The Pathophilia blog looks carefully at IRB Approval of Geier Autism Study: Yes or No?—–this would be the new study on thimerosal and neurodevelopmental disorders which lists David A. Geier and his father, Dr. Mark Geier, as two of the three co-authors. Aside from noting conflicts of interest, Pathophilia notes:
In a February 2004 letter to the IRB administrator of Kaiser of Northern California, the then Acting Associate Director for Science of the National Immunization Program at the CDC, Jeanne Santoli, MD, warned Kaiser of “potential breaches in confidentiality and execution of analyses that were not approved in advance,” when Mark …read more

There’s a new study published in the Journal of Neurological Sciences that reports an association between increased mercury (Hg) exposure from thimerosal-containing vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders (go here for a pdf file). The study has three co-authors, Heather A. Young, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology in the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, and David A. Geier and his father, Dr. Mark Geier. The Geiers have frequently been consultants in “vaccine-biologic cases before the no-faulty NVICP [National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program] and in civil litigation,” and Dr. Geier has also been an “expert witness,” as …read more

A cold wind and steady rain would seem to belie it, but “summer” starts for me today—–following Commencement at my college, the spring semester is over and the fall one does not start until late August (in fact, the first session of summer school courses starts today). Now it’s time to resume being “more of a mom” and clean up the various stacks of books and papers on my desk, dust and vacuum rather more frequently, sort through the clothes Charlie has grown out of instead of waiting for my mom to do this when she next visits…
Time to be …read more

That’s how Dr. Steven Novella refers to various alternative medical practices used by parents on their autistic children in the May 8th Neurologica blog. Among those practices is chelation, in which medications are administered to remove “heavy metals” from a person’s body and thereby to “detoxify” his or her system. Dr. Novella discusses the recent dropping of charges against Dr. Roy Kerry, who was accused of causing the death of 5-year-old Abubakar Tariq Nadama. In 2005 Nadama went into cardiac arrest after undergoing chelation therapy with Dr. Kerry. Dr. Novella not only points out the dangers of chelation, …read more

Cure or acceptance?
Does one strive to do everything one can to cure, heal, recover a child from autism with the goal of the child “losing” her or his diagnosis? Or, does one learn to accept that one’s child is different, disabled, autistic?
Parents and others in the autism community tend to align themselves with one “side” or the other, and whether one puts oneself in the “cure” camp or the “acceptance” one tends to determine the types of therapies and treatments that one pursues. Be a “curebie” and you’re an annual attendee at DAN! conferences and (whether or not your …read more

Considering how many pressing issues there are to talk regarding children and adults—education, employment, housing, to name a very few—-why do we keep getting stuck talking about the hypothetical claim of a link between vaccines and autism?
Here’s some thoughts towards why the whole issue seems to have devolved into something approaching paranoia, not to mention pander for politicians (and all the more after what two of the presidential candidates have said about autism, vaccines, and the “autism epidemic”).
In a recent essay entitled The Paranoid Style in American Science, Daniel Engbar, associate editor at Slate, writes about critics of mainstream …read more