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Sharyl Attkisson blogs the Hannah Poling settlement

10 Sep

I had forgotten Sharyl Attkisson. She is a reporter for CBS news who has covered vaccines in the past, but has been silent on the issue for the past year or more.

Her recent piece shows exactly the sort of reporting that frustrated me in the past: Family to Receive $1.5M in First-Ever Vaccine-Autism Court Award

In that piece she links to her piece from 2008 on the Hannah Poling case: Vaccine Case: An Exception Or A Precedent?

Here’s a quote from that earlier piece:

While the Poling case is the first of its kind to become public, a CBS News investigation uncovered at least nine other cases as far back as 1990, where records show the court ordered the government compensated families whose children developed autism or autistic-like symptoms in children including toddlers who had been called “very smart” and “impressed” doctors with their “intelligence and curiosity” … until their vaccinations.

They were children just like Hannah Poling.

What’s still being debated is whether the Poling case is an exception … or a precedent.

So, which is it? Were there children “just like Hannah Poling” or is this the “First-Ever Vaccine-Autism Court Award”?

Actually, it is neither. This isn’t the first vaccine court award involving autism, and the other cases are not “just like Hannah Poling”.

For real information on the other nine cases, read Kathleen Seidel’s piece on Neurodiversity.com. Few, professional or amateur, can compare the the thoroughness of Kathleen Seidel. For example, one case (the first I read involving autism from the vaccine court) is Suel v. HHS. Young David Suel had tuberous sclerosis, a condition known to be associated with autism and epilepsy. Epilepsy occurs in about 60 to 90% of individuals with TS. Autism occurs in about 25-50%. David Suel’s case was declared to be a “table injury” wherein the seizures began within a set period after his DPT vaccination. What is notable about that is the table for DPT was later changed–when it was shown that DPT was not responsible for inducing seizure disorders. In other words, had David Suel been vaccinated, or just filed, after the change in the table, he likely would not have been awarded damages.

“They were children just like Hannah Poling”? Is tuberous sclerosis just like mitochondrial disease? (answer: not even close).

Shall we go on? In her recent piece, Ms. Attkisson states:

In 2002, Hannah’s parents filed an autism claim in federal vaccine court. Five years later, the government settled the case before trial and had it sealed

Not accurate. The court did not “settle” the case in 2007. They conceded the case, and they were in the process of completing the settlement when someone leaked the information to the press. The government did not “seal” the case–it is standard procedure to keep this information confidential until the settlement is completed.

But that doesn’t make a good story, does it?

Ms. Attkisson goes on:

In acknowledging Hannah’s injuries, the government said vaccines aggravated an unknown mitochondrial disorder Hannah had which didn’t “cause” her autism, but “resulted” in it. It’s unknown how many other children have similar undiagnosed mitochondrial disorder. All other autism “test cases” have been defeated at trial. Approximately 4,800 are awaiting disposition in federal vaccine court.

Mito-autism was a big thing for a while there. David Kirby took the story and ran with it–making a lot of mistakes along the way and propagating a lot of misinformation. It is unknown how many other children have similar disorders–but the researchers who studied cases like Hannah Poling have stated that cases such as hers are “rare”.

“All other autism “test cases” have been defeated at trial”.

What is conspicuous about the other “test cases” is that in none of them was it argued that the children were like Hannah Poling–i.e. the attorneys did not argue that a mechanism of autism through mitochondrial dysfunction aggravated by vaccines existed. In fact, one child named as a test case was pulled from that slot in order to argue that mitochondrial based case. The expert report filed for that child (since pulled from the Omnibus website) did not argue mitochondrial disorder or dysfunction at that time. In other words, the idea of a mitochondrial disorder being linked to autism was so alien from the cases being made by the attorneys for the families in the Omnibus that this child had to argue the case separately.

It is often pointed out that many autistics may have mitochondrial dysfunction. This is based largely on studies out of Portugal. It is left implied, and it is often believed that mitochondrial dysfunction means vaccine injury in these cases. This was the impression that David Kirby put forth and it was clearly wrong. First, mitochondrial disorders are a very broad spectrum. The type that Hannah Poling has is not the same as those detected in most autistics. Second, most reports of mitochondrial disorders and autism, including the Portugal studies, do not involve regression. Third, even amongst those children reported by the groups that identified Hannah Poling, regression was often idiopathic or followed fever clearly independent of vaccination.

I do not expect Ms. Attkisson to present the following (quality) information, so I will repeat it here:

Here are the answers to some questions posted to mitochondrial medicine experts and their answers:

When asked, to respond to the position: ‘‘I view the risk of vaccination in known metabolic disease patients to generally be outweighed by the risk of the infectious diseases being vaccinated against”

63.2% strongly agreed
31.1% agreed
0.9% disagreed
and 0.9% strongly disagreed.

Asked about the opinion that the risk of vaccination in metabolic disease was ‘‘greater than the risk of the infectious diseases being vaccinated against”

52.9% strongly disagreed
40% disagreed
3.5% agreed
and none strongly agreed

Review of the Introduction of Age of Autism – the book.

23 Aug

So begins the Olmsted/Blaxill upcoming book ‘Age of Autism’.

…instead of taking Kanner’s word for it, [we decided] to learn about these previously anonymous families ourselves. We took clues from his extensive case descriptions and started uncovering the identities of the original families. Time and again, we connected the occupations of the parents to plausible toxic exposures and especially to a new mercury compound first used in the 1930s as a disinfectant for seeds, a treatment for lumber, and a preservative in vaccines. Yes, the parents’ professions were clues— but not to their obsessions or their marriages or their parenting or their genetic oddities; instead, they pointed to a strikingly consistent pattern of familial exposures to the same toxic substance.

(emphasis authors, inserts mine)

This is the paragraph that sets the authors hypothesis out. When we look at it carefully, we can see exactly what its purpose is – its purpose is to fit a set of preconceived ideas that revolve around one central disproven hypothesis – that mercury in vaccines (thiomersal/thimerosal) causes autism.

I haven’t yet read the rest of the book but I’m pretty sure what I’m going to find. To talk about that now would just be conjecture however, so lets stick to what we have here.

According to Olmsted and Blaxill, syphilis treatment, hysteria, mental illness and a variety of modern illnesses are all caused by mercury. I’m very much looking forward to reading this section too. Olmsted & Blaxill use Pink disease (a definite form of mercury poisoning which looks nothing like autism to ‘justify’ the inclusion of these illnesses in the Introduction.

Blaxill and Omsted detail how they went on to meet “Donald T.” one of Kanner’s original cases:

By any mea sure, he has fared astonishingly well. President of his college fraternity and later the Forest Kiwanis Club, a pillar of his Presbyterian church, he had a long career at the local bank, plays a competitive game of golf, and regularly travels the world. We learned how “Donald T.” went from being the first unmistakable case of autism to the first unmistakable case of recovery.

