Orac is the nom de blog of a humble pseudonymous surgeon/scientist with an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his miscellaneous verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few will. (Continued 
Dear Mr. Kirby and Mr. Olmsted:
You are both journalists. I realize that neither of you at present work for the traditional press and that both of you seem to devote yourselves mainly to blogging (Mr. Olmsted at the Age of Autism and Mr. Kirby at the Huffington Post), but I have to believe that you both still consider yourselves to be at heart journalists. That is why I am writing this to you and posting it publicly on my blog. If you've ever read any of my posts on this issue, you probably realize that I strongly disagree with your positions and that at times I have been quite harsh in my judgment of articles you have both written. I am, however, hoping that for this one issue, upon which (I hope) we can all agree that you will for the moment put that aside and consider what I have to say. I am appealing for your condemnation of what has been done to autism blogger Kathleen Seidel.
You may have heard about Kathleen Seidel's situation, in which she has been subpoenaed based on her blogging. I realize that you and Kathleen strongly disagree over whether thimerosal-containing vaccines or vaccines in general themselves are responsible for the "autism epidemic." Indeed, you may be aware that Kathleen has spent considerable time and done truly prodigious work in investigating the claims and activities of people who champion the claim that vaccines cause autism and found out some rather disconcerting information, for example about the father-and-son team of Dr. Mark Geier and David Geier, specifically about their Lupron protocol. Even so, I hope that you will put yourself in her place for a moment, because, at the moment, you are both very much like she is in that you are primarily bloggers these days. Imagine how you would react if what happened to Kathleen happened to you.
What happened to Kathleen, of course, is that a lawyer representing vaccine injury plaintiffs Rev. Lisa Sykes and Seth Sykes against Bayer and other companies, namely Clifford Shoemaker, subpoenaed Kathleen, her financial records, records related to her blog, and her e-mails with other bloggers. His rationale appears to be a paranoid belief that somehow Kathleen is a shill for big pharma or the government. She clearly isn't (indeed the very suggestion is ludicrous), and never mind that, even if she were, she is not a party to the case. In considering how you would react if this were you being subpoenaed by, say, a vaccine manufacturer or the CDC, you should know that Kathleen is not a party to the lawsuit. You should further know that there is no specialized knowledge that she possesses that is needed for the plaintiffs to pursue their case, and she is not accused of doing anything illegal or defamatory. Finally, you should look at the text of the subpoena and consider just how broad it is. Finally, you should look at the post by Kathleen that appears to have provoked this subpoena, a post entitled The Commerce in Causation, which looked at how Shoemaker makes his money representing "vaccine-injured" clients.
The subpoena was issued within hours after that post.
Let lay it out for you just what the stakes are. Ask yourself: What would your reaction be if, hours after you published a post or article critical of, say, Julie Gerberding, the CDC's lawyers issued a subpoena demanding "all documents pertaining to the the setup, financing, research, and maintaining" your blogs; bank statements, canceled checks, online or offline donation documents, and tax returns; all documents (e-mails, notes, memos, letters, etc.) pertaining to communications related to your blogs; all such documents related to your communications with autism activist groups (Kathleen's subpoena demands any communication she may have had with the government or pharmaceutical companies); all such documents related to your communications with religious groups ("Muslim or otherwise"); and all e-mails with basically any blogger in her blogroll? No doubt you would see such a subpoena as a nakedly blatant fishing expedition and attempt to intimidate you--and rightly so, because that's what it obviously is in Kathleen's case. Indeed, the reaction in the overall blogosphere and the legal blogosophere to Shoemaker's abuse of the subpoena privilege has been uniformly negative. For example, Eric Turkewitz, who writes the New York Personal Injury Law Blog, wrote:
Just to be clear here, this post isn't about whether the underlying lawsuit is a good one or not. The suit apparently deals with whether mercury additives to vaccines caused the plaintiff's autism. I haven't read it. This is about going after the citizen-journalist for having the audacity to speak freely on a subject.[...]
She has argued First Amendment protection and journalistic protection among other factors. I urge you to read the link above for her self-drafted motion to quash.
But there is one thing she didn't do, and I suggest it here. She didn't explicitly ask for sanctions. But that should not stop a judge from imposing them, even if the growing chorus of blogospheric condemnation makes Shoemaker rethink his strategy (and his Google reputation) and withdraw the outrageous subpoena.
