Archive | Thimerosal RSS feed for this section

The Myth of Recovery

1 Sep

Back in August of last year I wrote a blog entry about the Generation Rescue ‘recovery’ stories and how true recovery actually accounted for 5% of the stories on their website which I upgraded in May of this year when they redesigned their website. Their true recovery figure now stands at 7%. I even recounted how I sent my own daughters details to them under an assumed name using the exact truth about her state and condition which they duly published.

I was interested to come across some more fascinating dialogue between members of the Yahoo ABMD group – a group which believe mercury caused their kids autism and Biomed can help them. This is one of the oldest and most well regarded (amongst the mercury militia anyway) Yahoo groups.

The conversation began thusly:

From: Eva family
Reply-To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
Date: Mon, Aug 27, 2007 at 6:29 AM

the other thing that troubles me about all the “autism doctors” is that
no one seems to do any studies based on their patients. Some doctors
must have dozens of patients but there seems to be no published work
correlating their levels of minerals, reactions to diets, success of
treatments

…………

But in general J McC, Yasko etc, Buttar, the zeolite-people earn lots of
money and publish nothing except opinions………..followed by
anecdotal acclaim from those for whom they work and silent despair from
those for whom they don’t.

Being an experienced reader of the material on these groups, I silently commiserated with this poster as I waited for the inevitable flame fest. But it never happened. Here are some of th responses this post received from other ABMD members:

From: Laura K. Fischer
Reply-To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
Date: Mon, Aug 27, 2007 at 4:34 PM

Sally, this has always been a concern of mine also, I honestly don’t know whether some of these alternative doctors have any better of a percentage record in improvements then say some of the better mainstream neurologists prescribing meds or even in comparison to kids who only do therapy and educational intervention. Although I recognize that part of my skepticism probably stems from the fact that most of the kids I personally know who have done a lot of biomedical treatment (those in my local community) don’t seem to have improved any more rapidly than those who did not, there are a couple who are even worse off. There is no clear advantage that I have witnessed with my own eyes and it may be that it is because there is a tendency for many of these families to have used a couple of the same DAN doctors in this region, I recognize that this could be a contributor. But I do share your concern with this….Laura

From: Lawrence G. Leichtman, MD
Reply-To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
Date: Mon, Aug 27, 2007 at 6:40 PM

I have followed about 100 children with autism doing biomed. I have never seen a single “recovered” child if by recovered you mean normal though 8 of
the children were claimed to be recovered by their DAN doctors. I have wseen about 10-15% improved kids, some slightly and 10% of kids who were
actually worse from biomed. Of my patients using Yasko prescribed treatment alone I have seen 0 improvment out of 12 patients. I still don’t know what
works or why and this is after 10 years of doing this.

The response from Leichtman is a bombshell. If you do not recall the name, he is the doctor who was quoted in Dan Olmsted’s Age of Autism pieces as treating Amish kids (who never have autism – heh). According to his (anecdotal) opinion he has never seen a recovered child out of the 100 he has seen who have been doing biomed, even amongst those whose DAN! claimed they were recovered. Fascinating.

From: Gina Mouser
Reply-To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
Date: Mon, Aug 27, 2007 at 7:45 PM

We were seeing a very famous DAN dr. who told us that of all the 5000 plus
patients that the DAN doctor was treating, my son was the ONLY one that is
not improving.

Go figure..

Gina

This shed’s some light on the way DAN! quacks falsely inflate their patients parents with hope or a ‘convincing’ explanation. Except, judging by the tone of this email, this mum isn’t convinced.

One of the responders went on to question why Dr Leichtman was a member of the ABMD board if he didn’t believe in biomed. He reiterated his position and confirmed his belief that DAN! docs either lie or are mistaken:

I have seen positive results 10 to 15 percent is still better than 0. I just don’t believe in the total recovery claims as several of my patients were claimed to be recovered by their DAN doctors but they weren’t.

The original poster chimed back in later….

In the UK in education we have something called “value added” — this is the amount that a school has done for a child over and above what might have been expected by simple development. I would like to autistic children measured and placed at a point on a graph as they come into a
doctor (this is already done as I understand it) and then measured again after set periods. Over time that would set baselines and it would be
possible to see which doctors/treatments were giving “value added”.

I don’t understand why no one is doing this. Surely anyone genuinely “recovering” children would be all over us with data, analysis etc — so
that their achievements could be recognised, replicated and they (the doctor) could receive universal praise.

Quite. A point some of us have been making for quite some time.

Then of course, someone finally did play the PharmaShill card at Dr leichtman:

From: Marisha Taylor
Reply-To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
Date: Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 3:12 PM

I think the “confusion” is coming from you trying to turn the outcome of the study to what “you” want it to be. You & the pharmaceutical
guys would get along great -how much are they paying you on the side? Thank God you are having problems getting it published – there is no
more space for flawed studies.

The most fascinating thing about this post was the speed and weight of the responses telling her to shut up. Not what I would be expecting at all.

As part of the responses Dr Leichtman dropped his second bombshell:

I don’t even understand what you are asking. Neurotypical is average for a child their age not with sensory issues, not with hyperactivity, not with behavioral disorders. I do not include those that I really don’t believe nor does my neurodevelopmentalist believe has autism despite coming in with that diagnosis. *I see plenty of children who come in with the diagnosis who don’t have it in the first place* so improvement or not may not be valid for their issues.

This was unbelievable stuff. Straight ‘from the horses mouth’ was the seconding of the opinions that a lot of us had held for years. That some ‘recovered’ kids were never really truly autistic to begin with. I would love to know if Leichtman ever saw the Berle’s.

Anyway, as I mentioned, when Leichtman was accused of being a Big Pharma shill, the entire group sprang to his defense, including Holly Bortfield, a well known mercury mom.

From: Holly Bortfeld
Reply-To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
Cc: *******@aol.com
Date: Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 3:24 PM

Wow, time to back off Marisha. Dr. L is a valued member of this list and you are out of line.

Bortfeld is a fascinating case. Later on in this discussion she says:

I know people who did only a few things and their kid is recovered and I know people who did EVERYTHING and their kid is still severe. While I do know some, they are very few in comparison, kids that are recovered. That sucks.

…………

I am thrilled for them, but my kid isn’t one of them (recovered) despite having the best of the DAN docs, virtually unlimited therapies and the “best” of everything, regardless of money, he’s still screwed up at 12 years old.

‘Screwed up’? Nice. This post was in response to the owner of the ABMD group’s post when she said:

I believe (and I’ am very cynical at this point) that most stories of “recovery” are the result of a misdiagnosis, or a mispresentation of
the facts for some financial gain.

Wow. Just….wow. These are incredible things for a ‘mercury militia’ group to be saying. If you only heard Gen Rescue etc you’d believe Brad’s oft-repeated claim of thousands of recovered kids. Its amazing to know that people of the same essential belief differ so wildly.