So on one hand we have the doom and gloom of Pink disease (a foreshadow of autism according to Blaxill & Olmsted) which killed hundreds and then actual autism which doesn’t seem that bad. I’ll be very interested to see how Blaxill & Olmsted narrate Donald T.’s ‘recovery’…or could it have been that Donald T. was in fact one of the first cases of autism who also either moved ‘off the spectrum’ (as a certain percentage of autistic people do) or…y’know…he simply progressed as he got older. My guess is that Blaxill & Olmsted will reveal that Donald T. had some kind of miraculous exposure to a chelating agent or multi vitamins or some form of extreme biomed. Lets see.

The whole Introduction is about 6,000 words long. I can’t possibly attempt to review the whole thing and I won’t attempt to review the whole book either. These are the sections of the Intro that caught my eye particularly. Maybe others who have access to the Intro will tackle more. One thing you can be sure of, LBRB will be here to catch and expose the errors.

Eli Lilly halts two clinical trials of an experimental Alzheimer’s treatment

19 Aug

This has been reported in a number of places, including the New York Times in their article Lilly Stops Alzheimer’s Drug Trials.

From the NY Times:

Eli Lilly halted two late-stage clinical trials of an experimental Alzheimer’s treatment on Tuesday, representing a setback to one leading theory on treating the degenerative disease and a new blow to Lilly’s business prospects.

One defining feature of Alzheimers disease is the presence of amyloid plaque in the brain. The now-halted clinical trial was for a drug which reduces this plaque.

The basic idea is fairly straightforward: if plaque is present in the brains of those with Alzheimer’s, removing the plaque may help reduce or reverse the symptoms. Instead, researchers were finding that the drug was making symptoms worse. Again from the times:

The company said patients who had taken the drug, intended to reduce plaque in the brain, actually showed worse cognitive functioning and less ability to perform daily living tasks than patients who had taken a placebo.

Why bring this up on an autism blog? Because this trial gives a good example of why I am very concerned about the use of untested therapies on autistics. It isn’t because of some objection to a “cure”. There is no existing autism cure. There is no autism cure proposed or in any stage of a clinical trial. While there is some very good and important discussions about any potential cure, it is for the present a hypothetical discussion. No, it isn’t the cure debate which drives me. It is safety. Plain and simple.

Consider autism therapies (both alternative and off-label) from a viewpoint of safety for the moment with the lessons learned from the Alzheimer’s trial.

Clinical trials are all about safety and efficacy. Is the therapy (drug) safe? Does it work? Before a clinical trial is even started, there has to be some reason to believe that the therapy would be safe and effective. Researchers have to ask the question, “what will this do?” In the Eli Lilly Alzheimer’s trial, they had reason to believe that the drug would reduce amyloid plaque. They had (I assume) some earlier trials to prove the drug reached some level of safety. With that in hand, Eli Lilly went forward to large-scale testing with people and they found that, at least for their test group (people with somewhat advanced Alzheimer’s disease), the drug was harmful.

From the NY Times story:

Lilly’s drug was intended to reduce production of so-called amyloid beta plaques in the brain by inhibiting the activity of an enzyme called gamma secretase.

Dr. Siemers of Lilly said the failed trials might indicate that too much reduction in amyloid beta unexpectedly harms cognitive functions, or it may be that the problems arose from the drug’s effect on some 20 other proteins.

Unintended and unforeseen consequences.

Consider alternative therapies being applied to autistics. For example, consider anti-inflammatory drugs. These are existing drugs used off-label, so some safety data are available. There is evidence of inflammation in the brains for some autistics, so why not treat it?

Because we don’t understand why there is inflammation in the brains of autistics. Because of that, we don’t know if there are any unintended consequences of anti-inflammatory therapies. From a story last year in the Chicago Tribune, this section discussing the team from Johns Hopkins/Kennedy Krieger which first published on neuroinflammation in autistics:

“THERE IS NO indication for using anti-inflammatory medications in patients with autism,” the [Johns Hopkins] team wrote.

Meddling with neuroinflammation could actually be a terrible mistake, said co-author Dr. Andrew Zimmerman, director of medical research at the Center for Autism and Related Disorders at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore.

“It may actually be an attempt of the brain to repair itself,” said Zimmerman, a pediatric neurologist. Suppressing the immune response “could be doing harm.”

There are other classes of alternative therapies used in autism. Therapies which most likely are doing nothing beyond the placebo effect are in one class. For example, homeopathy. I don’t spend a lot of time writing about homeopathy. In fact, I don’t know if I have blogged about it at all. Even though it is bad science, it isn’t really dangerous. Another class of alternative therapies are those based in really bad science and which carry the potential of harm. Lupron comes readily to mind. Lupron therapy is based on two levels of very bad science. First, that autism is caused by mercury poisoning. Second, that reducing testosterone in the body will aid it in eliminating mercury. Lupron has been through clinical trials (not for autism) demostrating some level of safety, there are serious known side effects. Worse, the manner in which it is used in autistic children is very problematic–delaying puberty.

Back to the Alzheimer’s trial–I actually welcome the trial itself. I consider those who undertake clinical trials to be very brave individuals. I for one hope there are effective therapies for Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia soon. It is a great fear for most, if not all, of us that we spend the last years of our lives with dementia. For the parent of a disabled child, this fear is only compounded. The thought of spending my last years draining resources I would rather leave to my child is one of the worst futures I can imagine.

Prof. DeSoto discusses mercury and autism

3 Aug

A recent issue of the journal Acta Neurobiologiae Experimentalis (ANE) focused upon autism. Not just autism, but autism causation with papers on vaccines, acetaminophen and, of course, mercury. The idea for this focus edition came from Professor Dorota Majewska who holds the EU Marie Curie Chair at the Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology in Warsaw, Poland. The authors for this focus issue are largely the same as those from a conference Prof. Majewska organized in 2008, Autism and Vaccinations.

One of the papers in the focus edition of ANE was the paper by Hewitson et al., that we have discussed at length here at LeftBrainRightBrain.

Another paper in this focus edition is Sorting out the spinning of autism: heavy metals and the question of incidence by M.C. DeSoto and R.T. Hitlan. DeSoto and Hitlan gathered some attention for a paper a few years back where they analyzed an existing data-set, that by Ip et al.. D’oC and Interverbal discussed this paper at the blog Autism Street, starting with A Tale Of Two Tails. In that piece, D’oC and Interverbal discuss the statistical analysis used by DeSoto and Hitlan. Prometheus at the Photon in the Darkness blog also discussed the DeSoto and Hitlan paper in Winter Potpourri. Pure Pedantry blog at ScienceBlogs also discussed this study in Mercury, Autism, and a Note on Scientific Honesty. Perhaps the best analysis of the original DeSoto and Hitlan paper was performed by EpiWonk, an epidemiologist.