Given that this subpoena is clearly an obvious attempt to silence Kathleen or, at the very least, punish her for her criticisms of Clifford Shoemaker and his activities, I am appealing to both of you to use your influence and position in the autism biomedical movement to protest this shameless action by Mr. Shoemaker. I am urging you to speak out against legal intimidation and thuggery and for the First Amendment right of the media, including bloggers, of freedom of speech. Your speaking out against Mr. Shoemaker's despicable actions would carry even more force, because it is well known that you both strongly disagree with Kathleen's position regarding whether vaccines cause autism. If both of you, who so strongly disagree with Kathleen's conclusions, were to speak out, it would shame Shoemaker and his clients, the Sykes, beyond any condemnation that I or the rest of the blogosphere can provide. It would also demonstrate to those of us who disagree with you that, whatever our other disagreements, you do support the First Amendment for fellow citizen-journalists, regardless of their point of view on autism causation.
Walter Olsen of Overlawyered put it particularly well:
Should the subpoena somehow be upheld and its onerous demands enforced, it could signal chilly legal times ahead for bloggers who expose lawyers and their litigation to critical scrutiny.
Think about it this way. If a lawyer representing a plaintiff suing vaccine companies can get away with this, just imagine what abuses lawyer with the resources of a big pharmaceutical company or the government could perpetrate to silence blogospheric critics. Imagine what mischief they could cause by demanding the correspondence, e-mails, financial records, and contacts with religious groups from their critics. That would be you, Mr. Kirby and Mr. Olmsted.
Just think about it.
Sincerely,
Orac
ADDENDUM: Steve Novella also weighs in, and, as she has been doing, Liz Ditz keeps a running tally of blogospheric reaction and the amount of time since I posted my open letter that there has been no public reaction from Olmsted or Kirby. I will say that Kirby has responded to my e-mail and seems distressed at what Shoemaker has done. I can't say any more than that other than that I hope he will express his distress publicly.
Comments
Blogging reaction has not been all negative. I supported Mr Shoemaker 100%.
When Kathleen discusses the autistic children who have improved thanks to Dr Geier, then you can make a case for her rabid character assassination. Painting Dr Geier as a bad guy just doesn't fly when she omits that important fact.
It would also help her case if she could find some patients of Dr Geier who agree with her. Relentlessly bashing Dr Geier may have the effect of persuading parents to miss a chance to cure their autistic children. I call that child abuse and that is an abuse of the first amendment.
Posted by: John Best | April 6, 2008 10:35 AM
Just what the doctor ordered.
Posted by: TheProbe | April 6, 2008 10:40 AM
Unless the judge is a total nutjob, this subpoena will be quashed.
Posted by: PhysioProf | April 6, 2008 10:41 AM
Wow. Thank you again.
Posted by: Kathleen Seidel | April 6, 2008 10:50 AM
A more accurate headline would be "Will David Kirby bite the hand that feeds him?"
Posted by: ANB | April 6, 2008 10:51 AM
Certainly _that_ site has gone out of its way to defame the characters of more than a few persons.
Posted by: kristina | April 6, 2008 10:51 AM
One difference is that Kathleen's posts are entirely supported by publicly available information, AFAIK. Kirby is more vague, often doesn't cite sources, and on occasion does publish hearsay from privileged sources. It's conceivable that some of the things he reports on would be material to a vaccine litigation case and could not otherwise be discovered. That said, he would be within his rights to cite journalistic privilege and I would support him in that.
Posted by: Joseph | April 6, 2008 11:04 AM
Bravo. I've linked to this post and I encourage others to do so. This is an issue that transcends 'party lines' and goes to the heart of what it means to live in a democracy.
Posted by: Kev | April 6, 2008 11:51 AM
If I were on the legal team for Glaxo-SmithKline, Wyeth, Inc. and Bayer Pharmaceuticals Corporation, I would be preparing virtually identical subpoenas for David Kirby, Dan Olmsted, JB Handley, John Best, and all the "journalists" and bloggers associated with the Mercury Militia to be served the precise moment that the Judge rules the subpoena can go forward (even though that is a very unlikely circumstance).
The members of the Mercury Militia could only imagine Kathleen Seidel writing for money because that is what they are doing. It is pure projection. Demonstrating that the media campaign has been bought and paid for by those pushing the litigation might go a long way to taking away some of their mass appeal. It would likely keep many children from getting vaccine preventable diseases and may well save many lives.
Posted by: daedalus2u | April 6, 2008 12:40 PM
Daedalus gets to the heart of the matter. The Sykeses and Cliff Shoemaker, and others of their ilk, can't imagine that Kathleen might actually be motivated by compassion and desire to protect others because those are foreign concepts to them.
Kirby and Olmsted should have been the first to denounce Shoemaker. If they don't step up now, we'll know they're not only deluded but weasels as well.
