New Scientist and the Autism Omnibus

New Scientist has published an interesting commentary on the Autism Omnibus  proceedings that are taking place in the United States Court of Federal Claims.  They are quite rightly sympathetic to the Cedillo family whose case is the first of around 4,800 that seek to establish whether or not thimerosal containing vaccines, MMR or a combination of the two can cause autism. There is no question that Michelle Cedillo is severely disabled. There is a very big question  over whether or not she is the victim of vaccine damage.

New Scientist is less sympathetic to some of those advising the parents and offering expert testimony on their behalf. They have identified a number of problems.

Lawyers representing the parents are acting on the assumption that their claims are statements of fact and that they are only having to go into court because of some kind of conspiracy between the US government and the vaccine manufacturers or ‘big pharma’ in the parlance of the petitioners and their supporters. New Scientist again.

Those findings have not, however, stopped some lawyers from discussing the link as if it were already fact. The firm of Williams, Love, O’Leary, Craine and Powers, based in Portland, Oregon, is representing the Cedillo family. The company website states that “thousands of children” have developed autism “as a result of their exposure” to thimerosal.

One consequence of this mindset is that they are not approaching the court as an independent arbiter of two conflicting claims. Rather, they see the court as another obstacle in their fight for justice. Autism Diva has blogged about a very perceptive discussion of the trial on National Public Radio. One of the contributers, Gardiner  Harris, a reporter with the New York Times observed that:

It’s a little bizarre that way, because the lawyers for the claimants — so normally when you go into a court where a judge is making the decision …. there’s a podium right in front of the judges and the lawyers stand in front of the judges… in this case the claimants’ attorney turned the podium around and spoke to the audience instead of to the special masters who will actually make the decision and I think it tells a lot about this case.It’s not clear that it’s all about money or even about winning for the claimants. I think … they are talking to a different audience.

I think that Harris is onto something. Some of those who believe that these autistic children are vaccine damaged have convinced themselves that government, the courts and the scientific establishment are all in cahoots with the drug companies. The children are victims of an enormous conspiracy. They do not expect to win. And if their ‘experts’ are shown up for fools or charlatans, their humiliation will be seen as martyrdom and may even enhance their status amongst those parents for whom the vaccine question has become an article of faith.

It is easy to imagine how well meaning others can be so impressed by the parents’ sincerity that they are swept up by an emotional tsunami that destroys their critical faculties. It is also the case that more cynical observers are quick to step into the wreckage to exploit the suffering with snake oil remedies and dubious research.

The New Scientist cites the Geiers as a case in point. Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with the exploits of this family firm and the stirling efforts made by Kathleen Seidel to investigate and expose their dubious activities. It looks like the New Scientist reads her blog as well. It cites her by name. So now its readers know about their phoney IRB that they use to give ethical cover to experimenting on children with Lupron.

And here’s a novelty. When my son was recruited to a research programme into autism at University College in London it did not cost us a penny. They paid all our expenses. Parents who want to enrol their children for the Geier’s research have to pay! Thanks to the New Scientist for this.

He [Geier] adds that he charges parents $500 for an initial consultation, but does not invoice them after that and so makes “virtually nothing” from his work with the families.

So let’s get this straight. The parents pay him $500. They or their insurance companies pay for all the necessary blood tests, lab work and the highly expensive lupron injections. They even administer the drugs themselves. One parent has reported sitting on his daughter to restrain her while injecting her with the drug. Geier works from his home in Maryland, a well appointed dwelling with a pool and a tennis court and a home made laboratory. He has no academic affiliation, though his son and co-author did lie about his affiliation on one of their papers. George Washington University cried, ‘Foul!’ and the paper was withdrawn and republished in a corrected version. Geier publishes the results of his “research” in obscure journals to bolster his career as an expert witness.

Last time out he did not do so well. According to his biography on Wikipedia:

Dr. Geier’s views have been found to fall outside of the scientific consensus. In a 2006 case^[12] regarding an immunoglobulin containing thimerosal which was alleged to have caused autism, Dr. Geier’s testimony was found to fall below the Daubert standard, which essentially requires expert testimony on science to be scientifically sound and represent the general consensus. As Dr. Geier provided most of the plaintiffs’ evidence, the case was thus subject to summary judgment.

Amongst the criticisms in the judge’s decisions,^[13] Dr. Geier’s literature review was found to be insufficient in justifying his claims, his lack of qualification in pediatrics was highlighted and he was found to be a “professional witness in areas for which he has no training, expertise, and experience,” whose testimony was “intellectually dishonest,” “nothing more than an egregious example of blatant, result-oriented testimony.”

The Omnibus hearings are taking place in a federal court. I only hope that, when Geier takes the stand and testifies to his research methods, his disregard for his research subjects’ [children] right to protection and his encouragment of insurance fraud will bring the Feds down on him like a ton of bricks and he can enjoy his martyrdom for the cause from behind bars.

New Scientist also mentions Robert Nataf, a French chemist.

One potential check for mercury involves a urine test for porphyrins, molecules that occur naturally in the body and bind to metals. Interest in the test accelerated last year following the publication of a paper claiming that autistic children had higher porphyrin levels than normal (Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology, vol 214, p 99).

While the researchers state in the paper that they have no conflicts of interest, lead author Robert Nataf is the founder of Laboratoire Auguste Philippe, a Paris-based clinic that sells porphyrin tests. When discussing his research with parents Nataf has also stated that he has a paper “in press” at The Lancet Neurology. Editors at the journal say they have no record of a paper by him. When asked to comment, Nataf did not clarify the situation.

If they had asked me I could have clarified the situation. It is one and the same paper. Last year New Scientist published a story about this paper. They interviewed another of the authors, Richard Lathe. I wrote to New Scientist pointing out that Nataf was telling parents that the research was going to be published by the Lancet and asked for clarification. Instead of clarifying the situation they suggested I contacted Lathe and clarify it for myself. I did and Lathe told me that Nataf had been premature. He omitted to say that the paper had been submitted to Lancet Neurology and rejected. So they had hawked it around until they found a journal with low enough standards to publish it.

Another of the authors of this paper was Lorene Amet. Amet has an autistic son. She has explored a number of therapies for him the including the Son-Rise method and ABA. Eventually she became a DAN! practitioner and set up a clinic in Edinburgh selling biomedical treatments, including chelation, to parents who can buy their porphyrin tests off her fellow researcher, Robert Nataf.

New Scientist concludes:

While Nataf’s failure to disclose his commercial interests may have breached normal publication ethics, it is likely to mean little to the parents of autistic children. Email groups dedicated to discussing the condition are full of pleas for help from parents frightened by a disease that shuts off their children from the rest of the world. Under such circumstances, says Israel parents are desperate for a cure: “If you had autistic children, would you wait for published trials, or would you treat them?

Alan Israel is one of those who profits from the parents. According to New Scientist he owns a pharmacy that sells the chelating agent DMSA to parents, a snip at a $100 for a month’s supply, and ‘treatment’ can last for years. He relies upon parents fear of “a disease that shuts off their children from the rest of the world.”

Autism is neither a disease nor does it shut children off from the world. New Scientist has made a good stab at the autism vaccine controversy. But the erroneous characterization of autism with which the article concludes is exactly the sort of thing that encourages desperate parents to seek desperate measures.