The recent paper by DeSoto and Hitlan, Sorting out the spinning of autism: heavy metals and the question of incidence, is basically a review article. It has been touted as support for the mercury hypothesis with a commonly quoted phrase,

Fifteen were offered as evidence against a link between exposure to these metals and autism. In contrast, a sum of 43 papers were supporting a link between autism and exposure to those metals

I somehow doubt the authors intended the debate to boil down to counting papers. It would be a weak support, and rather ironic at that as this paper is placed in exactly the sort of journal that leads to large numbers of papers supporting the heavy-metal/autism link. The current DeSoto and Hitlan paper is in a focus issue on autism in ANE which selected papers which support autism as vaccine injury. Many papers on the mercury appear in lower impact journals and by authors such as the father-son team of Geier and Geier (which if I counted correctly account for 19 of the 43 articles on DeSoto and Hitlan’s list). If you are unfamiliar with that team, the neurodiveristy.com blog has many articles on the team such as Significant Misrepresentations: Mark Geier, David Geier & the Evolution of the Lupron Protocol (Contents).

That said, I was planning to avoid the recent DeSoto and Hitlan paper. It isn’t really new (adding to the number of articles on toxins and autism without adding to the knowledge base). I was going to avoid the paper, that is, until Prof. DeSoto gave an interview for the Age of Auitsm blog. I don’t understand why the Age of Autism considers Prof. DeSoto to be an expert on so many areas of autism and the environment. The breadth of her work is not great. Below is an exchange which shows what I mean. Prof. DeSoto was asked to comment on the recent study by Hewitson et al., comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated monkeys.

Q: There is a study published in Acta Neurobiologiae Experimentalis alongside yours that deals with vaccinated and unvaccinated primates. Do you have a reaction to the study or its conclusions?

Dr. DeSoto: All the primates were vaccinated, the difference was whether there was a heavy metal additive. This is a potentially important study. There are a few weaknesses that prevent strong conclusions. The size of the control group is small (apparently n=2). Given that rhesus neural development within the brain region of interest is not all that well documented, a larger control group would have been desirable. This weakness is acknowledged by the authors.

Isolating the infant monkeys shortly after birth is a significant change from normal environment. The severing of the maternal bond and being raised essentially alone (only visual contact was maintained with the peer infants) affects every aspect of development – including neural development. There is evidence that brain volume is specifically affected by isolation. The rearing situation in the study, in my mind, is not very comparable to normal development, especially if the outcome of interest includes brain volume.

That said, this is the only study that has compared the net effect of multiple vaccination additives on brain development. Above all, I have to editorialize and say this seems difficult to understand (that is – why is this the only study?). If some scientists and some parents question the safety of the vaccine schedule, such studies as this one are the way to investigate the concerns.

Now, the one study that exists (even if there are caveats that go with pilot research) suggests there are differences. Whether one is of the opinion that individually testing vaccines is as good as testing the combined effect or not – at this point it is imperative that additional studies be conducted on the additive effect of the full vaccine schedules.

To be clear and to repeat, if one thinks that the vaccines with additives given in close succession have no effect on neural development– this ought to be established empirically. One thing that I noticed in the study is the main effect for difference in brain volume (no time effect). It should be noted that this suggests the early administration of additive-containing vaccine (first four rounds) was a culprit of interest.

Prof. DeSoto did not take a careful look at the Hewitson et al. study. How do I know this? In the above interview, DeSoto states:

“All the primates were vaccinated, the difference was whether there was a heavy metal additive”

The paper states, “”Four infants were assigned to the unexposed study group and received saline injections according to the schedule in Table I””. The differences included the heavy metal additive, as well as all the ingredients that make a vaccine differ from saline.

What amazes me is that the interviewer at the Age of Autism missed that as well. Even though AoA has touted the Hewitson study greatly, they don’t appear to have read it closely.

This is not a minor detail. It is key to the study design and conclusions.

Another comment:

Given that rhesus neural development within the brain region of interest is not all that well documented

I think that Prof. DeSoto can be excused for not realizing that there is a study tracking the development of precisely the amygdala in macaques. This is because Hewitson et al. did not include that reference (which was easily found in a pubmed search).

“The size of the control group is small (apparently n=2)”

The control group was 4. One was excluded for “scheduling reasons” and the other for unknown reasons. This was a major problem with the study. Fatal, one might say, as the brain sizes of the control group didn’t grow between the two time periods tested (about 4 months and about 6 months of age) for the monkeys. At the same time, their amygdalas shrank. This was a big warning sign that something was amiss with the control subjects, but this was ingored by Hewitson, et al.. Based on this faulty premise, Hewitson et al. claimed that the brains and amygdalas of the vaccinated monkeys were on an abnormal growth path. It is amazing that Prof. DeSoto missed that.

A fact that I am not surprised that Prof. DeSoto missed is that in a previous IMFAR abstract on this group, Hewitson et al. came to the exact opposite conclusion: that the brains of the vaccinated monkeys did not grow as fast as the unvaccinated monkeys.

Back to the recent DeSoto and Hitlan paper. They make the following statement:

It is worth noting that there have been only three empirical articles directly comparing those with and without an ASD on mercury levels in the body to a control group of normally developing matched controls that report that report no link (Ip et al. 2004, Soden et al. 2007, Hertz-Piciotto et al. 2010). While, the most recent article appears to be the strongest, lacking any obvious errors or flaws (we think that this recent article does provide at least some legitimate evidence contradicting the hypothesis that autism and heavy metals are linked), the other two are seriously flawed.

In the end, this mention of the Hertz-Picciotto study is why I decided to write about the DeSoto piece, and in the process bring in the interview.

Part of what made the Hertz-Picciotto study strong was the fact that they controlled for fish consumption. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe this is something that Ip did not do, nor did DeSoto and Hitlan in their re-analysis. I don’t see mention of fish consumption in the recent DeSoto and Hitlan paper.

Again, I’ll point out that the analysis by EpiWonk was thorough and clear. I wish he had published it. I don’t think consider fish consumption to state that the DeSoto/Hitlan re-analysis of the Ip data is likely not thorough enough to make the conclusions they draw.

The fact of the matter is, the Ip data just aren’t that profound. It was worthwhile to do a re-analysis given the errors in the Ip dataset and paper. But it was three years ago that DeSoto and Hitlan did their re-analysis. In the meantime, Hertz-Picciotto et al. have a better dataset and a more thorough analysis.

DeSoto and Hitlan editorialize a bit in their paper:

If a person has publicly staked his/her career on a certain position being right, it may become harder to keep a truly open mind, even when new data become available and even when the original intent was to be objective. A way this bias might manifest itself is an overstatement or slight misstatement of results. We feel that both sides have been guilty of this, and this happens when a person becomes so confident in the correctness of his/her own view that he/she no longer reviews evidence to the contrary. Unconscious bias may exist even in the best scientists.