But back to Bortfeld’s screwed up non-recovered son. Her stance is peculiar given that, back in 2001, she was part of a discussion on the ABMD list during which she said:

Each time we deal with one of his medical problems, the features that gave him the autism label reduce. So in my mind, if we heal enough of his body, the autism dx won’t apply anymore. He went from severe (62 on the CARS) to mild (29 on the CARS) with diet and secretin. The last CARS they ran on him was a 22 so that technically doesn’t even qualify him for the autism label anymore (CARS is from 30-60) but I keep the label for services.

So which is true? That her son is ‘still screwed up’ and isn’t recovered? Or, back in 2001, that he doesn’t qualify for the autism label anymore? Interesting confirmation that Rescue Angels falsely hang on to diagnosis just to receive services as well.

I talked recently about denial. Is this discussion evidence of the rift in the mercury militia between those who have moved past most of their denial and those who can’t? Is it evidence that DAN! doctors know exactly how to play on the hopes and fears of these parents? I think so.

Acceptance not denial

22 Aug

Acceptance. It is a word that some use to describe their relationship with the reality of their children, or their own, autism. We accept the fact our daughter is autistic.

For people who claim to ‘fight autism’ this acceptance is a weak passivity. An act of giving in.

This, of course, is rubbish. Those who have accepted the reality of their own or their children’s autism know that the work starts right there. We do not attempt to carry on deluding ourselves and using quack treatments such as chelation etc as shields against the reality of who our kids really are.

Parents like Brad Handley of Generation Rescue claim at one point in time that:

“autism is a misdiagnosis for mercury poisoning…..The whole notion of autism is mythical. It didn’t exist before thimerosal in vaccines”

Source

and then later say:

The argument is being spun by focusing exclusively on a single ingredient used in vaccines, Thimerosal (which is made from mercury), while forgetting to mention a number of key points about the differences between the vaccine schedule of 20 years ago and today….Thimerosal is only one of the possible ways that the vaccine schedule could be the primary trigger behind the autism epidemic…

Source

are simply in denial. When their first belief is established to be untrue, they simply move on to another belief.

From the videos I posted a link to above, Brad is asked:

Q: This therapy (chelation) is it something he (Jamie) will be on the rest of his life?

Brad’s answer is:

A: Absolutely not. Its at maximum a two year process. Probably less.

As of next month, Jamie Handley will have been undergoing various treatments for three years. His story is not, as far as I can tell, listed anywhere as a ‘recovery’ story. He is still autistic.

Brad has made no effort to go back onto TV and explain this inconsistency. This is because he cannot. It is not explainable. I will be honest. Brad and I regularly exchange verbal barbs but I often feel sorry for the Handley’s. Because of their inability to accept the reality of their sons autism they have been unable to move on. They have instead – as I think is the case with a lot of the autism/vaccine parents – sublimated their failure to ‘cure/recover’ their kids in a proxy-fight with the ND’s, the CDC, the FDA – whatever.

I read a lot of blogs from the likes of Wade, Ginger, Kim Stagliano etc and whilst I often read about their anger and I often read about their love for their kids, I never ever read about them being happy. Do they love their kids? Of course they do. Do they enjoy their time with their autistic kids? I don’t know. I don’t think so.

There is a curious emphasis in a lot of these blog posts. Take Kim Stagliano’s most infamous blog entry – The Crappy Life of the Autism Mom – in which she says:

Recovering your kids doesn’t mean denying their value as people. To the contrary, it means we are willing to devote our lives, our savings, our sanity to their improved health, development and well being.

The jarring difference between stating that she is not denying their value and describing her life as their mum as crappy never occurs to her. It is also sad beyond belief that Stagliano feels that the measure of a persons value is the suffering of their parents.

Of course, the truth is that any decent parent will devote their lives, savings and sanity to their kids well being. That is not a situation that is the sole province of autism or even disability. Just parenting. However, I think that as well as lives, money and sanity, a parent should also invest respect and reality. Sublimating a continued tilting at the windmill of your child’s condition into an increasingly dirty and violent fight against a giant conspiracy is sad. Not sad in a sneering way but genuinely sad. It must be so miserable to be simply unable to accept the reality of the nature of your child.

This inability manifests itself in some strange ways. There have been a spate of articles fairly recently which examine the possibility that older parents are more likely to have autistic kids, or that autism might be due to a ‘corrupted’ (in the medical sense) gene. The outbursts these research papers have generated on EoH are amazing:

You forgot to mention that we’re damn old TESTOSTERONE-laden refrigerator mutant moms……………Here’s more from Autism Speaks funded research. So now the theory is it’s you damn old moms with your refrigerator mutant genes that causes autism. You are such horrible people. Tsk-tsk. Clearly, you aren’t feeling guilty enough, no matter how misplaced.

Any hypothesis which mentions or refers to parents is given equally short shrift. It doesn’t take much to work out why. Even when there is no hint of ‘blame’ (as in dear old Bettlehiem) to parents, any intimation that the genetic/physical make up of parents might have something to do with causes is pounced on and denounced in increasingly hysterical overtones.

Personally I don’t see the issue. Does it matter? No, not to me. But it seems to these parents that the idea that they might carry some responsibility for the fact their kids are autistic fills them with an utter horror. Even to the point that they have to delude themselves.

Take the cases of Erik Nanstiel’s daughter and John Best’s son. Here are two fathers who regularly sing the praises of their children’s doctors (the Geier’s and Andy Cutler respectively) and yet…

When we look back at everything we pay out of pocket… and for everything we pay as a co-pay… it’s several THOUSAND a year.

Why are we still doing biomed after six long years? Because we’ve seen our daughter go from failing-to-thrive to a pretty healthy kid. From a kid who couldn’t balance her copper and zinc… who had lead and mercury through the roof, with very little glutathione… who had constant diarrhea and wouldn’t sleep at night… and terrible eyesight…

to a kid with darn-near normal mineral levels, whose heavy metals have been more than half depleted, is thriving on a good nutritional program… and whose glutathione levels are now higher than daddy’s… is sleeping wonderfully through the night and has seen a 60% improvement in her eyeglass prescription.

She’s also nearly lost her tactile-defensiveness, loves attention (much more than before), stims a LOT less… is beginning to potty train and needs less “prompting” from us for life skills that she’s learning (like using silverware at meal time and dressing/undressing, etc.)

She is still considered low-functioning…

Like Brad and I, Erik and I have also had our fair share of verbal jousts but when I read this I want to weep. How can a man who so obviously adores his daughter fail to see that which is right in front of his face? They’ve been doing biomed for six years and his daughter is still low functioning (Erik’s words). The improvements he describes have little to no bearing on autism.

I waste no pity on John Best but once again, his denial is as plain as the autistic son in front of him:

I’ve done 55 rounds of chelation safely following the advice of Andy Cutler. My son keeps improving. I advise everyone that contacts me through GR to read what Cutler has to say and consider his protocol over what some DAN doc’s say. He has answered all of my questions at no cost and this chelation for a severely autistic child is working.