Posted by: isles | April 6, 2008 12:54 PM
Hear hear
One of the notable things about Kathleen Seidel's Neurodiversity.com site is it's LACK of editorialising. For instance, it is consciously neutral about unproven complementary therapies, listing a bunch of them and linking to articles about them. If the impression it gives about things like (say) secretin therapy is negative, that is because it is linking to the actual scientific reports of double-blind trials of secretin, which are universally negative.
Unlike many bloggers, and I include myself and many of the BadScience fraternity here, Seidel is not a ranter or even a polemicist. The power of her expose of people like the Geiers, or things like the scandal and tragedy of "Lupron therapy", lies precisely in the way that she simply lays out the facts and lets the obvious financial investment in quack autism therapies, quack causation theories, and continuing lawsuits speak for itself.
Personally I am amazed at her restraint.
I will be looking forward to hearing what Kirby and Olmsted have to say. Perhaps we will see whether they are truly journalists at heart rather than what, polemically speaking, it would be very tempting to characterize as "Anti-vax Conspiracy Shills"
Posted by: Dr Aust | April 6, 2008 1:02 PM
Oh, since daedalus2u brought it up, another difference is that Kathleen has disclosed what the income related to neurodiversity.com is. She didn't have an obigation to do that, but I guess it was a good idea to lay it all out in the motion to quash.
As a parent, Kathleen writes passionately about matters related to autism because she's connected to autism. As she notes, she gets some cash from Amazon.com and has gotten some donations from autistic adults and parents.
Kirby and Olmstead, on the other hand, are not parents are are not autistic themselves, and AFAIK don't have a regular day job. I doubt writing about autism is their hobby and I doubt their income consists of Paypal donations from parents. No conspiracy theory is necessary to figure out that they are being paid. I could only speculate by whom. Some might say SafeMinds or Generation Rescue. Others might say it's a party with vaccine litigation interests (who knows, maybe Kirby and/or Olmstead are unable to comment on Kathleen's subpoena).
Kirby and Olmsted don't have an obligation to disclose who is paying them, but again, Kathleen has and they haven't.
Posted by: Joseph | April 6, 2008 1:26 PM
Kirby and Olmsted don't have an obligation to disclose who is paying them, but again, Kathleen has and they haven't.
That is correct. However if Kirby and Olmsted refuse to deny that they are being paid by a party with vaccine litigation interests, we are free to assume that they being paid by those interests. They don't have to tell us who is paying them, but if they deny it, they need to be truthful.
The next time Kirby and Olmsted are on TV, the next time that Larry King interviews either of them, that would be a very simple question to ask. A question a great many people would be very interested in knowing the answer to. I presume people in the Mercury Militia would like to know the answer to that question too. Is Kirby really one of them, or is he just a hired shill?
Posted by: daedalus2u | April 6, 2008 2:04 PM
Ah, but the difference, John Best, is that you are a raving looney.
Posted by: CanadianChick | April 6, 2008 3:17 PM
I wince at the notion that these two carrion feeders think themselves journalistic equals to Kathleen Seidel or intellectual equals to Orac.
I hope this worthy blog post focuses their attention on how to start acting responsibly rather than stroking their unjustifiably inflated egos.
Posted by: Hey Zeus is my Homeboy | April 6, 2008 3:20 PM
This issue impales DAN!O and Kirby on the horns of a dilemma doesn't it? I wouldn't doubt that they have had some juicy and perhaps profitable correspondence from certain lawyers involved in vaccine litigation. They wouldn't want that to be exposed, and neither would any lawyer(s) who may have corresponded with these two (oh how the mighty have fallen) bloggers.
ANB points out the Kirby won't bite the hand that feeds him by condemning the action against Kathleen Seidel. I agree. I predict nothing but silence from the grandiose PR man for the mercury malicia and their lawyers.
One more thing, if Kathleen gets someone to offer her free legal representation, maybe she and her husband can go after John Best Jr for defamation and threats he's made against them. I would think that some good legal advice for John Best at this point would be to get off the Internet permanently and throw his computer's guts in a bonfire.
Maybe John can along with his colleagues DAN! OLMSTED and DAVID KIRBY can hire CLIFF SHOEMAKER and get some legal advice on this.
Posted by: "I am Kathleen" v. 3 | April 6, 2008 3:27 PM
To John Best (in case you don't approve my comment on your own blog):
Your argument about child abuse doesn't make any sense: for one, you talk about parents of autistic children coming on and being discouraged by what Kathleen says, but - how do I put this? - have you ever been on the Internet? Used a search engine? That's not a problem with what Kathleen has said - she has a right to say what she wants, just as you (unfortunately) do as well - but with people not being able to think critically when researching a topic. You can't police the Internet for false information, and you certainly shouldn't be able to use the legal system to intimidate someone like Kathleen has. I wouldn't even wish this sort of thing on you, even though I'd definitely like to see you shut up. The fact that you're parading this around as a good thing says a lot about you; I almost have to wonder if you'd throw a party if an autistic blogger was killed in a car accident. But then again, I think your character has been evident for quite some time now.
