal Didn’t Cause an Epidemic of Autism

Sorry, it just looks so good I had do it again.

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