This begs the question of whether DeSoto and Hitlan are as guilty of those they chide. Re-analyzing the Ip data is not staking their career on a certain position. Repeatedly publishing on such a limited dataset does make this reader start to question whether some piece of their reputation is now tied to this position. With apologies to Prof. DeSoto, but the fact that her misimpressions of the Hewitson et al. paper are skewed towards the mercury hypothesis makes me wonder even more.

The autism research community needs to have fresh eyes looking at questions and data. DeSoto and Hitlan did well to reanalyze the Ip data once the mistakes were shown. They just appear to this observer to have (a) overstated the interpretation of their analysis and (b) gotten very quickly in to exactly the sort of rut they accuse others of being in.

Desiree Jennings back in the news

26 Jul

Remember Desiree Jennings? She was a cheerleader ambassador for the Washington Redskins who claimed that a flu shot gave her dystonia. She was highlighted by the Age of Autism blog and by Generation Rescue, who connected her with alternative medical practitioner Rashid Buttar. Mention of Desiree Jennings has been removed from the Generation Rescue website. Neurologist and blogger Steve Novella discussed how her case more closely resembled a psychogetic disorder. Dr. Novella’s take on the case prompted the American TV show Inside Edition to take a second look. We discussed the Jennings case then here on LeftBrainRightBrain as Successful blogging by Steven Novella: the Desiree Jennings story
.

Now the TV Show 20/20 has taken a look a the Desiree Jennings story in Medical Mystery or Hoax: Did Cheerleader Fake a Muscle Disorder?

First, one must stress that many people following this case have not been calling out “hoax”. A psychogentic disorder is quite real, just not dystonia and not physical.

That said, here is the trailer for the 20/20 episode:

http://abcnews.go.com/assets/player/walt2.6/flash/SFP_Walt.swf

I find the beginning to be really cheesy. The way they took the video to make it look like it was some film taken decades ago was, well, cheesy. Ms. Jennings is less than 30 years old. Somehow I doubt her wedding was recorded on film and, even if it was, it wouldn’t be so deteriorated in a few years. But, we get the idea–the wedding was in the past.

Ms. Jennings has been used as an example of how successful Rashid Buttar is. One article, copied to Dr. Buttar’s blog, states that shortly after beginning treatment with him:

The good doctor ran to his patient, fearing she had suffered another seizure but instead was elated to find that she was awake, coherent and carrying on a normal conversation with the nurses and her family. By the next day she was walking the corridors with limited affliction. (See the video at: http://www.desireejennings.com.) The AMA has remained silent.

(note–www.desireejennings.com is no longer active).

But just as she was leaving Dr. Buttar’s clinic on her last visit in December 2009 — with “20/20’s” cameras rolling — it all seemed to fall apart. Jennings was in distress again. She could no longer walk forward, and had to be taken out in a wheelchair.

In the early discussions of Ms. Jennings, much interest focused on the idea that she was diagnosed with Dystonia by doctors at Johns Hopkins. People complained that Dr. Novella shouldn’t make statements that contradicted doctors who actually saw Ms. Jennings. The 20/20 story states:

In search of a cure, Jennings and her husband Brendan visited countless doctors and four hospitals, among them Johns Hopkins Hospital. There, a rare movement disorder that causes the muscles to twitch or convulse involuntary. The symptoms resembled her own.

“a physical therapist told Jennings about dystonia”. That’s a bit different from a doctor diagnosed her with dystonia.

Yes, this isn’t about autism at all. But this story does shed some light onto groups like Generation Rescue who supported Desiree Jennings, sending her to Dr. Buttar. The story was compelling for them, even though it was not about autism. It was about alleged vaccine injury. Generation Rescue appears to have abandoned Ms. Jennings now. It sheds light on Dr. Buttar, whose claims of recovery for Ms. Jennings appear to be unsupported by the facts. Dr. Buttar is one of the more prominent names in the alternative medicine community marketing their services to the autism community.

The genie is out of the bottle: vaccines cause autism

16 Jul

That’s what you will read if you check out discussions of a new paper, Influence of pediatric vaccines on amygdala growth and opioid ligand binding in rhesus macaque infants: A pilot study, by L. Hewitson, B. Lopresti, C. Stott, N.S. Mason, and J. Tomko.

If you are wondering, yes, that is the same Laura Hewitson of Thoughtful House who first presented the “monkey studies” at IMFAR a few years back. And, yes, that is Carol Stott, formerly of Cambridge. And, yes, this is a part of the Wakefield-team “monkey studies” which has had such a checkered history.

What is this new study about? Well, here’s the abstract:

This longitudinal, case-control pilot study examined amygdala growth in rhesus macaque infants receiving the complete US childhood vaccine schedule (1994-1999). Longitudinal structural and functional neuroimaging was undertaken to examine central effects of the vaccine regimen on the developing brain. Vaccine-exposed and saline-injected control infants underwent MRI and PET imaging at approximately 4 and 6 months of age, representing two specific timeframes within the vaccination schedule. Volumetric analyses showed that exposed animals did not undergo the maturational changes over time in amygdala volume that was observed in unexposed animals. After controlling for left amygdala volume, the binding of the opioid antagonist [11C]diprenorphine (DPN) in exposed animals remained relatively constant over time, compared with unexposed animals, in which a significant decrease in [11C]DPN binding occurred. These results suggest that maturational changes in amygdala volume and the binding capacity of [11C]DPN in the amygdala was significantly altered in infant macaques receiving the vaccine schedule. The macaque infant is a relevant animal model in which to investigate specific environmental exposures and structural/functional neuroimaging during neurodevelopment.

Basically, they took 16 monkeys (rhesus macaque or Macaca mulatta). 12 of them were given vaccines in a schedule intended to mimic the U.S. vaccine schedule of the 1990’s, including thimerosal (which was added). 4 were given saline injections (controls). MRI scans were taken. “Time One (T1) at approximately 4 months of age and Time Two (T2) at approximately 6 months of age.”

From the abstract we see that they found that the “Volumetric analyses showed that exposed animals did not undergo the maturational changes over time in amygdala volume that was observed in unexposed animals.”

In other words, the amygdala volume was different from the controls at T2 for the monkeys given vaccines.

Want some more detail? Well, in regards to the right amygdala:

For the exposed group there was a nonstatistically significant increase in right amygdala volume over time (P=0.16; Table IIa). For the unexposed group there was a significant drop in right amygdala volume over time (P<0.0001; Table IIa).

Read that again. Did they just say that a piece of the brains of the control animals shrank between 4 months of age and 6 months of age?