Posted by: The Christian Cynic | April 6, 2008 4:07 PM
Dottore Orac, elitist lawyers and their lucrative monopoly have been having their way with the human raw material for more than two centuries in Supernation.
Supernation's lawyers having learned their priestly scam from the church courts in England.
The overwhelming majority now accepts the adversary system without reservation even though it traces directly to the medieval practice of hiring a knight to joust for your version of the trut (i.e. God's favor).
Hence giving legal priest Shoemaker with his mandatory fancy shoes & suits such phenomenal power over our proletarian lives.
No matter how powerful, plentiful, & obvious the stench and failures demonstrated by the routine practice of law; the bewildered public has no other choice because it's the ONLY law game in town.
The O J Simpson trial being a most inescapably vivid example.
Ditto for almost anybody's divorce proceedings filled with lucrative but meaningless motions.
Dragging Kathleen Seidel by the hair into the elitist show is part and parcel of the well-dressed extortion racket.
The producing public is the ONLY source of manna for the practicing lawyer priests.
Posted by: gerald spezio | April 6, 2008 4:19 PM
I think you've hit on the crux of the matter here, Orac. It may not be Olmstead and Kirby's fault, though. They may be contractually forbidden from saying anything negative against Schoemaker.
And even if they aren't, they probably think of themselves more as publicists these days, rather than journalists. Even they couldn't really think of themselves as journalists, could they? That would be like Kevorkian thinking of himself as a physician.
Joe
Posted by: Club 166 | April 6, 2008 6:18 PM
Mr. Worst, are you really so morally bankrupt that you see no problem with gross abuse of the legal system solely to attempt to intimidate into silence a person exercising her right of free speech, simply because you don't agree with her?
Posted by: Azkyroth | April 6, 2008 7:03 PM
Askyroth,
I don't agree with people who think RAP is music. Them I can ignore.
Autism is a nightmare and I take issue with people who lie about it. When children suffer from her free speech, she should lose that right.
Posted by: John Best | April 6, 2008 7:08 PM
I think you've hit on the crux of the matter here, Orac. It may not be Olmstead and Kirby's fault, though. They may be contractually forbidden from saying anything negative against Schoemaker.
And even if they aren't, they probably think of themselves more as publicists these days, rather than journalists. Even they couldn't really think of themselves as journalists, could they? That would be like Kevorkian thinking of himself as a physician.
Joe
Posted by: Club 166 | April 6, 2008 7:20 PM
Why wouldn't you simply allow Kathleen to clear her own name? No harm, no foul. We know that there are many people who speak out for financial reasons (think Quackwatch and paid shills). It happens. So, it should be an easy fix... it's not as if she's going to jail or anything.
Your outrage is pretty ironic considering the things that have not outraged you... you actually sound like a bit of a crybaby...
After all the Olmsted/Kirby bashing, Orac, if I were them ... I'd tell you to go f*ck yourself... Of course, I'm pretty sure they are much more polite than I am.
Posted by: Kathleen Can Clear Her Own Name | April 6, 2008 7:27 PM
Why does Kathleen have to "clear her own name" at all? She has absolutely nothing to do with this lawsuit at all. It's clearly an attempt to intimidate her. All she has done is to report the results of her carefully documented research. She hasn't made flase statements about anyone.
Posted by: Elaine | April 6, 2008 7:34 PM
Club166, a more appropriate analogy would be Dr. Mengele, what with Lupron experimentation on children.
Posted by: daedalus2u | April 6, 2008 7:50 PM
You will, of course, compensate her for her time and effort involved in that?
No, of course not. You're just a troll; whether paid or unpaid, it doesn't matter.
Posted by: gwangung | April 6, 2008 8:12 PM
For Kathleen to need to clear her name, there would have to be a serious and plausible accusation of some wrong doing. Illuminati conspiracy theories won't do. Sue, I believe?
Posted by: Joseph | April 6, 2008 8:38 PM
Okay, so let's put the vaccine - autism bit aside for a moment and just look at the legal issue.
Mr A is suing Mr B.
Mr A throws a subpoena out at Ms C, who is not a party to
the suit against Mr B.
Mr A's subpoena is so broad it more or less requires Ms C to bring a truckload of documents to deposition.
Judge D would be a complete moron to not quash this subpoena.
Posted by: DLC | April 6, 2008 8:46 PM
Whatever I think of Kirby's writings on the Hannah Poling case, mercury and autism etc., I wrote this because I'm pretty sure he would realize that his self-interest is threatened by lawyers allowing such frivolous subpoenas to be used to intimidate and silence bloggers.