Whereas today, John made a post on EoH that stated:

In the time it took me to type my last reply, my son smeared feces all over himself and his room again. I’ve long since lost track of how many hundreds of times this has happened.

By the standards of Kim Stagliano – smearing (A Crappy Life remember) equals not cured. How exactly is the chelation working for John’s son? Or is it merely a panacea for the denial that ails his dad?

Attempts at intimidation

3 Aug

I was interviewed for and quoted in the latest edition of Nature Medicine (oops caught by Ms Clark). The piece in question was an uneasy look at the continuing and escalating violent overtones emanating from the mercury militia – parents who believe against all evidence that their kids autism was caused by vaccines.

The piece started with a look at the experiences Paul Offit faces now and then:

….as Paul Offit, a vaccine expert who served on the committee, tried to make his way through the crowd, one of the protestors screamed at him through a megaphone: “The devil–it’s the devil!” One protester held a sign that read “TERRORIST” with a photo of Offit’s face. Just before Offit reached the door, a man dressed in a prison uniform grabbed Offit’s jacket. “It was harrowing,” Offit recalls.

and….

He has since received hundreds of malicious and threatening emails, letters and phone calls accusing him of poisoning children and “selling out” to pharmaceutical companies. One phone caller listed the names of Offit’s two young children and the name of their school. One email contained a death threat–“I will hang you by your neck until you’re dead”–that Offit reported to federal investigators.

Offit’s crime? He’s performed science that doesn’t support the vaccine/autism hypothesis and spoke out about it.

His experiences mirror those of scientist Paul Shattuck who also published science that didn’t support the vaccine hypothesis. After a highly inaccurate smear campaign from the National Autism Association, Shattuck also received threats:

One person said, “Don’t be surprised if you get a knock on your door in the middle of the night and I’ll be there.” Another message said it was easy in the age of the Internet to find out where people live.

Arthur Allen and Professor Roy Grinker have also been on the receiving end of threats of violence:

these people need to be horse whipped…

I’ve also been on the receiving end of various nastiness. From the cowardly actions of John Best who once compared my autistic daughter to a monkey after I related how well she was doing and his follow ups:

….My wife bought too many bananas so I’ll send some for your daughter …..

…Perhaps you can teach your daughter to swing from tree to tree…

we can see how little the mercury militia actually value children. John followed this up by joining the AWARES conference under the username ‘megan leitch’ and posting more cowardly material. John’s regulars at his blog thought this hilarious. John’s blog regulars are anonymous members of the Evidence of Harm Yahoo Group. People who say they care about autistic kids and the discrimination they face.

Recently, this blog was blessed with a series of short lived visits from Ray Gallup, the co-founder of the Vaccine Autoimmune Project. He started off with a series of sneery comments – par for the course and easily deflected. However, he then decided to start posting under the names of others, including fellow antivaxxer Alan Rees and the afore mentioned Dr Paul Offit. It was easy to spot it was him because the IP address was exactly the same.

Shortly after this I was forwarded an email from someone who had followed the Gallup idiocy (he’s banned now by the way) and had mailed him to ask what he was up to – here is the first reply:

Dear ****:

I heard through the grapevine that the Kevin Leitch crowd and his fellow swine assholes where accusing me and Alan Rees of putting things on their website/blog. These people are a bunch of scumbags and I wouldn’t waste my time with dumb fucken people.

Thanks.

Ray Gallup

Except you _did_ Ray. So why lie about it?

Anyway, that was just the starter. The main course that followed showed yet again, the full extent of the bitter hate and violent tendencies of the mercury militia:

Dear ****:

Since you seem to follow what is going on with the Leitch list let me know if Leitch, Deer and the others get hit with a fast moving truck or bus that leaves their carcasses mangled and bloodly on the street.

I will be devotely praying night and day that something like this happens to them and their followers. Especially since these creeps say such hurtful things to parents. They deserve all the best in something terrible happening to every last one of them and I will pray daily.

I usually pray for good things for families that suffer but in their case I will make a big exception.

Ray Gallup

Jim Laidler was also interviewed for the Nature piece. His words are worrying but I cannot deny their veracity:

This stuff is frighteningly violent,” Laidler says. “With the Omnibus trial looking like [the Cedillos] are going to go down in flames, I would be appalled, but not surprised, to hear that some act of violence was carried out.

Its certainly gearing up for that. It was only recently that Brad Handley of Generation Rescue said to me:

If we were on a rugby pitch, Kev, I’d put my boot in your eye and twist…

These are a set of people winding themselves up like a bunch of toddlers ready to have a major tantrum. But they aren’t toddlers. These are, amazingly, adults. I challenge them to find a single incidence of any Autism Hub blogger threatening violence towards antivaccers/autism believers.

Elsewhere
Orac.
Kristina.

Safe Minds and David Kirby

5 Jul

Suspicions have been circling for a long time that there was more than just coincidence to the timing of writing and publication of Kirby’s Evidence of Harm. Those suspicions were enhanced for me when it became clear that a lot of Kirby’s associations with certain autism/anti-vaccine groups such as the National Autism Association were on a financial footing.

The ‘official’ story regarding the writing of Evidence of Harm, as reported by Kirby himself, was that Kirby was casting about for something to write about of book length and had been approached by several autism parents who wanted to share their beliefs that vaccines had made their kids autistic. According to Kirby, he was skeptical and unsure about whether to proceed with it or not. What made up his mind apparently was seeing a news report that a politician had managed to attach a no fault rider to a bill passing through Congress, absolving vaccine makers of any legal responsibility.

However, I don’t believe him. Up until recently, that belief was simply a belief. Rumours circulated that Sallie Bernard of Safe Minds was listed as the domain controller (i.e. she’d bought and paid for) the domain evidenceofharm.com. I emailed her to ask her one way or the other. She refused to answer that question. Kathleen Seidel has asked David Kirby that question. He refused to answer.

Why does it matter? Because Kirby claims to be impartial in this debate. His reviewers claim he ‘walks the middle line’ in his book. that his account is ‘even handed’. I would like to know how someone who has an established financial relationship to one major autism/anti-vax group can possibly be impartial. Would the NAA continue to fund Kirby’s website if he said he didn’t think thiomersal caused autism? I doubt it.

Turning our attention to Safe Minds, we can look at their records – records they must supply be law as they’re a non-profit organisation – and see exactly what they have financed. You can access these records via the orgs IRS Form 990:

Form 990 is an annual reporting return that certain federally tax-exempt organizations must file with the IRS. It provides information on the filing organization’s mission, programs, and finances.

Attached is Safe Minds 990 for 2005. It has some interesting details in it.

If we look at line 43, it has a listing amount of $99,196 for ‘Professional Fees’ expenses placed under the ‘Program Services’ Category.

This means that they paid people they considered professionals almost $100k to provide services to their programs. On page 15 of this same document they go into detail about what these services are.

