Left Brain Right Brain

In my blog entry about Dr. Johnson’s testimony in the Omnibus Autism hearing I mused that:

I may have to devote a separate post to the issue of Deth taking data from (but not citing) a 1958 paper (pdf) that reported the level of cystathionine in duck brains (besides duck, also, human, cat, rat, guinea pig, horseshoe crab, chicken, cow and monkey).

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I thought it might be worth blogging the issue of this irregularity in Dr. Deth’s expert testimony. I found where Dr. Deth’s powerpoint slides were made available on a website favorable to his hypothesis. It was very kind of them to do that. Here is that slide of Dr. Deth’s that Dr. Johnson had commented on. It gives comparative levels of cystathionine as found in various animal brains and human brain.

The above lovely graph was apparently created by Dr. Deth for the expert report to the Special Masters of the vaccine court. Dr. Johnson noted that there is no reference on the slide indicating which paper it came from. One would expect to see a citation like, “Stott, 2001,” or “Wakers et al., 1999,” the absence of which made Dr. Johnson wonder if the graph represented some research done by Deth himself. But Dr. Johnson was surprised by the seemingly odd “duck” in the list of animals. So after Deth had given his testimony, Dr. Johnson did a Google search for the words “duck” and “cystathionine” and in no time he had downloaded a pdf of the very paper the duck data had come from. I did the same Google search and likewise in no time had downloaded the same paper. If you click here you can (automatically) download that very paper for free. The title is L-CYSTATHIONINE IN HUMAN BRAIN. The authors are Harris H. Tallan, Stanford Moore and, William H. Stein. It was published in 1958.
And if you do access that paper and read it you will find the following table on page 7 of the pdf.

It looks as if Deth warmed-over this half-a-century-old data and averaged the amount of cystathionine in the 5 human-brain samples and came up with about 45 mg/per 100 g wet weight for his graph and it looks like he decided not to include the data from horseshoe crab brains. The original table reports the cystathionine in “mg. per cent”. Deth faithfully included the cat, cow, rat, guinea pig, chicken, monkey and duck levels, as well as the human liver, kidney and muscle levels.

As I remember, Dr. Johnson pointed out that that data on cystathionine in brain tissue of humans and rats, cats, cows and ducks didn’t make the point that Dr. Deth want to make with it anyway, but one has to wonder why he took the data that was in a 50 year old paper in table form and turned it into a histogram looking all modern and freshly churned-out by Excel and all. And if Deth thought it was necessary to make the point he needed to make, shouldn’t he at least have cited the paper properly?

When I was writing science papers for assignments at the college level a couple of years ago, it was drummed into all the students in strong terms that we should not ever plagiarize anything, or even to take the chance that something might look plagiarized. Professors warned their classes that the Internet was a powerful tool for digging up the true sources of plagiarized quotes (or entire plagiarized papers) and for finding the proper attributions for un-attributed graphics or statements, or creations of any kind. Plagiarism was, and still is, grounds for being tossed out of most colleges and universities, as I understand it, and students don’t get to claim that they didn’t know any better. One would think that professors would be held to an even higher standard.

While the vaccine hearing is not entirely concluded, apparently the portion where the public can listen in by phone, or download the audio, is over. There will be a little more testimony in July from some experts for the government who couldn’t make it in May, and the petitioners will probably have some of their experts back to try to rebut what those experts have to say.

For this blog entry I have transcribed the of the end of Mr. Powers’ closing argument for the parents’ lawyers (the Petitioners Steering Committee, aka PSC) and all of Mr. Matanoski’s closing argument made on May 30th, Day 15 (the relevant audio clip is found here.) My take on Mr. Powers closing remarks summing up the case the PSC had made for the mercury parents’ side was that he spent perhaps most of it whining about how mean the Dept. of Justice lawyers were (!) and explaining how rules of discovery are applied in civil court (which is apart from how discovery is handled in vaccine court.) I don’t remember him making any big points on how his experts were right, but maybe I missed them.

