Comments on: About the Vaccine Court Lawyers

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Sun, 18 May 2008 03:34:55 +0000

And: Laura Hewiston, author of the primate poster, and Dan Hollenbeck are on the Federal Register listing of litigants in the Autism Omnibus hearings at Vaccine Court (#437).

By: Emily

Emily — Sat, 17 May 2008 23:57:29 +0000

Looks like quite a lot of people have a dog in this hunt, a dog carrying a large wad of cash.

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Sat, 17 May 2008 23:30:21 +0000

@Albert,

And he’s the Director of Information Technology for Thoughtful House Center for Children [source]

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Sat, 17 May 2008 21:48:50 +0000

I just see an utter lack of ability to understand what is “research” and what is not. Anything with graphs, a few citations to scientific-looking journals, the proper structure and some data (it could be the work of word-processing monkeys)—-this gets called “research.”

Finding the reference to Jan Schichtmann was revealing—-there’s hope of making vaccine court the new Love Canal.

By: Albert

Albert — Sat, 17 May 2008 21:02:34 +0000

The author of the primate poster (not a paper, not a publication, a poster) is married to Dan Hollenbeck, with whom she founded the website fighting autism. They have also both been quite public about their faith in the vaccines cause autism theory, and their faith in the DAN! protocols. Hollenbeck writes for the site, Age of Autism, the site that pretends to be journalism but is just a club for like-minded anti-vaccine advocates. They do not even let dissenting opinions on their site. So much for journalism and good science. Amazing how junk science gets embraced uncritically by certain groups.

By: Ms. Clark

Ms. Clark — Sat, 17 May 2008 20:56:08 +0000

Oh, the pooor poooor anti-vaccine lawyers. Let’s cry them a river. Thomas Powers who has been doing a lot of the speaking for the PSC for this segment of the Omnibus is (so I hear) a billionaire. These people are getting fat off of tax payers in part by bringing some cases that have very little chance of winning based on shaky evidence. They still get paid unless someone can prove that a case was brought in bad faith. Being cynical, I think plenty of their cases are brought in solid-gold, greedy-to-the-core, 100% bad faith.

And Cliffy, and his two friends who are representing him pro bono, is due to submit something or other to the judge as of yesterday, I think. I suppose we may hear something about it from Kathleen next week.

By: Albert

Albert — Sat, 17 May 2008 18:26:18 +0000

The article you linked to about the monkey study is brilliant.

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/05/some_monkey_business_in_autism_research.php

By: Sullivan

Sullivan — Sat, 17 May 2008 16:59:21 +0000

Given the number of delays in the Omnibus by the Petitioner’s side, this is a bit ironic.

By: Mom to Max

Mom to Max — Sat, 17 May 2008 16:31:47 +0000

oh my…i have been looking at autism blogs today and the vaccine controversy is still so much at the forefront. can we talk about our kids instead? :>)