Posted by: Orac | April 6, 2008 9:03 PM
I'd like to see the reaction of Lenny and his sycophants to an subpoena sent to Jenny McAirhead. It would ask for all of her medical records, and all of her son's medical records and all her correspondence related to her income and her web presence including whatever contracts she may have had with the angel therapists and crystal sellers on her indigomoms.com website. It would ask about her religious affiliation(s) and her bank statements, investments, it would ask about her kissing that porn actress on the lips (because you never know how that might influence any particular court case being adjudicated anywhere in the world). It would ask for all her correspondence with the Tacky moms of TACANOW and JB Handley of Generation Desperation. I'm sure there's some juicy stuff in there.
I'm sure Lenny would find it all very amusing, really, because Lenny doesn't like women and I'm pretty sure he's personally mortified by Jenny's entre into autism. But I bet David Kirby and JB Handley wouldn't be amused. I bet they'd be out of their trees in anger that Jenny's privacy had been invaded and that she was being intimidated for disgorging the contents of her empty head on autism and vaccines.
Even if Kathleen's Motion to Quash is acted upon, I sure hope some other lawyers try the very same thing on Kirby, Olmsted and Jenny Mac just to give them a taste of what Kathleen went through, since none of them seem to think it's such a bad deal, well then they'd have no right to complain would they? No.
And Lenny Schaefer, having been some kind of journalist in the past, would be more than happy to copy the contents of his all of his file cabinets and his hard-drives and hand them over to anyone for inspection as evidence in any totally tangential court case.
He's done nothing but mock what has happened to Kathleen so far, so we know he wouldn't mind if it happened to him.
Posted by: Ms. Clark | April 6, 2008 9:32 PM
John, I too take issue with people who lie about autism - that's why I have such contempt for you. And, you're a raving looney.
Posted by: CanadianChick | April 6, 2008 10:33 PM
Canadian Chick,
Thank you. As long as my son keeps improving with biomedical interventions, you and your child abusing cohorts can call me all the names you like. Are you sure you're not just jealous that you didn't have a good father to cure your brain damage?
Posted by: John Best | April 6, 2008 10:52 PM
This may be the least idiotic and vile thing you've ever said. Agreeing with you on something is making me feel dirty, frankly. :(
If we as a society were to adopt such a completely unprecedented position, that one's free speech could be silenced simply because it might influence parents to make decisions that harm their children, you would be welded into your prison cell. I'm sorry you have so little respect and regard for the Constitution and for the principles that, however inconsistently it has applied them, this country was made great by even taking a stand for.
By the way, if you're so smart, why can't you spell my screen name?
Posted by: Azkyroth | April 6, 2008 11:13 PM
I just want to chime in here and say that accusing your opponents of being paid shills is one of the fastest and most groan-inducing ways of cheapening discourse - sure, you see it all the time from anti-vaxers and other alties who think that skeptics are in the pay of Big Pharma, but I'm pretty disturbed by how many otherwise reasonable people do the same thing.
Being the bigger person here is its own reward, I think; turnabout may be fair play, but it certainly doesn't make our side look any better.
Posted by: Viscount | April 6, 2008 11:25 PM
I don't think kirby or Olmsted have anything to do with this. the issue shouldn't make it past the judge to begin with. The lawyer should be punished for even asking for such a thing , that is clearly unconstitutional.
Waht really gets me about this is all the clear ignorance that abounds around here! wether somebody is paid or not shouldn't have anything whatsoever to do with the truth. I'm glad kirby and olmsted can make a living doing what they are doing, therefore they can do it on a full time basis. My son is autistic because of the vaccines and we are in the process of recovering him with the very bio medical and GF/CF diets that many on here claim to be nothing more than quackery. They and Jenny are directly responsible for many children getting better...wether you like it or not, it's pretty hard to deny the facts. hatred on here about us in the "mercury militia" is ignorance on a grand scale. can you imagine what the blogs would have been like in the 60's when that no good MLK was stirring up his shit? that's what this is like, hatred and denial. you people are truly pathetic.
Posted by: clsr | April 6, 2008 11:27 PM
No, he isn't. He isn't autistic "because of the vaccines." The science is quite clear on this. Vaccines do not cause autism. There is no good scientific evidence to suggest that vaccines cause autism. That may sound harsh to you, but it's true. I realize that you won't believe me and will think me perhaps arrogant and dismissive of you for saying this, but that won't make it any less true.
Posted by: Orac | April 6, 2008 11:39 PM
cslr, the reason why the scientific community isn't blaming vaccines for autism isn't because of ignorance or hate - it's because despite many attempts, a link between vaccines and autism has not been found to exist.