Where my transcription begins, Mr. Powers had just been explaining that they expected more science to come in that would be supporting their side and that they’d be sending it to the Special Masters and to the DoJ lawyers hot off the press, apparently. Considering the kind of stuff that the PSC has presented at the last minute previously(several times) I wouldn’t think that what they see as being in the pipeline would have any weight to it. What’s bizarre, in my opinion, is that the PSC has been saying that the science that supports their position was being finished up and would be “in” any minute now, for about the past 4 or 5 years.

Mr. Powers: … The petitioners will do everything that we can to bring that information to the Special Masters, to share it with the respondent, but ultimately with the idea that litigation strategy in this program is really not what should be driving the consideration of the science but ultimately,again the unique position of the respondent here reflecting the responsible of the mission to keep up to date consider the science, protect public health, consider the science and and apply it in a way that’s gunna provide the best information to the three of you in deciding the general issues and the specific issues in all of these cases. Thank you.

Special Master Campbell-Smith (?): Mr. Matanoski.

Mr. Matanoski: Thank you ma’am. In putting together my closing remarks, though the time that we have is brief, I would feel it would be tremendously an error on my part not to acknowledge the families that were involved here, Mead and King family. probably the most poignant moments in this trial was hearing the … testimony of Mylinda King and George Mead discussing William and Jordan. We thank them for their participation. Certainly our hearts go out to them and to all the families that have autistic children. We may be litigating one side of this issue but we certainly have tremendous respect and admiration for all of them.

You have a threshold matter before you that’s a scientific matter, however, that you must address.
And obviously a scientific question necessarily turns on scientific evidence and there are certain legal standards that must be applied in this courtroom and every courtroom to how you handle scientific evidence, indeed what can even be considered reliable scientific evidence. The supreme court has spoken: it’s evidence that must be tested, subject to publication and peer review. It’s evidence that has general acceptance in the scientific community.

On the PSC side of the ledger of the evidence you have not heard that yet, you’ve heard speculation– pure and simple.

What you’ve heard in terms of comments from Mr. Powers this morning suggests that that evidence as far as the petitioners are concerned, the PSC is concerned, is still not available. He talks about the dynamics of science, and ongoing studies, which in some ways may imply a lack of evidence, scientific evidence that is available to the PSC, at this point, to prevail.

Now the PSC’s case started with a curious approach they put on evidence, or put on testimony, that was designed to undermine evidence against their claim. That was the testimony of Dr. Greenland, but Dr. Greenland’s testimony and his whole postulate depended on a supposition. The supposition was that the petitioners would prove to you a case that their mechanism applied to clearly regressive cases only.

Now you’ve heard from Dr. Deth and his hypothesis, who said that it did not apply only to clearly regressive cases.

You heard this morning from Kinsbourne who said that he hasn’t even looked to see if his hypothesis would have any application to non-regressive cases. So he can’t even address whether his hypothesis is only limited to clearly regressive cases.

All of the abundant epidemiological evidence that has addressed the precise matter that is whether thimerosal containing vaccines can cause autism or are associated with autism is back on the table. It never was off. Dr. Greenland’s supposition is in error.

If you follow the mechanisms proposed by the PSC here to their logical conclusions they fail to show that thimerosal containing vaccines are the cause, They propose that inorganic mercury is the causative agent. Inorganic mercury is not specific to childhood vaccines, it’s in what we eat, it’s in the air we breathe. It may be, if we have poor dental health, it may be in the fillings in our mouth.
They fail to specify how much inorganic mercury is necessary to cause autism
their experts consistently refused to say, in fact when they did say they essentially said, any amount.
They’ve pushed the threshold down so that any exposure to inorganic mercury could be a potential cause for autism.
They’ve described causal mechanisms that are so general that they apply to virtually every disease and to every case of autism.

Oxidative stress is seen in conjunction with almost every disease. You even see it after trotting or jogging you even get it after you bang your thumb … hammering in a nail.

Neuroinflammation is seen in a variety of neurological diseases including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease for example.