They did. That’s what their data show. It seemed so odd to me that I double (and triple) checked. I’m sort of visual in how I like to take in data, so here is Figure 4(A) from the paper. This shows the left amygdala size for the two times (T1=4 months of age and T2=6 months of age). I’ve added text to the graph. It is in red so you know what I added. (click to enlarge)

The dotted lines are for the “exposed” animals. I.e. those vaccinated. The solid line is for the “unexposed” animals. See how at T1 they have amygdala sizes that are about the same size? But at T2 (2 months later) the amygdalas of the “unexposed” animals have shrunk, while the amygdalas of the exposed/vaccinated animals grew a little.

I’m not a primate expert, but it bothers me somewhat to hear that a piece of the brain might shrink. I would expect in my own naive way that pieces of the brain would grow as monkeys mature, so I decided to check: has anyone looked at amygdala size in Rhesus Macaques as a function of age? It turns out there is a paper just out in 2009, “Maturation of the Hippocampal Formation and Amygdala in Macaca mulatta: A Volumetric Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study” by Christa Payne et al. from the University of Texas and Emory University. They also were working with small numbers (11 in the male group). Here is Figure 6(A) from that paper:

FIGURE 6. Modeled developmental trajectories for left (thick, thatched lines) and right (thin, solid lines) amygdala volume in males (A) and females (B). Actual volume measurements are represented by filled (left hemisphere) and open (right hemisphere) symbols.

One line is for the left amygdala, and one for the right. Same with the datapoints, the filled are for one side, the hollow for the right. But the basic idea is clear–the amygdala grows with time in monkeys, not shrink. Yes, seems obvious, but I had to check.

How could the Hewitson paper report that the control monkeys have shrinking amygdalas? One possible answer: too few monkeys in the control group. There is a lot of scatter in the amygdala data from the U. Texas paper. If someone has only a couple of datapoints, they might get some strange results.

The Hewitson paper had really small numbers:

“A complete set of MRI data at both T1 and T2 were obtained from 9 exposed and 2 unexposed animals.”

But, wait, remember above? Weren’t there 4 monkeys in the control group and 12 monkeys in the vaccinated group? What happened to the other 2 of the control subjects? There weren’t many to begin with but half of the control group are missing in the data? What’s the reason for that? No, that’s a real question which I can’t find answered in the paper: what happened to the two other controls?

This paper is generating quite a bit of interest in places like the Age of Autism blog. Unfortunately for them, this paper is not the genie getting out of the bottle. Just another low quality paper. Just another 16 monkeys giving their lives for nothing.

Review of Frontline’s The Vaccine War

29 Apr

The Vaccine War has aired. Judging by the responses, one might consider it a success. Pro vaccine groups like Every Child By Two were telling people to watch it. The Autism Science Foundation “highly recommends” watching it. On the other side, the organizations represented by the Age of Autism blog (Generation Rescue, the National Autism Association, SafeMinds, the Autism Research Institute and TACA) are very upset. Jenny McCarthy has gone to the Huffington Post with her side of the story, as has Dr. Jay Gordon, whose entire interview was cut from the program.


An unofficial (and incomplete) transcript is here.

That all said, I both appreciated the program and had my fears realized. In this case, my fears were that people would be given a platform to spread misinformation. And it happened. Jenny McCarthy and others made statements that were, in my view, misinformation. But, I appreciated the fact that Frontline took the time to counter much of the misinformation with actual experts discussing real science.

Frontline describes the show as:

In The Vaccine War, FRONTLINE lays bare the science of vaccine safety and examines the increasingly bitter debate between the public health establishment and a formidable populist coalition of parents, celebrities, politicians and activists who are armed with the latest social media tools — including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter — and are determined to resist pressure from the medical and public health establishments to vaccinate, despite established scientific consensus about vaccine safety.

I think the show accomplished this. There was some cost in terms of allowing Generation Rescue’s misinformation message in TV once again. But, this time, this time they are the problem.

If you watch the introductory 2 minutes of this video, you will get some idea of how the show is presented

Parents, both pro vaccine and not, activists, public health workers and researchers like Dr. Offit telling various sides of the story, with the narrator tying it together.

Narrator: Tonight on Frontline: They’re hailed as medicine’s greatest triumph: conquering smallpox, diphtheria, polio and more. But today, some Americans question if all those vaccines are worth the risk.

The show is in four segments. The titles for these segments should, again, give you an idea of the tone of the show.

1. A visit to Ashland, Oregon. In some American communities like this one, parents are hesitating to vaccinate their children, despite their doctor’s advice.

2. Eroding faith in vaccines. Skeptics target Paul Offit, inventor of the rotavirus vaccine. And many parents are wary of vaccines because they no longer see the diseases.

3. Fearing vaccine risks, especially autism.. Vaccine skeptics like celebrity Jenny McCarthy have organized a community of parents concerned about a vaccine-autism link.

4. The science that launched the movement. A British doctors ’98 study theorized that the measles vaccine causes autism. Soon vaccine critics began questioning other additives in vaccines.

5. What epidemiological studies reveal. No link is found between autism and the MMR shot or thimerosal. And the British doctor’s ’98 study is discredited, but critics demand more studies.

6. Vaccines, what’s at stake. The debate goes beyond the medical risks-benefits: it involves parents’ rights to make choices v. the needs of the community.

In the first segment, they interview a pro-vaccine mother in Ashland. She notes that if there is an outbreak, the response may get contentious. It may get ugly.

Beyond the direct human cost, one of my worries: how much blowback will there be to the autism communities? How much blame will be applied and what will it cost?

As part of the introduction, The Vaccine War discusses the story of Desiree Jennings. She was a Washington Redskins cheerleader who claimed dystonia as an adverse reaction to her vaccine. Her story broke out not through the TV news show that covered her story, but through YouTube. Jenny McCarthy is quoted about how Generation Rescue took Ms. Jennings to see Dr. Rashid Buttar and how chelation and HBOT cured her.

What makes the Desiree Jennings story even more interesting is the possibility that the vaccine-injury/dystonia story may not be real. As noted on LeftBrainRightBrain, Ms. Jennings was later followed by cameras from a TV program and shown to be driving and walking normally.

The possibility that Generation Rescue is using the story even though it may not be true was probed by Frontline. Here is a part of an interview from Frontline with one of Generation Rescue’s founders:

[Frontline]Talk about the viral spread of an image over the Internet, like [Redskins cheerleader] Desiree Jennings’ flu shot story, for example.

It’s remarkably powerful what an image or an idea can do in today’s day and age, and for a group of parents who feel completely outmatched — because think for a moment about who our enemy is; our enemies are the largest pharmaceutical companies on the planet, making billions of dollars in net profit a year — you’d think that we could never compete with that. But an idea can transmit itself powerfully and very cheaply for millions to see.

So in the case of Desiree, here you have an image of this beautiful woman who’s been severely disabled that literally tens of millions of people view overnight, and imagine the chilling effect that has on a flu vaccine that she attributes as the cause of her condition. It’s remarkably powerful.

[Frontline] Does it matter whether it’s true or not?