…..THE BOOK “EVIDENCE OF HARM, MERCURY IN VACCINES AND THE AUSTISM EPIDEMIC: A MEDICAL CONTROVERSY” WAS RELEASED IN 2004 AND SAFEMINDS PRESIDENT, LYN REDWOOD, WAS FEATURED ON THE MONTEL WILLIAMS SHOW ALONG WITH AUTHOR, DAVID KIRBY. THIS IMPORTANT BOOK EXAMINES BOTH THE PERSONAL STORIES OF FAMILIES AND THE UNFOLDING DRAMA IN THE COURTS AND HALLS OF CONGRESS.

This is listed as a ‘Program Service Accomplishment’.

So what can we conclude? To me, this is pretty damning evidence that David Kirby was paid by Safe Minds to write Evidence of Harm. It certainly ties in with Kirby’s other financial benefits from the NAA. So much for impartiality.

I have some questions for Safe Minds and David Kirby.

1) Did David Kirby receive any kind of financial incentive from Safe Minds or NAA or any of their boards prior to writing Evidence of Harm?
2) If so, how much?
3) If not, please explain the 990 form from 2005 above and tell us exactly what the information in it means.

What will change?

30 Jun

The first of the nine ‘test’ Autism Omnibus cases has wrapped up. This was also the first of the designated three that will attempt to associate autism with MMR _and_ Thiomersal causation.

In todays’ Wall Street Journal, Professor Roy Richard Grinker, author of Unstrange Minds wraps up what we’ve seen over the last couple of weeks:

Over the last three weeks, I listened to testimony in the first of nine test cases in the U.S. Vaccine Court (Cedillo v. Health and Human Services) considering the question of whether a mercury-based vaccine preservative called thimerosal (which used to be in many vaccines), or the MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) vaccine, or both together, caused autism in Michelle Cedillo, the plaintiffs’ daughter.

I heard some of the world’s leading experts on autism, immunology, and vaccines testify that there is no biological model to account for an autism-vaccine connection, no scientific evidence or credible studies linking the two. They argue, instead, that autism is largely genetic. And yet just last week, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., wrote in the Huffington Post that there are “hundreds of research studies” from a dozen countries providing “undeniable” proof that vaccines cause autism and Rep. Dan Burton (R-Indiana) wrote a letter to the president of NBC claiming that there is increasingly conclusive evidence that thimerosal caused an “epidemic” of autism. Scores of websites and autism advocacy groups are convinced of the connection, and the vast majority of scientists and physicians can’t understand why.

………….

The scientific testimony has been devastating to the plaintiffs because the recognized experts on autism, vaccines, and immunology do not support even one of these premises, let alone a linkage between any of them. The only thing the government and Cedillos agree on is that Michelle Cedillo has autism.

However, I can assure you that those who support the Cedillo’s – and the Cedillo’s themselves don’t see it like that.

I was able to attend the hearing on Friday.

As I sat in the court room and listen to the twisted bull generated by the defense, I wanted to scream out, “you have proof of what
thimerisol does in the human body-look at all these damaged kids.”

This was posted by Holly (I assume Bortfield) on the Yahoo EoH group. Her response typifies exactly why it won’t make one shred of difference to these people what the outcome of the Cedillo case is – or the other eight to come.

These are not people who are swayed by science. To them, decent, peer reviewed science is ‘twisted bull’. To them idiocy posted to JPANDS, Medical Veritas etc is gospel truth.

This court hearing revealed once and for all Andrew Wakefield’s deliberate falsification of science and the O’Leary labs accidental false reporting of negative samples. In the O’Leary lab it was sloppy science. In Wakefield’s hands it was knowingly ignoring evidence that showed his error plainly. Without Wakefield and without the O’Leary results there was no MMR association to autism whatsoever. That testimony alone is enough to sink the Cedillo case and all other MMR related cases that may come after.

But as Arthur Allen writes in Slate:

None of that moves Laura Wildman, 47, whose son’s case is before the court and who drove from her home near Pittsburgh to watch the hearing, which ended this week. “I know what happened to my son after he got his MMR shot,” she told me. “I have no doubt. There’s no way they’ll convince me that all these kids were not damaged by vaccines.”

At some point we may have to realise that what we are dealing with here is simply blind, deliberate ignorance.

Even the plaintiffs lawyers realise this. Here’s a telling quote from Michelle Cedillo’s lawyer:

The government position is backed by the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence, which has repeatedly found the vaccines safe. But what the Cedillos and other parents lack in hard data, they have made up for with a stubborn passion and sorrow that science cannot dispute. _”It is parents versus science,”_ said Kevin Conway, one of the attorneys for the Cedillos.

Parents vs science. Indeed it is.

The real sorrow here is that the Cedillo’s continue, in the face of all reason, logic and evidence, to passionately insist MMR caused Michelle’s autism.

On the Evidence of Harm yahoo group – and on various other Yahoo groups, the conspiracy theories are already being polished.

Theory one states that the media – bought off by Pharma – have reported nothing but science and dismissed the opinions of parents. This theory goes on to continue to suggest that the three Special Masters will be under the sway of the media.

Its true that the media have not been kind to the mercury militia. This is because there is nothing to write about in their beliefs except for the fact that they are beliefs. The science lies with Respondents.

Theory two suggests that the Special Masters are Pharma plants. Various members of the mercury militia are carefully combing through the backgrounds of these three Special Masters for Pharma connections they can wave about.

Will they ever let this go? Of course not. You cannot reason someone out of a belief they did not reason themselves into.

Generation Rescue Survey Results

26 Jun

Brad Handley has commissioned a telephone polling company to perform a telephone poll:

Generation Rescue commissioned an independent opinion research firm, SurveyUSA of Verona NJ, to conduct a telephone survey in nine counties in California and Oregon. Counties were selected by Generation Rescue. Interviews were successfully completed in 11,817 households with one or more children age 4 to 17. From those 11,817 households, data on 17,674 children was gathered. Of the 17,674 children inventoried, 991 were described as being completely unvaccinated. For each unvaccinated child, a heath battery was administered.

Oooh – exciting!

The results are damning apparently….

We surveyed over 9,000 boys in California and Oregon and found that vaccinated boys had a 155% greater chance of having a neurological disorder like ADHD or autism than unvaccinated boys

Woah, what? _Like_ autism…? And what the hell has ADHD got to do with anything? Oh right, right – I remember, Generation Rescue redesigned their site when they couldn’t make their old message of:

Autism is treatable. It’s reversible. It’s nothing more than mercury poisoning,” said JB Handley, founder of Generation Rescue.

stick. Now its more than just mercury and its more than just autism. Hey – if you can’t make one idea work, expand it and pretend you’ve _always_ meant that. In this survey, applicants were asked about ADD, ADHD, Aspergers, PDD-NOS, Autism, Asthma and Juvenile Diabetes. Nothing like muddying the water to make things clearer.

On the Generation Rescue page I link to above, Generation Rescue have kindly provided their source data but in closed access PDF’s. How helpful. Never mind, I turned all the aggregate data into an Excel file and had a bit of a look myself. UPDATE: All Generation Rescue Survey data is now available in Excel.