Doctors and scientists generally rely on a different standard of proof from the general public - you might be convinced that your son is autistic because of vaccines for any number of reasons that seem totally reasonable. But what convinces the scientific community of that kind of link is studies on large numbers of children, so that any systematic difference between vaccinated and nonvaccinated kids can be observed. They've done those studies, and the conclusion was that there's simply no link between vaccines and autism.
You might pooh-pooh the scientific method and say that controlled studies are a poor substitute for experience, but those studies are the reason why we have scientific medicine in the first place, and why life expectancy has increased by about 40 years since the Enlightenment. As much as it may hurt to admit, "Mommy instinct" is simply a poor guide to reality.
Posted by: Viscount | April 6, 2008 11:42 PM
Vaccines don't cause autism? Then what does? Give us a reason why we lost our perfectly healthy son to it after seven vaccinations in one day?
Live it and then you can be critical of all of the people trying to remediate the damaged caused by those trying to make an even bigger buck and continue to do so.
Shame on all of you too that are so highly judgemental and rude to people who think differently than you.
Perhaps you should have yourselves evaluated for ASD. Have you had your vaccinations lately?
Posted by: Even Better | April 7, 2008 12:03 AM
The reason why vaccines may appear to cause autism is that many childhood vaccines are given around the same time that the most visible symptoms of ASD emerge. They do happen around the same time, but that doesn't mean that one causes the other.
Posted by: Viscount | April 7, 2008 12:23 AM
Why does anything bad happen ever, Even Better?
Sometimes there just aren't simple answers. Bad things happen to people who don't deserve them for no good reason every moment of every single day. That's just an unfortunate fact of life.
I wish you and your family all the best, but your anger and misdirected blame aren't going to solve anything. I can empathize with it, but your reaction- to advocate against vaccines- may result in even worse things happening to other people's children that what happened to your son.
Posted by: Leni | April 7, 2008 12:35 AM
Some nimrod above intimated that Quackwatch is motivated by "financial reasons." Here, from the site:
http://www.quackwatch.com/00AboutQuackwatch/mission.html
Great post, Orac.
Posted by: Amy Alkon | April 7, 2008 1:27 AM
Make up your mind, would you?
Posted by: Azkyroth | April 7, 2008 1:55 AM
Even Better, why is it that people like you who show up on this blog to berate all the "judgemental and rude" people who don't believe your story that vaccines case autism, assume that we don't have any experience of autism ourselves? Many (perhaps most) of those who comment on Orac's many posts about autism issues, have autistic children or are autistic ourselves, or both. Many of us find it rude that our children are being described as "toxic" and "poisoned".
Posted by: Sharon | April 7, 2008 3:42 AM
Even Better said "Vaccines don't cause autism? Then what does? Give us a reason why we lost our perfectly healthy son to it after seven vaccinations in one day?"
For the same reason my oldest kid has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, genetics.
One day I had a perfectly healthy kid... then I took him in for a routine medical exam where a heart murmur was heard. Next day after an hour long echo-cardiogram we found out that the kid had a very very serious heart condition.
It was not caused by the exam, nor by any vaccine: just genetics.
And we were lucky to find out that way instead of the way the parents of a young lady did at a middle school track meet: she had sudden cardiac death. One minute a healthy 13 year old girl running track, the next minute she is dead.
All caused by genetics. It is not just one gene, but several that are implicated, and they don't all act the same way (400 mutations in 11 genes, from http://www.4hcm.org/WCMS/index.php?id=80,0,0,1,0,0 ). Some people have mild HCM, other have abnormal muscle growth that makes doctors add "with obstruction" to the diagnosis (my son has that, it means that the extra muscle is places in such a way that it could block the mitral valve and cause sudden death). In other words: it is complicated.
Much more complicated than the heart, is the brain. There are lots of things that can go right, and then go wrong in the brain. In my extended family there are those who suffer from migraines. My son had seizures as an infant... and now as a 19 year old adult he has migraines (in addition to the HCM, oh and the speech disorder possibly from the seizures). Another genetic neuro disorder that does not manifest itself until a person is just past puberty is schizophrenia (which is more common than autism), and that has several genetic markers identified for that.
Anyway, there is a new website that tries to organize the research of the genes identified with autism:
http://geneticautism.org/
I would suggest for anyone who has just had a child diagnosed with autism (or any disability) read the following books:
No Time for Jello by Berneen Bratt
Not Even Wrong by Paul Collins
Unstrange Minds by Roy Richard Grinker
There are probably others (I know I had a longer list at LeftBrain/RightBrain), but it is late and I have to get up in five hours.
Good luck... and try to remember to give your child a hug or two (it gets harder when they are teenagers!)