Truth always bears out in the end, so I’m a firm believer in that. Are there moments in time where truth is exaggerated or expanded? Absolutely. But truth bears out in the end. …

Perhaps I missed it, but it appears to this reader that Frontline’s question was completely dodged. Does it matter whether the Desiree Jennings story is true or not? I think so. But what seems important to Generation Rescue is not the truth of the story, but the fact that it is a gripping narrative that sells their message.

The Vaccine War has a rather large cast, if I may call them that. Parents both pro and anti vaccine, a writer from Ashland who is anti-vaccine, Paul Offit, bioethicist (and polio survivor) Arthur Caplan, Jenny McCarthy, Anthony S. Fauci (immunologist from NIAID), Cynthia Cristofani (pediatric intensivist), Alvaro and Myrian Fontan (a family who almost lost their daughter to whooping cough) and J.B. Handley, Barbara Loe Fisher–plus more.

In some ways, “The Vaccine War” takes the same approach that Dr. Offit uses in books like “Autism’s False Prophets”. Let the skeptics make their points, ask their questions, then respond. Sometimes this is quite jarring.It is tough to sit back and listen to someone spread information and wait for the response.

The Vaccine War is well researched. Even though people like Jenny McCarthy got some air time for their ideas, they are quite upset about the Frontline episode.

Perhaps I am the only one who will find this ironic. In response to this episode, one which discusses how groups like Generation Rescue use social networking on the internet to get their message out, they are taking to social networking. Twitter, blogging…

As noted above Jenny McCarthy and Dr. Jay Gordon have taken to the Huffington Post to respond to the show. the Age of Autism is being very critical. They are attempting to “poll mob” the Frontline website. (humorous aside–they haven’t figured out that the survey doesn’t record their answers. It only shows you how your responses compare to the actual survey.)

If you have friends, family who are wondering about the vaccine/autism “controversy”, this is a good show to refer them to. It gives both sides. It allows people like Jenny McCarthy to give her viewpoint–and it gives the response.

Bogus Urine Metals Testing Fails In Vaccine Court

13 Mar

The Thimersoal “test cases” in the OAP relied on bogus urine mercury testing. Among many other common problems the petitioners had in providing any sound scientific support for the notion that mecury can cause autism, that, was at least in part, the apparent conclusion of all three of the special masters.

I just skimmed through the recent decisions by the US Court Of Federal Claims in the Thimerosal “test cases” that were part of the Omnibus Autism Proceeding, and the expert testimony provided by Dr. Brent (respondent) in this regard is pretty clear:

From the Mead Decision

When specifically asked about the urine mercury tests that were performed on William, Dr. Brent said that the tests “showed pretty much exactly what you’d expect for the normal population, that their unprovoked specimens are normal. Yet, when they give chelators, most of [mercury excretion results] are increased.” Id. at 1852-1853. Dr. Brent expressed a concern about the use of data in this way to suggest that a condition exists that, in fact, does not. See id. at 1853. He stated that “it’s data like this that has been used as an excuse to subject these children to chelation therapy where the data supports [a finding] that their urine mercury status is totally normal.” Id. at 1853.

From the King Decision

Moreover, Dr. Brent explained that when the results of mercury testing of Jordan, both provoked and non-provoked, are viewed in their entirety, they are exactly what one would expect from an individual without any mercury-related problem. That is, Jordan’s non-provoked test results were within the normal range for non-provoked testing. (Tr. 1852-53, 4340.) At the same time, while his provoked results were outside the normal range for non-provoked testing, that is not surprising since the provocation/chelation process is designed to specifically provoke an increased excretion of metals. (Tr. 1852-53, 4340-41, 4347.) As Drs. Brent and Fombonne explained, administration of a chelating agent to anyone, autistic or not, mercury-poisoned or not, will always be followed by increased excretion of mercury.118 (Ex. M, p. 74; Tr. 1852, 4340-41, 4343.)

Interestingly, the added scientific clarity of the special masters with regard to bogus urine metals testing is also present to some degree in all three test cases:

Here’s one example from the Mead Decision

Moreover, a subsequent study, as reported in the 2007 Soden article filed as RMRL 458,150 could not confirm the 2003 Bradstreet study results. See Mead Tr. at 1844. The investigators found that “DMSA provoked excretion testing did not produce evidence of an excess chelatable body burden among the autistic [study] participants.” RMRL 458 at 480. The investigators concluded that “[i]n the absence of a novel mechanism of heavy metal toxicity or an alternate therapeutic action of chelators, the data presented provide[d] no justification for chelation therapy for the [study] participants.”

Many will remember the conclusion of Soden et al.

“In the absence a proven novel mode of heavy metal toxicity, the proportion of autistic participants in this study whose DMSA provoked excretion results demonstrate an excess chelatable body burden of As, Cd, Pb, or Hg is zero.”

But perhaps the most interesting of all, is the common thread that the reliance upon the bogus mercury testing seems pretty much acknowledged for what it is by both the special masters and the petitioners’ expert:

From the Dwyer Decision

Doctor Mumper’s willingness to rely on Colin’s mercury test results as evidence of high levels of mercury in his body was particularly troubling. She admitted that his results were not typical of those she saw in other autistic children. She admitted that she knew of no research into normal mercury excretion levels after chelation against which Colin’s one positive mercury test could be measured.741 It appeared that regardless of the results for mercury levels, Dr. Mumper was willing to opine that they reflected mercury’s role in ASD.

From the King Decision

In short, a careful analysis of the record demonstrates that there is no valid basis for Dr. Mumper’s view that the results of mercury excretion testing on Jordan King offer support for a conclusion that thimerosal-containing vaccines played a role in causing Jordan’s autism. To the contrary, the evidence supports a conclusion that Dr. Mumper’s reliance on such mercury tests has no basis in science or logic. Indeed, upon cross-examination even Dr. Mumper acknowledged that there is no particular profile or pattern of post-provocation test results that points to a finding that a child has mercury-induced autism. (Tr. 1555-60, 1568-69.) When pressed, Dr. Mumper could not even suggest an example of any type of result on a post-provocation mercury urine test that would not, in her analysis, support a claim of mercury-induced autism. (Tr. 1558-60.) Dr. Mumper’s analysis in this regard was illogical, and completely unpersuasive.119

Yep, regardless of the results of a scientifically meaningless test, it’s the mercury. Right.

Remember, these were the three Thimerosal “test cases”, presumably chosen by the Petitioner’s Steering Committee (PSC) because they offered the best opportunity to introduce good, and representative scientific evidence for the hypothesized role of thimerosal in the etiology of autism. It looks like they failed miserably, and this doesn’t seem surprising when it’s clear the cases leaned on at least one form of laboratory testing that’s clearly scientifically meaningless.