Now, my issue with Generation Rescue is solely to do with autism and vaccines. I really don’t care about their newly found interest in asthma or juvenile diabetes. Lets see what they say about their autism results:

Vaccinated boys were 61% more likely to have autism

Well, thats one way to look at it. Another way is to look at it properly. In the spreadsheet I created using Generation Rescue raw data the following was found.

Number of boys with Aspergers
Unvaccinated: 2% of total
Partially vaccinated: 3% of total
Fully vaccinated: 2%
Fully and Partially combined: 2%

Conclusion: you are 1% more likely to have Aspergers if you have been partially vaccinated. If you are fully vaccinated your chance of being Aspergers is exactly the same as if you were unvaccinated.

Number of boys with PDD-NOS
Unvaccinated: 1% of total
Partially vaccinated: 2% of total
Fully vaccinated: 1%
Fully and Partially combined: 1%

Conclusion: you are 1% more likely to have PDD-NOS if you have been partially vaccinated. If you are fully vaccinated your chance of being PDD-NOS is exactly the same as if you were unvaccinated.

Number of boys with Autism
Unvaccinated: 2% of total
Partially vaccinated: 7% of total
Fully vaccinated: 3%
Fully and Partially combined: 4%

Conclusion: you are 5% more likely to have autism if you have been partially vaccinated. If you are fully vaccinated your chance of being autistic is 1% greater than if you were unvaccinated.

Number of boys with all ASD’s
Unvaccinated: 4% of total
Partially vaccinated: 8% of total
Fully vaccinated: 5%
Fully and Partially combined: 5%

Conclusion: you are 4% more likely to have an ASD if you have been partially vaccinated. If you are fully vaccinated your chance of having an ASD is 1% greater than if you were unvaccinated.

These figures are laughable. 4% more likely? And that’s if your son has been partially vaccinated! If he’s been fully vaccinated the percentage increase drops to 1%. The figures for girls are even worse.

Number of girls with Aspergers
Unvaccinated: 1% of total
Partially vaccinated: 1% of total
Fully vaccinated: 0%
Fully and Partially combined: 0%

Conclusion: you are no more likely to have Aspergers if you have been partially vaccinated. If you are fully vaccinated your chance of being Aspergers is 1% less than if you were unvaccinated.

Number of girls with PDD-NOS
Unvaccinated: 2% of total
Partially vaccinated: 1% of total
Fully vaccinated: 0%
Fully and Partially combined: 0%

Conclusion: you are 1% more likely to have PDD-NOS if you are unvaccinated. If you are fully vaccinated your chance of being PDD-NOS is 2% less than if you were unvaccinated.

Number of girls with Autism
Unvaccinated: 1% of total
Partially vaccinated: 2% of total
Fully vaccinated: 1%
Fully and Partially combined: 1%

Conclusion: you are 1% more likely to have autism if you have been partially vaccinated. If you are fully vaccinated your chance of being autistic is no greater than if you were unvaccinated.

Number of girls with all ASD’s
Unvaccinated: 3% of total
Partially vaccinated: 3% of total
Fully vaccinated: 1%
Fully and Partially combined: 1%

Conclusion: you are no more likely to have an ASD if you have been partially vaccinated. If you are fully vaccinated your chance of having an ASD is 2% less than if you were unvaccinated.

My goodness, this is _awful_ for Generation Rescue. Finally, we’ll look at girls and boys together:

Number of boys and girls with Aspergers
Unvaccinated: 1% of total
Partially vaccinated: 2% of total
Fully vaccinated: 1%
Fully and Partially combined: 2%

Conclusion: you are 1% more likely to have Aspergers if you have been partially vaccinated than unvaccinated. If you are fully vaccinated your chance of being Aspergers is no greater than if you were unvaccinated.

Number of boys and girls with PDD-NOS
Unvaccinated: 2% of total
Partially vaccinated: 2% of total
Fully vaccinated: 1%
Fully and Partially combined: 1%

Conclusion: you are 1% more likely to have PDD-NOS if you are unvaccinated. If you are fully vaccinated your chance of being PDD-NOS is 1% less than if you were unvaccinated.

Number of boys and girls with Autism
Unvaccinated: 2% of total
Partially vaccinated: 4% of total
Fully vaccinated: 2%
Fully and Partially combined: 2%

Conclusion: you are 2% more likely to have autism if you have been partially vaccinated. If you are fully vaccinated your chance of being autistic is no greater than if you were unvaccinated.

Number of boys and girls with all ASD’s
Unvaccinated: 4% of total
Partially vaccinated: 6% of total
Fully vaccinated: 3%
Fully and Partially combined: 3%

Conclusion:you are 2% more likely to have an ASD if you have been partially vaccinated. If you are fully vaccinated your chance of being autistic is 1% less than if you were unvaccinated.

There’s no getting away from this. This is a disaster for Generation Rescue and the whole ‘vaccines cause autism’ debacle. Generation Rescue’s data indicates that you are ‘safer’ from autism if you fully vaccinate than partially vaccinate. It also indicates that across the spectrum of autism, you are only 1% more likely to be autistic if you have had any sort of vaccination as oppose to no vaccinations at all – and thats only if you are male. If you are a girl you chances of being on the spectrum are _less_ if you have been vaccinated! Across both boys and girls, your chances of being on the spectrum are _less_ if you have received all vaccinations.

Elsewhere

Orac
Prometheus

Autism Omnibus: Vera Byers the, uh, expert

16 Jun

The Omnibus case needs to establish (at this time) two issuses: causation to Michelle Cedillo in particular and also general causation in that thiomersal and MMR in combination cause Michelle’s autism. So far the expert witnesses for the Plaintiffs have been less than stellar but on Day 4 you could almost hear the sound of a barrel bottom being scraped.

The establishment of witnesses as ‘expert’ is vital to each sides case. They have to establish to the Special Masters (which by the way is a great title – do they have long flowing robes and carry light sabres?) that _their_ experts are indeed that – experts. Bear that in mind as you read the rest of this.

The cross examination of Vera Byers was an exercise in the destruction of a persons expert credibility. No wonder the Petitoners team decided against putting Geier, Bradstreet, Haley et al on the stand. It would’ve been a massacre.

Q: You’re not certified in allergy and immunology, are you?
A: I’m board eligible. I have not taken the test.

Q: Is board eligible a phrase that’s recognized by the organization that certifies allergists and immunologists?
A: Yes, it is…

Q: You’ll see on your screen a letter from the American Board of Allergy and Immunology referencing your status with that organization. They note that the board neither recognizes, uses nor defines the term board eligible.
A Okay.
Q: So you’ve been essentially representing that that is a qualification that you have in terms of rendering an opinion about immunology?
A: Yes, I have.

Q: You mention in your resume that you’re the medical director of the four doctor team responsible for filing the Biologics License Application for Enbrel?
A: That is not exactly correct. I was a consultant medical director. There were I think either four or five physician members of the team.
Q: So that part is perhaps a misstatement on your curriculum vitae?