Posted by: HCN | April 7, 2008 3:53 AM
Viscount, "But what convinces the scientific community of that kind of link is studies on large numbers of children, so that any systematic difference between vaccinated and nonvaccinated kids can be observed. They've done those studies, and the conclusion was that there's simply no link between vaccines and autism."
You must have checked the wrong studies. They were probably too small and of too short duration.
I did a much larger study. I looked at mankind from the dawn of creation and found no autism until 1931. That coincided with thimerosal being used in vaccines. The autism kept increasing as more thimerosal was added to vaccines. When thimerosal was given to newborns on the day of birth, the autism increased dramatically.
When Amy Holmes tried removing mercury from kids' brains in 2000, for the first time ever, symptoms of autism were seen to improve. Then Andy Cutler began curing more and more kids of this plaque that had always been considered incurable.
During this time, we found some groups of people who did not use vaccines and had no autism. Case closed. Thimerosal caused the autism epidemic and the bastards who are covering it up will all be going to jail soon.
Posted by: John Best | April 7, 2008 7:08 AM
Very nice article on the topic of Kirby, autism and vaccines here.
http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/huff/wb/157283
Posted by: Broken Link | April 7, 2008 7:15 AM
daedalus2u sayeth: "The members of the Mercury Militia could only imagine Kathleen Seidel writing for money because that is what they are doing."
Since neither Kirby or Olmsted seem to have any ongoing means of support, I wonder who is paying them for their propaganda? While I agree that they do not have a legal obligation to divulge, they surely do have an ethical one.
As for John not-the Best....Let's face it, John is seriously mentally ill and shoul dbe pitied almost as much as the child he treats as an animal test subject.
Posted by: TheProbe | April 7, 2008 9:10 AM
daedalus2u sayeth: "The members of the Mercury Militia could only imagine Kathleen Seidel writing for money because that is what they are doing."
Since neither Kirby or Olmsted seem to have any ongoing means of support, I wonder who is paying them for their propaganda? While I agree that they do not have a legal obligation to divulge, they surely do have an ethical one.
As for John not-the Best....Let's face it, John is seriously mentally ill and shoul dbe pitied almost as much as the child he treats as an animal test subject.
Posted by: TheProbe | April 7, 2008 9:12 AM
Isles said:
"The Sykeses and Cliff Shoemaker, and others of their ilk, can't imagine that Kathleen might actually be motivated by compassion and desire to protect others because those are foreign concepts to them."
My beef with the Rev Sykes is pretty much what she's doing singlehandedly for Christianity - nothing good in my opinion.
OTOH, please leave John Best alone. He is the face of Generation Rescue after all and a fine job he's doing so lay off the gratuitous insults. Seriously folks, there is no better description of the validity of these folks than our JBjr.
Posted by: alyric | April 7, 2008 9:12 AM
Isles said:
"The Sykeses and Cliff Shoemaker, and others of their ilk, can't imagine that Kathleen might actually be motivated by compassion and desire to protect others because those are foreign concepts to them."
My beef with the Rev Sykes is pretty much what she's doing singlehandedly for Christianity - nothing good in my opinion.
OTOH, please leave John Best alone. He is the face of Generation Rescue after all and a fine job he's doing so lay off the gratuitous insults. Seriously folks, there is no better description of the validity of these folks than our JBjr.
Posted by: alyric | April 7, 2008 9:15 AM
That would be funny if I read it anywhere else, about anything else, because it is too insane to be considered.
I've spent ten minutes trying to figure out a good way to tear apart that statement, but every word demands so much mocking that I just can't focus.
Never mind. I don't know why I'm bothering. The crazy, it burns.
Posted by: Ranson | April 7, 2008 9:27 AM
Second that, Ranson.
I definitely think the "dawn of creation" argument from JBjr deserves to be added to his all-time greatest "hits"...
Posted by: Dr Aust | April 7, 2008 9:45 AM
Let me guess...all 6000 years since the "dawn of creation"?
Posted by: LJ | April 7, 2008 10:34 AM
I just keep picturing two Cro-Magnons saying,"Oog is three and he doesn't seem to be interacting like the other kids. Could it be autism?"
"What's autism? Is that like being gored by a boar?"
Posted by: Ranson | April 7, 2008 10:38 AM
John Beast,
I'm curious as to how you looked at all of mankind since the "dawn of creation" and found no autism at all. Do you have a time machine or something? Did you go over all the records of every ancient civilization? Were you following herds of mammoth with our nomadic ancestors and doing tests for mercury along the way? Did you chelate the Aztecs and the Vikings? Can you conclusively prove that no man, woman, or child in ancient Egypt or in the Meso-American civilizations had Aspberger's?