It won’t be surprising when many of the die-hard anti-vaccine and “alternative” autism medicine brigade ignore the fact that bogus urine toxic metals testing just had a bright light shined on it by the vaccine court. They’ll be likely to claim some form of conspiracy or politics about the cases, despite the fact that the spotlight revealed an apparent decision-making tool of many a “DAN! doctor” to not only be worthless in medicine, but also worthless in court.

On a related note, there has been recent news that a couple of “DAN! doctors” are facing a lawsuit in which bogus urine toxic metals testing is called out directly. Aside from numerous other problems they face in the complaint, it should be interesting to see how the defendants (Dr. Dan Rossignol, Dr. Anjum Usman, and Doctors Data, Inc.) explain the potential role of comparing chelator-provoked urine metals levels to a non-provoked reference range. If the three test cases in the OAP are an indication of the state of actual scientific support for such testing, the defendants would seem to have plenty to worry about.

Additional reading:

Mead v. Secretary of Health and Human Services Case No. 03-215V
King v. Secretary of Health and Human Services Case No. 03-584V
Dwyer v. Secretary of Health and Human Services Case No. 03-1202V
Thimerosal-Autism Test Cases Dismissed
Doctors sued over ‘dangerous’ autism treatment
Suing DAN! practitioners for malpractice: It’s about time
How the “Urine Toxic Metals” Test Is Used to Defraud Patients
24-hour provoked urine excretion test for heavy metals in children with autism and typically developing controls, a pilot study

Autism-study doctor facing grant probe

13 Mar

A story in the Philadelphia Inquirer today sheds some light on the situation involving Dr. Poul Thorsen.

Background for anyone who needs it: Dr. Thorsen is a Danish researcher who is co-author on a number of important studies. These include epidemiological studies on vaccines and autism. Dr. Thorsen did this work at the University of Aarhus, and has since left. There is an investigation ongoing apparently implicating Dr. Thorsen in a possible shortfall of about US$2M from the University.

Dr. Thorsen’s work was funded largely by the CDC. He started working for Emory University before leaving Aarhus (and this is a point of contention with Aarhus, as they state that Dr. Thorsen was not allowed a joint full-time appointment). He was also listed as adjunct faculty at Drexel University. Dr. Thorsen has also left Emory and his adjunct appointment at Drexel.

There has been a lot of speculation and discussion on this for the past week or so. The story has broken into the mainstream media, who have been good enough to get us some facts to work with. I have sent many emails over the past week, and almost all have been unanswered. I finally heard from one group in Denmark yesterday, and they to are unaware of the details of this case.

Today’s Philadelphia Inquirer has a story about Dr. Thorsen, Autism-study doctor facing grant probe by Jeff Goldstein:

A Danish scientist involved in two major studies that debunked any linkage of vaccines to autism is suspected of misappropriating $2 million in U.S. grants at his university in Denmark.

He also notes that Dr. Thorsen’s appointment at Drexler was unpaid, and he resigned it this week. (Drexel University is local to Philadelphia, where Mr. Goldstein works). Also of note, Dr. Thorsen was working with Emory University for about 6 years, much of that part time. The complaint by Aarhus involves him working “full time” in both Aarhus and Emory. This may go to the fact that it was pretty clear that Dr. Thorsen was at both Emory and Aarhus from his publication record. The complaint may not be about working in both places but, rather, having changed to full time status at Emory.

Mr. Goldstien notes that some groups have “seized” on these allegations to discredit the studies Dr. Thorsen worked on:

Anti-vaccine groups have seized on the allegations to contend that scientific studies disproving the vaccine link to autism are wrong. Those groups have long argued that thimerosal, a preservative in some vaccines, can cause autism, as can the MMR vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella.

“I think it is quite significant,” said Dan Olmsted of the Age of Autism. “I think someone allegedly capable of ripping off his own university by forging documents from the CDC is capable of pulling off anything.”

And this is where the this situation becomes very important. If these allegations are true, does this negate the studies Dr. Thorsen worked on?

Mr. Goldstein addresses this with quotes from Mr. Olmsted (above) and people at the CDC and Denmark.

“Poul Thorsen had absolutely no influence on the conclusions regarding this paper,” wrote Mads Melbye, head of the division of epidemiology at the Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen and senior author of the study, in response to e-mailed questions.

“Thorsen was not actively involved in the analysis and interpretation of the results of this paper,” Melbye said.

The second study, published in Pediatrics in 2003, examined 956 Danish children diagnosed with autism from 1971 to 2000. It concluded the incidence of autism increased in Denmark after thimerosal was removed from vaccines.

Kreesten Meldgaard Madsen, the lead author, said Thorsen played a minor role.

“Dr. Thorsen was not in a position to change or compromise the data,” Madsen wrote. “Dr. Thorsen was part of the review cycle, but never very active in giving input. Dr. Thorsen never had access to the raw data nor the analysis of the data.”

I doubt these statements will mollify Mr. Olmsted’s readers.

In a piece on WHYY (a public radio station in Philadelphia) has a story, Investigation of autism researcher’s conduct sparks controversy.

Dr. David Mandell of the Center for Autism Research agrees the studies Thorsen worked on should be reviewed. But he doesn’t believe the research has been compromised. He noted that Thorsen was not a lead researcher, the studies used government data, and they were peer-reviewed. This view is echoed in a statement from the Centers for Disease Control, which partly funded the vaccine research.

So, where does this leave us? With a lot more questions than answers still. One question in my mind at least is whether Dr. Thorsen is accused of transferring money to his own use or if he is accused of transferring money to fund his research at Emory when he left Aarhus. That aside, no matter what happens from here, this will be used to imply that vaccine-autism research (and not just that by Dr. Thorsen) is performed by corrupt individuals and should not be trusted.

Assume that the allegations are real. I can state that I am very angry at that possibility. I do not like dishonest people. I do not like dishonest researchers.

Mostly, I don’t like the fact that this will be (and already is being) used to put doubt in a lot of people’s minds about the role of thimerosal and MMR and autism. $2M is a small sum compared to the amount of suffering that will go on as this breaths a little life back into that movement.

My guess is that some readers are now ready to blame me of bias, of believing that Dr. Thorsen’s studies are accurate when I should be questioning everything he did. Let’s ignore the statements by his collaborators that Dr. Thorsen didn’t have access to the data to manipulate. Let’s just stick with the fact that the studies Dr. Thorsen worked on agree with the results of multiple other studies. The surprising outcome would be if on review the conclusions changed.

I am sure this story isn’t going away. And it should not. We need to know and we deserve to know what the details are here. Beyond that, I am sure that this will be forever in the lore of the vaccines-cause-autism community and will be used to convince ever more people to join.

For that, whoever is responsible for this mess, I am angry.

Fees for the Omnibus Autism Proceeding hit $7M

20 Feb

In the United States, the court hearings on whether vaccines cause autism were held under the Omnibus Autism Proceedings (OAP). These proceedings represented over 5,000 families who filed for consideration that they had a child who (a) suffered a vaccine injury and (b) this injury resulted in autism.