[NB: Here’s the wording of Byers CV: _1998 – 2000: Immunex Corp: Medical director on the team responsible for filing the BLA for for Enbrel in methotrexate resistant rheumatoid arthritis, and as initial therapy for rheumatoid arthritis._ The section this is in is entitled: Consulting Medical Director. Misleading and ambiguous in the extreme.]

Q: If we were to check the files at FDA to see whether your name appears at all on any of the documents submitted by Immunex for Enbrel, would your name appear?
A: I’m sorry. I don’t know.
Q: We checked at FDA. Your name doesn’t appear on any of the documents submitted by Immunex on the Biologics License Application

Q: You talked this morning about Nottingham University.
A: Yes.
Q: On your CV you say that you’re still a member of the faculty there. Is that true?
A: No. I think I dropped off.
Q: So your CV is inaccurate? You are not still on the faculty of Nottingham University?
A: That’s correct. It sounds like it’s an old CV.

[NB: This detail is also on Byers CV on her website]

Q: Your CV also lists you as a faculty member at University of California-San Francisco. Are you still a member of that faculty?
A: To my knowledge I am, unless this hearing has kicked me off.
Q: We checked with University of California-San 3 Francisco. What was your faculty role at University of California?
A: I’m on the adjunct series.
Q: What did you do there?
A: I did research in poison oak and ivy dermatitis, went on rounds with the docs.
Q: How long ago was that?
A: Let me see. Through from about 1974 through about 1981, and then I went back again in 1984 and was there episodically probably through about two years ago.
……
Q: Okay. About a decade ago for the dermatitis? About a decade ago for the dermatitis?
A: About, yes.
Q: Any other involvement at UCSF, at University of California-San Francisco?
A: Well, I use their library and I go to their parties…..

Amazing. Apparently affiliation with a major university can be claimed by using the library and going to parties.

Q: They in their response indicated that your participation was I believe at best gave very occasional lectures.
A: Oh, no. That’s not true. I don’t know why they said that. Maybe they just don’t know. Who did it come from? Oh, Bruce Wintroub? See, Bruce Wintroub is the head of dermatology, right? This was in biostatistics.
Q: You worked there in biostatistics?
A: No. I took the courses in biostatistics.
Q: You took courses?
A: Yes.

Seems mini-Geier isn’t the only person who likes to claim institutional affiliation from being a student.

Q: Now, in the last decade, about the last decade, you’ve only seen patients in consultation for litigation purposes, correct?
A: They’re not specifically for litigation purposes,…..
…..
Q:Do you recall testifying in a case in February of this year, a vaccine case?
A: Probably. Was that you?
Q: Yes, it was.
A: Hello.
Q: Welcome back. Now, do you recall what your answer was about whether you treated patients or whether you saw them in consultation for litigation purposes at that time?
A: I’m sorry. I don’t.
Q: Would it refresh your recollection then to know that you testified at that time that for approximately the last 10 years you had only seen 16 patients for litigation consultation purposes?

Ouch.

Autism Omnibus and David Kirby

14 Jun

And so, as we approach the end of week one of the vaccine trial, its been truly fascinating to read (albeit a day behind my US counterparts) the ongoing proceedings.

One of the things that fascinated me was the culling of the ‘expert witness’ list. Before Monday – the start of the trial – the expert list comprised:

Jim Adams PhD
Harland Austin D. Sc.
David S Baskin MD
Jeffrey Bradstreet M.D.
Richard Carlton Deth PhD
Mark Geier MD
M. Eric Gershwin MD
Phillippe Grandjean, Ph.D.
Sander Greenland, Dr. PH
Boyd E. Hayley, Ph D
Robert Hirsch PhD
Arthur Krigsman MD
Cathy A Lally, Master P.H.
Mary Megson, MD
Elizabeth Mumper MD
Andrew J. Wakefield, MB, BS, FRCS, FRCPath

And on Monday, the people left from this list were:

Arthur Krigsman MD.

Amazing. I can only surmise that the others were considered as liabilities. Certainly when one considers the stupidity of Haley, Adams, Geier and Wakefield then this looks like a good move. They would’ve been crucified on cross examination. It comes to something when only one person from the original list is considered a safe bet and then he is also crucified on cross examination.

Q. Doctor, your C.V. states that you’re a clinical assistant professor at New York University.
Is that correct?

A. Correct.

Q. Are you currently on staff there?

A. Correct.

Q. When was the last time you taught a class at NYU?

A. I haven’t taught there.

Q. You’ve never taught a class at NYU?

A. I’m on staff there.

Q. Are you salaried?

A. From NYU?

Q. Yes.

A. No.

Q. Have you ever been salaried at NYU?

A. No

I listened closely to the Petitioners opening statement and was bewildered. I’ll quote the ACHAMP blog:

Mr. Powers argued that over the last five years, since the Omnibus Autism Proceeding commenced, the Respondent in the Proceeding, with the Department of Justice acting as its counsel, had been standing “shoulder to shoulder” with industry and that it had placed many obstacles in Petitioners’ way. He noted obstacles of a short statute of limitations; very limited rights of discovery to gain necessary background information to build a case, particularly discovery from the Vaccine Safety Datalink; and selective use of materials from MMR litigation in the United Kingdom that was inaccessible to Petitioners; among other uncooperative tactics.

Not only are most of these things not _quite_ as painted, it seemed to me that Powers was presenting a long litany of excuses to be presented when the case fails. He’s simply fuelling the conspiracy theorist fire.

Also stoking the flames of that fire is one David Kirby. He made a recent HuffPo blog entry that berated critics for inflating the possibilities of what might happen if the parents win:

Critics of the autism claims also contend that a victory in court by any of the families would drive panicked parents away from immunizing their children at all, resulting in new epidemics of infectious disease and lots of sick and dying youngsters…..Nobody wants to see measles, or mumps, or polio sweep the country. But I don’t think that will happen.

Yeah? Its already happening you idiot.

In the course of 10 days, officials confirmed four pertussis cases, including the hospitalization of one child to treat respiratory symptoms. All of the cases afflicted children under 5 years old, and one in an infant just a couple of days old, according to Ravalli County Public Health Nurse Judy Griffin…..There have been more than 450 cases of pertussis in Montana so far this year, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. The infection rate is much higher than average years, when about 30 cases are reported….”Parents should check immunization records and make sure they’re up to date,” Nurse Judy Griffin said.

Ravalli Republic.

(Columbia) The state health department said yesterday that an infant has died from whooping cough. It is the first death reported in South Carolina from the disease in nearly three years….The health agency said it’s important children receive pertussis vaccinations on schedule.

WLTX News.

A whooping cough epidemic has hit Deschutes County. Health officials say that in the past six weeks, 18 cases of pertussis have been identified in the county. In all of 2004, there were only two cases of pertussis in Deschutes County.

KATU 2.

An increase in cases of the highly contagious whooping cough is prompting state health officials to urge stricter compliance with childhood immunization schedules….Cases have increased annually from 22 statewide in 1996 to 120 last year…Oklahoma’s childhood immunization levels continue to lag behind those nationally, officials said.