Posted by: Laser Potato | April 7, 2008 10:49 AM
The ancient Greeks used mercury in ointments and the ancient Egyptians and Romans used it in cosmetics. In China, India, and Tibet, mercury use was thought to prolong life, heal fractures, and maintain generally good health. If mercury was REALLY what caused autism, why wasn't every single person in those civilizations autistic?!
Posted by: Laser Potato | April 7, 2008 10:58 AM
Besides, we all know the real date for the epidemic is 1919, when people started using merbromin came into use.
I mean, it's a larger dose than thimerosal, and it was dabbed directly onto open wounds! Sometimes, this happened repeatedly over the course of years, or even DECADES! The horror!
Posted by: Ranson | April 7, 2008 11:09 AM
Vaccines don't cause autism? Then what does?
Hmm, you're right, I don't know what causes autism. It must be the vaccines then. Silly me. I don't know why I've been debating the issue all these years now. Orac, you've got some really sharp commenters here today.
Posted by: Joseph | April 7, 2008 11:11 AM
Gah, please excuse that first sentence. I mangled it.
Posted by: Ranson | April 7, 2008 11:12 AM
Ranson
No it was funny. I laughed and scared the cat. It was the only way to react. It is going to amuse me all day.
Sigh, and I thought doing literature searches back to 1900 was thorough.
Posted by: Lab Cat | April 7, 2008 11:35 AM
I'm curious as to how you looked at all of mankind since the "dawn of creation" and found no autism at all.
He did a whole-population screening with the ASSQ instrument of course.
Posted by: Joseph | April 7, 2008 11:49 AM
For that matter, hasn't anyone heard of "pink disease"? Come on, it wasn't even that long ago!
"Pink disease" was a frequently fatal disorder developed by teething infants, as a direct result of overexposure to mercury -- the reason for this being that mercury was used in several very popular commercial preparations of teething powders. (Not to mention several common nursery disinfectants.) From early Victorian times right up to the 1960s, when mercury-based infant and nursery products were largely removed from the shelves, infants in the US and UK both were exposed to somewhere between 20x and 130x the amount of mercury they are currently exposed to.
Just wondering....shouldn't they have had an absolute plague of autism, which eased off after the 60s, if there were a link to mercury toxicity/excretion?
Posted by: Luna_the_cat | April 7, 2008 11:56 AM
I disagree with John Bests conclusion but you cant argue with his methods. I too have studied mankind since the dawn of creation and have also gone over every description of every person made in the past 200,000 years in case there were people who had similar symptoms which may have been misdiagnosed. This took a while. I also came to the conclusion that autism started in 1931 but I have found the link to be due to the electric razor. They first appeared in 1931 and the rates of autism have increased as they became more popular. I have also found a group of people who wet shave and they don't have children with autism. A coincidence? I think not.
Posted by: Kingmob | April 7, 2008 12:01 PM
When Amy Holmes tried removing mercury from kids' brains in 2000, for the first time ever, symptoms of autism were seen to improve.
Including Dr. Amy's own son, right John? Anyone interested in finding out where Amy Holmes ended up after all these years should read this.
Posted by: Joseph | April 7, 2008 12:49 PM
LtC, you are off by at least an order of magnitude. Many millions of doses of teething powder were sold (per year) which contained a grain of calomel per dose. That is 65 mg HgCl, or about 55,000 micrograms of mercury. That is per dose. Children experienced multiple instances of teething, children were given multiple doses. Children easily received 1,000 times more mercury in teething powders than children ever received from vaccines.
Over 1,000 children died from pink disease which we now know was mercury poisoning.
Many millions of children were exposed to thousands of times more mercury via teething powders than any child has ever been exposed to by vaccines.
When mercury was removed from teething powders, pink disease disappeared. Only to resurface when there is mercury exposure.
Posted by: daedalus2u | April 7, 2008 1:26 PM
Kingmob-
No! It's the decline in pirates!
Posted by: Vitis01 | April 7, 2008 1:51 PM
Kingmob-
No! It's the decline in pirates!
Posted by: Vitis01 | April 7, 2008 1:56 PM
I'm definitely linking to this open letter. The more it gets spread, the more pressure can be exerted.
is this Diggable? I've heard that's a very good way to get it out there on the internet......
Orac: would you be able or willing/have time to speak these words into a camcorder or something and put it on youtube, or let someone else do it? I don't know how........I'm kind of computer illiterate...I just learned how to link to things in a blog entry today.........
The Integral of athenivanidx
Posted by: The Integral | April 7, 2008 1:57 PM
No, no, no, the evidence is crystal clear. Teddy bears cause autism. Get with the science, would you, people?
Posted by: Landru | April 7, 2008 2:55 PM