And in the Vargas study every single autistic patient in that study had neuroinflammation: regressive, non-regressive, young and old alike. These are nonspecific causal mechanisms that are proposed to you. In the end you could just as easily conclude that a tuna sandwich or a dental filling could cause autism, as a childhood vaccine. And to flip it around you could just as easily consider that an 80 year old man who received a flu vaccine would get Alzheimers from it.

Mr. Powers commented about uh what I describe I guess is, or his description, of a smear campaign or heavy handed treatment of the petitioners experts. You take the witnesses as they come. Now perhaps there was an explanation and you’ve heard it for the events that transpired with his departure from the University of Toronto. But again you take the experts as they come. When Dr Deth and said that he is willing to come before you say that his hypothesis you should rely on it to make a finding of this import, even though he’s not willing to say to the scientific community that it’s acceptable without further testing, I think that bears consideration.

Dr. Kinsbourne when he sat in the witness chair, he put his credibility on the line. He’s coming before you saying, “Rely on me. Believe me, Trust me as an impartial scientist.” Because that’s how he’s coming to testify to you. You deserve to know whether he gets that kind of trust.
You know, he’s known to you, you’ve seen him here many times. If you go back and look at the cases that are currently active in front of the Special Masters’ office you’ll find that he’s retained or offered an expert opinion saying vaccines cause harm in over 30 cases. In the past year he’s authored one article in a medical journal. I think that tells you whether he’s coming to you as a witness who spends his time in the courtroom or as a, an impartial scientific expert witness who is adding some value to what your deliberations are from the point of view of reliable science.

And good science and reliable science comes from testing, publication, critical review, validation, verification of results. It’s performed by those who work in the fields, apply scientific method to their research.

The supreme court tells us that it can’t be untested hypotheses, as Dr. Deth has essentially described his causal mechanism.

And good science won’t be first revealed in the courtroom as Dr. Kinsbourne’s hypothesis is. But it’s going to see the light of day through critical discussions of the research among the scientists themselves.

It’s not reliable science, indeed it’s not any kind of science, to sit at your computer to take your last litigation driven report, run “find and replace”; find “measles vaccine” and replace it with “thimerosal containing vaccine.” A litigation driven contrivance such as that has no place in the courtroom. The supreme court has mandated that.

Now when the trial began, Mr. Powers described thimerosal containing vaccines as a relic of history.
Perhaps that was a reference to allowing some leeway, in what your evidentiary standards are, would be to (provide) some grading on the curve as to the science you would accept. In fact they’ve done to make this anything but a relic of history. The day that they said that they held a press conference to discuss the case. Their experts are here are telling you that trace amounts of mercury that are in vaccines, that the flu vaccine could be enough to cause autism.

Whether we like it or not, this issue before you is of great importance the issue before you, great attention has been drawn to it.
Just last week TIME magazine had vaccines and the safety of vaccines as a cover issue.
Many eyes are going to be turned to this court to see how you handle the scientific evidence before you and it’s not just the parents in front of you who have brought claims,
it’s for parents who haven’t brought claims who have autistic children and who are wondering if by getting them vaccinated they are somehow responsible for that condition,
it’s for scientists who work in relevant fields,
it’s from those who treat autism,
and it’s going to be viewed by parents who are wondering whether they should get their children vaccinated or not.

I’m going to be blunt at this very late hour and having brief remarks. Are you going to decide that question on the say-so of Dr. Deth and Dr. Kinsbourne, or you going to decide that question on the evidence given to you by witnesses like Dr. Catherine Lord, Dr. Eric Fombonne and professor Sir Michael Rutter.

Are you going to look at and consider the fact that every reputable … independent medical organization that has considered this issue the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the European Medicine Association, the World Health Organization, have all concluded that thimerosal containing vaccines do not cause autism.

Are you also going to consider that every court that has had to consider this claim before it, before you have considered it, in fact, has found that the claim is so lacking in merit that it should not even be presented to a jury.

Reliable scientific evidence at this point is all on one side of the ledger. Vaccines don’t cause autism. Thank you.

The audio clip:
http://static.boomp3.com/player.swf?song=bcjjum1boomp3.com