RedNova News

Kids are dying again. And in some areas of the US the disease causing those deaths is at epidemic (real epidemic as oppose to autism epidemic) proportions. And thats just one disease that vaccination removed the sting from for many years. In my country (UK) we’ve recently had a Mumps epidemic due to Andrew Wakefield’s unfounded scaremongering regarding the MMR vaccine. And worse:

Take-up rates of the jab dropped throughout the UK, down to less than 70% in some areas, after a small-scale study published in The Lancet in 1998 by Dr Andrew Wakefield suggested a link to autism.

Source.

In 2004, mumps cases in the England and Wales rose from 4,204 in 2003 to 16,436 in 2004, nearly a four-fold increase.

And in the first month of 2005, there were nearly 5,000 cases. Most were among young adults born before 1988 and who would, therefore, not have been offered MMR as a child. In the second paper, Dr Ravindra Gupta, from London’s Guy’s and St Thomas’, working with colleagues from King’s College London, found cases have also occurring in very young children who would have been eligible for the MMR – measles, mumps and rubella – vaccine…..Dr Gupta (…) said uptake of MMR among two-year-olds in the UK fell from around 92% in early 1995 to around 80% in 2003/4.

Source.

In October 2004, experts predicted that due to falling vaccination uptake, the UK would start to suffer from ‘small outbreaks’:

The medical newspaper Pulse has warned that there could be a measles epidemic this winter on a scale last seen in the 1960s. It said that lowering levels of immunity meant as many as 12% of children and 20% of adults could be hospitalised if infected by measles.

Source.

And now, this year, 18 months after this warning, we have the UK’s first measles induced fatality in 14 years.

The 13-year-old who died last month lived in a travellers’ community. It is thought that he had a weakened immune system; he was being treated for a lung condition. The boy died of an infection of the central nervous system caused by a reaction to the measles virus. The Health Protection Agency described his death as shocking.

Source

The Times also says that of the 72 reported measles cases last month, 9 required hospitalisation – this tallies almost exactly with the 2004 prediction of a hospitalisation rate of 12%.

Kirby has his own ‘dire warnings’ about what might happen if the parents lose:

And then there is the Middle East. Osama, for one, has a very extended family. We are exporting thimerosal containing vaccines to many Muslim nations. Some vaccines contain not only mercury, but products derived from pigs. I don’t need to tell you where I am going with this train of thought. You already know.

Actually, I do. You’re trying to instil fear of Muslims into people to support your meaningless rhetoric you nasty little racist.

Rendering unto

9 Jun

I’ve taken a deliberate and purposeful step away from everything autism related (online anyway) this last week and to be perfectly frank, its been a breath of fresh air. I’ve done some hard thinking and some hard talking/listening to family and friends and tried very hard to firstly compartmentalise what exactly I found so upsetting and offensive about the events of last weekend.

First, I was dismayed to find someone I considered an ally calling me names. It doesn’t matter under what guise it was – literary allusion or not – if you call people names they’re never going to find it easy to talk _with_ you.

I still haven’t been able to resolve the sheer mindless immaturity of this act and so I simply won’t try and rationalise it any more. It happened, it can’t be undone.

Secondly, I was even more dismayed – and deeply hurt – to hear someone I considered an ally accusing me personally and people I like of doing ‘things’. These things were never quantified and were never illustrated. I (we) were just supposed to accept they had happened.

I don’t operate like that. I do plenty of accusing on this blog. But I _back it up_ – and if I can’t back it up then I retract it. That’s how the world works. Nobody – under any circumstances – should be free to accuse anyone else of anything unless they can provide some evidence. Without that, we descend into anarchy.

Even more hurtful was to hear friends of the accuser wandering from blog to blog essentially saying ‘So? So you were accused of something – what’s the big deal?’ The big deal is integrity, respect, truthfulness. These things matter. Or at least, they matter to me.

A sideshoot of that issue was the same people saying ‘yeah, but underneath all the bluster, he has a point’. I cannot possibly convey to you how unbelievably frustrating it is to try and explain time after time that the underlying point – nothing about us without us – was never in question. Nobody thought otherwise. I was asking for the _specific examples_ of the allegations made against me and the Hub membership at large. Hijacking, usurping agendas, taking over.

This _is_ a big deal. To me, as someone who has spent the last 3 years invested in listening to autistic people regarding the autistic experience and trying to _support_ the agenda in one of the only ways I know how – technically – to hear that dismissed – _without any foundation whatsoever_ was like a kick in the teeth. That it should come from people that I deeply respected and who’s opinions I valued was the worst thing of all.

Thirdly, the vaccine connection. If anybody truly thinks that the vaccine/autism bullshit is anything other than the most important issue facing autism and autistic people right now then they need to pull their heads out the sand.

Right now, this week, a trial will begin that will effectively determine whether vaccines can legally cause autism. The outcome can potentially change the way the whole world views autism. The quacks lose and we can scale back a bit and move focus elsewhere. The quacks win….well, what happens then? Who knows, because as far as autism goes, all bets will be off.

Are you autistic? You’ll be considered first and foremost vaccine-injured. If you refuse treatment – what then? Will your ‘diversity’ be respected? Or will you be the new schizophrenics? Condemned to be held down and chelated much as schizophrenics were once held down and given ECT. Will you still be eligible for the help you get? Housing? Social? Monetary benefits…do you think you’ll still get them?

How about those autistic people who work? Think you’ll still have your employment rights? Would you be a ‘better’ employee for the company as autistic or chelated?

Are you the parent of an autistic child? Children who’s parents refuse treatment can be legally forced to surrender their paternal rights so doctors can apply that treatment. At the moment chelation for autism is seen as quackery. If this legal case goes through – who knows?

This happening right now.

Which brings me on to the concept of leadership. If autistic people alone want to not only lead and set the agenda but also decide what is acceptable for others to blog/talk about then they need to be exceptional leaders.

Leaders inspire, support their ‘troops’ and lead by example. They take responsibility. I haven’t seen much of that from certain autistic people of late. Indeed, when a leader is short sighted enough to think that its OK to ignore the vaccine issue then we are all – leaders and followers – in trouble.

If ever the autistic community needed leadership and vision in the face of a real, tangible threat then it is right now. This week.

I wish I could share with this (so far imaginary) leadership the emails I have received from parents this last week. If I could then I would tell my leaders that a good sized portion of their troops were now disillusioned and feel like they have been sold a bill of goods regarding neurodiversity. I feel a bit like that myself. Here is a quote from a parent (I was given permission to use this) who also happens to be ‘ND’:

All our voices are important. Even that of those who are less tolerant, as long as they can back up their thoughts and feelings with solid foundations, not walls that only bounce back reverberations of the original thought. I am afraid that some of our fellow ND associates have completely forgotten what the D stands for, and that truly bothers me.