The OAP heard six “test cases”. Each test case represented both the question of whether the specific test-case child considered suffered a vaccine injury and also the general question of whether the idea that vaccines cause autism was proven.

The first three test cases considered the question of whether the MMR vaccine could cause a vaccine injury resulting in autism. The second three test case considered the question of whether thimerosal containing vaccines could cause vaccine injury resulting in autism.

The decisions from the MMR cases have been handed down, and they were unanimously and definitively against the MMR causes autism theory. These have been appealed and that appeal was denied. I believe an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court has been either filed or planned.

The decisions in the thimerosal cases have not been handed down yet.

The OAP was a very long process, starting in 2002 and still ongoing, involving multiple law firms and many lawyers and experts. It has been an expensive process. We are slowly learning just how expensive.

Last year an interim award of over $2M in legal fees was granted for lawyers working on the Cedillo test case. That was the first case heard in the MMR segment of the AOP.

The Court has now granted an interim award of $2,300,000 for the King test case, the first heard in the Thimerosal segment of the AOP.

During an unrecorded telephonic status conference on July 1, 2009, the law firm of Williams, Love, O’Leary, and Powers (WLOP) agreed to reduce its interim attorneys’ fees and costs request from $3,101,764.84 to $2,300,000.00, including $2,070,000 in fees and $230,000 in costs. Respondent’s counsel then indicated that respondent will not object to that amount. WLOP’s reductions included: the withdrawal of time and expenses relating to direct legislative lobbying, that is, any activity relating to efforts to affect the outcome of the political process; the withdrawal of time and expenses relating to “case specific” work in cases other than this claim, and unrelated to “general causation” work on the OAP; the withdrawal of time and expenses WLOP conceded were related exclusively to civil cases outside of the Vaccine Program; and the withdrawal of time and cost claims relating to public relations and media work during the pendency of the OAP. In addition, WLOP generally reduced the fees it requested for time spent on the OAP. Finally, WLOP agreed to significantly reduce the expenses for which it sought reimbursement, particularly those costs incurred while on travel.

Let me highlight a couple of statements:

the withdrawal of time and expenses WLOP conceded were related exclusively to civil cases outside of the Vaccine Program.

and

WLOP’s reductions included: the withdrawal of time and expenses relating to direct legislative lobbying, that is, any activity relating to efforts to affect the outcome of the political process

Bold is mine.

Apparently, the law firm applied for and was denied funding for work done for civil cases that were outside of the vaccine program and for lobbying efforts. What were they thinking trying to get tack that onto their fee request? Let’s face it, the Omnibus has already subsidized any upcoming civil cases by giving the lawyers time to research their arguments and pay experts. And, really, asking the program to pay for lobbying?

This is only an “interim” fee request. Fees are still mounting, and not all the past fees have been assessed:

Of note, this Decision resolves all fees and costs requested by the WLOP firm in the King interim fees application, at Tabs A & B of that application. This Decision does not resolve the amounts requested at Tabs C through U of that application.

I don’t know how much is involved with “Tabs C through U”, but it sounds like the remaining fees could be considerably more than the $2.3M granted.

It is interesting to note that the father/son team of David and Dr. Mark Geier have expert fee requests submitted (and as yet unpaid) for this case, even though they were not called as witnesses and, to my knowledge, did not submit expert reports:

This does not resolve the vast majority of fees and expenses relating to Drs. Geier and Young. The majority of expenses relating to Dr. Geier, David Geier, and Dr. Young are included in the PSC Committee Costs, at Tab C of the initial Fee Application

The Geier’s are well known “experts” in the vaccine court. Young, I suspect, is the same person as co-authored a paper with the Geiers purporting to show a link between neurodevelopmental disorders and thimerosal in vaccines. That paper was reported to have been recieved funding “…from the Autism Petitioners’ Steering Committee of the no-fault National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP).”

I am all for petitioners in the Vaccine Court having access to good experts. I don’t consider the Geier team to meet that standard. Should the Petitioners’ Steering Committee have decided to fund this reasearch, I see that as their expense, not one that should be passed on to the vaccine program. Dr. Mark Geier has been referred to in court documents as:

There are multiple cases where Dr. Geier’s opinion and testimony have been given little or no weight because they exceeded the scope of his expertise.

and

Dr. Geier is “a professional witness in areas for which he has no training, expertise, and experience”

I frankly suspect that funding The team of Young, Geier and Geier in this instance is another attempt to get the Vaccine Program to pay for work the lawyers expect to use in the civil cases that will follow the likely rejection of the Vaccine Court hearings. Remember, they weren’t called as expert witnesses in the Omnibus.

One other expert witness of note, Dr. Vas Aposhian, is also mentioned in the fee ruling:

This decision resolves the $34,048.25 that WLOP requested for expenses related to Dr. Aposhian ($31,750.00 in fees; and $2,298.25 in expenses incurred in May 2008). This decision does not resolve the $207,382.53 in fees and expenses included in the PSC Committee Costs for costs relating to Dr. Aposhian, nor does it resolve the $7,910 requested by Williams Kherkher for costs associated with Dr. Aposhian. See Tab C at 3887 and Tab E at 4396-98.

We don’t have the decisions from the King hearing yet, but here are some comments from the Cedillo decision:

Thus, concerning this issue [genetic hypersensitivity to mercury], I conclude that the testimony of Drs. Brent and Cook was persuasive, and that the testimony of Dr. Aposhian was not.

I find that Dr. Brent’s testimony on this point [the lack of an established mercury efflux disorder] was persuasive, and that the testimony of Dr. Aposhian was not.

I wonder if Dr. Brent, whose expertise was persuasive, will be paid anything like the roughly quarter million dollars that Dr. Aposhian has billed.

So we have $2M in fees granted for the Cedillo hearings, and now $2.3M for the King hearings. This is part of a total of over $7,000,000 requested in interim fees:

In their application, the petitioners sought a total of $7,202,653 for interim fees and costs. This total reflected the fact that this case was, as explained above, one of the “test cases” in the OAP. Because this was a “test case,” in which the petitioners sought to present all of the “general causation” evidence concerning the theory that thimerosal-containing vaccines can cause autism, several different law firms participated in the development and presentation of the evidence, while five expert witnesses prepared expert reports and testified at length for petitioners during the evidentiary hearing. The high total sought reflects the participation of all those law firms and expert witnesses.

I don’t think anyone is surprised that this is a very expensive proceeding.

Millions of dollars were spent trying to prove the now discredited (and never well supported) hypothesis of Dr. Wakefield. The thimerosal hypothesis also never had much substance, and has cost millions more.

One thing good out of all this is that the proceeding also paid to compile expert reports from some real experts debunking the MMR and Thimerosal myths.

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