It bothers me too. As someone else who is not NT but not autistic (e.g. – neurodiverse) I also think there are some people in the autism community who have forgotten that autism is a subset of neurodiversity, not its definition. They also seem to think that – as my email correspondent points out – ‘diversity’ = ‘autism only’. The people who originally taught me about awareness, disability rights etc continue to teach me but this time the lessons are not so pleasant and smack more of exclusion and not belonging to a ‘boys club’ than they do of diversity.

I got into this originally due to my daughter and that remains the overriding reason I participate. The idea of neurodiversity – that people with _a variety_ of differences – appealed to me instantly and still does. I don’t want to lead that community but I do want to participate – have my say – on how its agenda is set. I urge every parent of every autistic child, physically ND or not, to have their say too. I would temper that with reminding you that neurodiversity does not equate to autism and that as far as autism goes, you should have your say but never exclude autistic people – and be prepared for the weight of opinion to go against yours.

The saddest thing about all this is that I never thought that reminder was necessary based on our collective behaviour. The trap I fell into – until shown the nature of the trap by my big sister – is that not all autistic people do not want to hear your voices. The majority appreciate that you have something to add but they also know that they are (to borrow Kassiane’s phrase) QbE – Qualified by Experience – and that experience carries a large amount of weight.

In my next post I want to talk more about neurodiversity and how it encompasses – as oppose to ‘is defined by’ – autism. I’ll try and talk some more about my own ND neurology and why I am uneasy about how that neurology is viewed by some in the autistic community.

Autism Omnibus crashing?

30 May

Another few points of interest in the Autism Omnibus proceedings.

Firstly and perhaps most significantly is the defining of the Omnibus proceedings as being at ‘crisis point’ by the Special Masters overseeing the case:

Petitioners were supposed to provide (by their own suggestion) test cases that would show, in the first instance, how MMR and thiomersal working in combination would cause autism. Special Masters agreed to this arrangement and dictated that three cases would be needed. So far, only one out of the 4,700 cases in the Omnibus can be found.

At (the) first status conference in December 20 2006, when the PSC (Petitioners – the parents) first proposed moving to a test case format, Special Master Hastings advised the PSC attorneys that for a ‘test case’ approach to be effective, the PSC would need to offer additional cases, rather than a single test case, for trial. Since that time, the PSC has stated that it will select two such cases, and has represented that it is working diligently on selecting the two cases. At the status conference held on Jan 25 2007, the PSC was orally instructed to designate such cases within 30 days (i.e. by Feb 24 2007). The PSC did not do so. At the status conference held on Feb 28 2007 the PSC representative stated that the teo cases would be designated within seven to ten days. That did not happen. After further discussion, we extended the deadline for designation until March 30 2007. that date, too, passed without any designation. At the status conference held on April 2 2007, the PSC attorney stated that the two cases would be designated on April 6 2007 but no designation was made by that date either We then extended the deadline to March 30, then again May 10, but, still no additional test cases have been designated.

So, out of the 4,700 cases filed under the Omnibus, apparently only one can show a theory about how MMR and thiomersal, acting in unison can cause autism. Which is weird considering that its a ‘fact’ amongst adherents of the vaccine hypothesis.

And how about that one case – Cedillo – what does that show?

…without going into detail, we note that the facts of that one ‘test’ case are fairly unusual and do not appear to be representative of the majority of the cases in the OAP (Omnibus Autism Proceedings).

Good grief. Could it be that, from the 4,700 cases in the Omnibus that there are _no cases_ representative of a general theory of how MMR and thiomersal working together cause autism? Back to the Special Masters – the emphasis in this passage is theirs, not mine.:

We want to stress that we believe we are at a _crisis point_ in the efforts to move the autism cases towards decision. The Office of Special Masters has adopted the approach toward these cases originally suggested by _petitioners’_ counsel and we have patiently waited almost _five years_ to give that approach a chance to succeed…..Either something must change or we will be required to go to a new approach.

And then the bombshell:

In the event that petitioners do not promptly come forward with additional test cases to allow us to pursue the ‘test case’ approach described above for handling the autism cases, it appears that the ‘omnibus approach’ to the autism cases may have to be declared a failure.

That is some pretty direct language. You’ve had five years, it says, we’ve done everything your way. Now shape up or ship out.

Things got worse for petitioners. For years they had been claiming that they couldn’t move forward without certain data (VSD data) being made available to them. It would seem that the Special Masters have seen this for the delaying tactic it clearly is as they have denied this motion.

They have denied it because they (rightly) claim that it is unnecessary and involved a lot of irrelevant data. They also note that petitioners should be able to make a case out of what they have and that petitioners failed to provide a good reason why this data was needed. Special Masters noted:

Finally we note that the PSC itself states that ‘the petitioners could very well establish general and individual causation in these Omnibus claims _without epidemiological evidence_ ‘

That’s what bragging gets you I guess.

Update: Daubert Ruling

The Special Masters also ruled on the applicability of Daubert in the Omnibus cases. Before we discuss that, lets have a brief refresher as to what it is.

Daubert is a legal precedent in the US that essentially makes the presiding judge the arbiter of good science. They _must_ under Daubert apply a very high standard of science. It speaks volumes that Martha Herbert, Boyd Haley, Mark Geier have all fallen foul of Daubert in the recent past. Under Daubert, Haley and Geier’s science was adjudged to be of such low quality that they never even testified – they were barred from doing so.

OK, so. Respondents asked the Special Masters to ensure that Daubert standards were applied to the causation issues in the Omnibus hearings. They even asked that four ‘expert’ witnesses be excluded under Daubert which was a legitimate thing to do.

If the Special Master had agreed with that request than that would have been game over for the whole Omnibus hearing. No expert witnesses = no causation = no case.

What the Special Master has actually done is not quite that, but Plaintiffs should be very concerned. The Special Masters have agreed that Daubert standards should play an extensive role:

I agree with respondent that the principle that scientific evidence must be evaluated for reliability, set forth in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals….does have application to Vaccine Act cases.

That is big news. Plaintiffs need to realise that their science is going need to be of the utmost quality. However, the Special masters have decided that this proceeding is procedurally different enough that a small wrinkle should be introduced. This is a non-jury trial. In a jury trial, Daubert can be used (as I mentioned above) to exclude poor quality expert witnesses. This could also happen in a non-jury trial but the Special master has elected to not go that way. What they have decided to do is:

I conclude that the best procedure is to hear the testimony of the expert witnesses in question….I can then evaluate the reliability of the expert testimony in question [in the context of Daubert] and determine what weight it should be accorded, if any.

So, Daubert will apply, but instead of being used to exclude the possibility of juries hearing poor quality expert witnesses, as this is a non-jury trial, Daubert will be applied directly to the proffered testimony of the expert witnesses.

Whichever way you cut it, this is not good for Petitioners. They were staunchly opposed to the Daubert standard being applied at all as they knew it would mean that scientific standards of proof would apply. Standards that Boyd Haley and Mark Geier have already failed to meet in previous thiomersal/autism cases.

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →