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Mr. Stern and Mr. McHugh also filed a motion requesting ten more days to respond to the Order to Show Cause. After describing the course of events that led to their agreement to jointly represent Mr. Shoemaker, they summarized the claims made in Sykes v. Bayer, then offered a preliminary justification for the subpoena — the first explanation publicly offered since Mr. Shoemaker issued it six weeks ago.

Mr. Stern and Mr. McHugh asserted that I “head a group” that seeks to personally and professionally discredit Rev. and Mr. Sykes and “witnesses who have given support to the family’s positions” — presumably Dr. Mark Geier and David Geier. They characterized my publication of information and opinions about the controversy over autism and vaccines — and specifically about Rev. and Mr. Sykes and their expert witnesses’ public statements and actions — as a form of harassment and interference with business relations. They further suggested that I have received direct or indirect assistance for “efforts to damage [the Sykes and their witnesses] personally for their participation in this lawsuit” from Bayer Corporation.

“4. It would appear that Kathleen Seidel heads a group which strongly opposes the positions taken by the Sykes family in this proceeding. However, she and her associates have done more than comment on these positions; they have taken action to discredit the Sykes family, Lisa Sykes as a minister of the United Methodist Church, and witnesses who have given support to the family’s positions. They have interfered with these witnesses’ professions, professional relationships, and economic opportunities.”

“5. The subpoena in issue relates, however, to indications that Ms. Seidel is receiving aid in her effort to harass litigants and their experts, including her efforts to damage them personally for their participation in this lawsuit, by the Defendant, either directly or indirectly.”

(The Memorandum of Law in support of the motion indicated that my “ready access to all filings made in this matter to date” and to unspecified “documents which were not filed” formed the basis for these suspicions.)

Mr. McHugh explained that the reason he needs more time to prepare Mr. Shoemaker’s justification for the subpoena is that he did not yet know enough about me to further substantiate his allegations, and that both he and Mr. Shoemaker were busy with other matters.

“[Y]our Declarant is new to this case and to Ms. Seidel, and while I have been attempting to gather the information needed, I have been unable to complete that task due to the press of other work as well as the fact that Mr. Shoemaker has either been in hearings or preparing for imminent hearings, all in other cases, or taking third-party depositions in this action since he received this order. While I have interviewed some victims of Ms. Seidel’s activity, I have not yet been able to gather the material I would need to show the Court the justification for the Subpoena and its scope.”

Since the May 5 deadline for Mr. Shoemaker to respond to the judge’s order had passed, the request for a deadline extension was accompanied by a request for leave to file it a day late, due to “emergency illness, and not as a result of negligence or neglect.”

The court granted these motions, and set May 15 as Mr. Shoemaker’s new deadline for response.

The Perilous Analysis

This is not the first time that citizens participating in public debate about scientific matters have been accused of tortious conduct for persuasively criticizing Dr. and Mr. Geier. The arguments introduced in Mr. Shoemaker’s motion were central to a lawsuit initiated two and a half years ago, in which Dr. and Mr. Geier alleged that they had been defamed and otherwise harmed by the four co-authors and publisher of a medical research review that questioned the reliability of their epidemiological analyses.

In Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines and Autistic Spectrum Disorder: A Critical Review of Published Original Data, published in the September 2004 issue of Pediatrics, Dr. Sarah Parker and Dr. James Todd of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, and Dr. Benjamin Schwartz and Dr. Larry Pickering of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) surveyed studies that evaluated an association between thimerosal containing vaccines and autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders. Out of twelve studies considered, four supported an association; all were authored by Mark and David Geier.

Commenting on the Geiers’ 2003 paper, Neurodevelopmental disorders after thimerosal-containing vaccines: a brief communication, Dr. Parker and her colleagues “identified multiple methodologic concerns,” including its authors’ use of data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). They noted that VAERS is a passive, voluntary reporting system to which anyone can submit information; VAERS suffers from incomplete and inaccurate reporting, lack of independent validation of diagnoses, reporting bias and diagnostic bias. Whereas Dr. and Mr. Geier hypothesized that autism risk was related to total thimerosal exposure, the extent of that exposure could not be determined by data available in VAERS. Although Dr. and Mr. Geier indicated that they had relied upon the “Biological Surveillance Summaries of the CDC” to determine exposure, the authors pointed out that the CDC provides no manufacturer-specific data in its publicly-available reports on vaccine distribution.

“It is unclear how the authors estimated manufacturer-specific data because, on the basis of agreements with manufacturers, CDC does not release these data. No source is cited in the publication. The authors provided no details on how total DTaP doses distributed were translated into number of children vaccinated with specific thimerosal-containing or thimerosal-free vaccines, which is particularly problematic for a vaccine administered in a 5-dose schedule over a 4- to 5-year period.”

The authors then assessed two other publications in which Dr. and Mr. Geier reported essentially the same data as in the first. Each compared FDA and EPA methylmercury exposure limits with the amount of ethylmercury contained in vaccines routinely administered to children, and evaluated U.S. Department of Education counts of children with neurological disorders in relationship to their presumed vaccine-related exposure to mercury over time. The authors observed that these two studies shared the same weaknesses as their predecessor: incomplete reporting, unspecific and unvalidated diagnoses, and potential diagnostic and reporting bias. They further noted that Dr. and Mr. Geier did not describe how they estimated children’s ethylmercury exposure, and maintained that any such estimate based on VAERS reports would be inaccurate because VAERS reports do not include a subject’s entire immunization history prior to an adverse event.

The authors characterized Dr. and Mr. Geier’s comparisons of FDA and EPA mercury exposure limits with the thimerosal dose received in routine vaccination as “a misinterpretation of the EPA and FDA guidelines,” which pertain the level of daily exposure to methylmercury “that is likely to be without a risk of adverse effects when experienced over a lifetime.” They observed that no standards exist for a single instance of exposure to ethylmercury — the form of mercury used in thimerosal, which takes a significantly shorter time than methylmercury to be cleared from the body. Drs. Parker, Todd, Schwartz and Pickering concluded that Dr. and Mr. Geier’s studies were “of poor quality and cannot be interpreted.”

“Lies! Lies!”

During his November 2004 deposition in the case Easter v. Aventis Pasteur, Dr. Geier gave full vent to his outrage over the recent criticism leveled against his work, and discussed the steps that he and his son had taken to respond to it. When asked about the Pediatrics article, he exclaimed:

“It calls us liars. It says that we don’t have the [denominator] data. See, they went too far this time. So our lawyer has sent to the journal a threat to sue them and they are retracting that… These people have slandered us and the journal has agreed, I think it’s in the January issue, to issue a retraction. They got a little overzealous this time. It’s one thing to say you don’t like somebody’s article, you don’t believe they did it right. It’s another thing to call them liars. That’s what they did here and we’re not liars. We have the data, we have everything that we said we have.”

“Cliff Shoemaker represented us in this, writing a letter to them telling them that we were going to sue them for slander, both the journal and the individual office. And it’s open and shut because he sent them a copy of what they said we didn’t have… [The letter] went to the named authors and Pediatrics and I believe the universities.”

When he was asked to identify which part of the article was “slanderous,” Dr. Geier quoted from the portion of the paper that addressed the denominator data used in Neurodevelopmental disorders after thimerosal-containing vaccines, then accused the authors of deliberate dishonesty.

“Those who read this section will believe that we were lying, we could not have done the work that we did, and they’re right. If we did not have those numbers, we could not have done the work that we did. And they damn well knew we had those numbers… And in fact, the journal has already sent a memo saying they’re going to withdraw that part. Whether we’re going to take that as enough to not sue them, I don’t know, but clearly they’re wrong, and it’s prima facie wrong… How dare they say that we’re lying.”

“We sent the CDC, and in with our lawyer’s letter he sent them a copy of the piece of paper that proves that we have what we said we have, and proves that they slandered us… We sent that to each of the people we’re threatening to sue, Pediatrics, each of the authors, and the CDC and their universities… We sent it from our lawyer to their lawyer, we sent that information to prove to them that they were lying, not us… To each of the authors on this paper, that signed off on this paper that we were lying, to each of the universities from which they listed, to the journal that approved this trash, and to each member of the CDC whose name is on here. That’s who we sent it to.”

Dr. Geier did not suggest the possibility that the authors of the article had offered their criticism of his scientific studies in the spirit of scientific inquiry, that they had inadvertently made a single erroneous implication, and that they had not previously been aware that proprietary data from the CDC had been released to him in apparent violation of confidentiality agreements with manufacturers. Rather, their cautious expression of uncertainty was reduced to:

“…a straight out lie.”

Mea Culpa

The January 1, 2005 issue of Pediatrics included a letter to the editors in which Drs. Parker, Todd, Schwartz and Pickering corrected the error in their September paper, and explained how it had occurred.

“In our article, we indicated that Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Biological Surveillance Summaries with manufacturer-specific data would not have been available to Dr Geier to analyze children potentially exposed to thimerosal in the diphtheria-tetanus- acellular pertussis vaccine. Dr Geier has informed us that he had received these data; we regret this error.”

“More than half of pediatric vaccines used in the United States are purchased by the public sector. Since 1962, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has collected brand-specific information on annual vaccine doses distributed by manufacturers for planning purposes. At the manufacturers’ request, these data are kept confidential because they consider this information to be proprietary. Our statement was based on this policy. We were not aware that these data had been released before publication of our article.”

Making Good on a Threat

The authors’ corrections, regrets and reasoning did not appease Dr. and Mr. Geier. In September 2005, they filed a civil suit, Geier et al. v. Department of Health and Human Services et al. in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, represented by SafeMinds co-founder and board member James Moody, Esq. and his associate, Joseph Aloysius Hennessey, Esq.. The defendants included the four authors of the article; the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center; the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; and the American Academy of Pediatrics, publisher of Pediatrics.

The Complaint alleged that the defendants defamed Dr. and Mr. Geier by knowingly disseminating false accusations that they had fabricated scientific data, that they had thereby interfered with contracts between the Geiers and those who “seek the value of their expert testimony,” and that they were interfering with the Geiers’ “prospective business advantage.” Dr. and Mr. Geier asserted their “constitutional right… to appear as an expert witness on behalf of vaccine-injured children,” and claimed that the Pediatrics article “injured and will continue to injure [them] in their trade and business, and damaged their reputation in the community of scientists.” They described themselves as “scientists engaged in the study of genetics, molecular biology, and epidemiology,” and “experts on adverse reactions to vaccines.” They frequently identified themselves as “the Geiers,” conflating the education, expertise and professional activities of father and son. They described their primary occupation and source of income:

[T]he Geiers dedicate a substantial amount of their time and resources to their role as expert witnesses. Dr. Mark Geier has appeared in approximately 100 cases and has participated in the review of approximately 1,000 claims… [T]he Geiers are dependent upon the compensation they receive as expert witnesses as a significant source of income.“ [emphasis added]

Dr. and Mr. Geier then described their epidemiological research and their acquisition from CDC staff of manufacturer-specific data on thimerosal content in vaccines; they asserted that as CDC officials, Drs. Schwartz and Pickering knew or should have known that the data had been released to them subject to certain nondisclosure requirements. They described their analysis of those data in conjunction with data from VAERS, and their various responses to inquiries about their data sources.

The Pediatrics article as a whole, they claimed, was “extremely damaging to the Geiers’ reputation, especially in the context of the scientific community”; it had been cited in efforts to “attack and damage the Geiers’ reputation,” specifically in the VICP case Conlon v HHS (Case 02-1133V, U.S. Court of Federal Claims Office of Special Masters). They asserted that the authors’ letter of correction was inadequate, and that their failure to retract the article in its entirety served to perpetuate the damage.

Dr. and Mr. Geier asserted that the defendants had knowingly and maliciously published “fabrication allegations” as part of a campaign to discredit them in the scientific community, to restore confidence in the safety of vaccines and vaccine schedules, and to “make it economically more difficult for the Geiers to continue pursuing their research.” They claimed that the publication and continued availability of the article would make performance of the Geiers’ existing contractual obligations as expert witnesses and medical care providers “more expensive or impossible,” and would impair their ability to attract future clients; they claimed that it had already caused them to lose patients and medical referrals. They characterized Dr. Schwartz and Dr. Pickering as “agents for CDC and HHS,” and claimed that the article represented an arbitrary and capricious “adverse agency action” which violated their constitutional rights to seek and be fairly considered for federal contracts, and to gain access to the courts.

Dr. and Mr. Geier asked the court to find and declare the “fabrication allegations” to be false; to issue an injunction requiring HHS to disavow its reliance on the article in all VICP proceedings in which it had been submitted as evidence; to bar HHS from making any future reference to the article in its proceedings and publications, and to withdraw all existing references to it; to order the defendants to pay several million dollars in total damages; and to order defendants to apologize for their alleged wrongdoing.

The Scientists Reply

On November 1, 2005, Drs. Parker and Todd moved to dismiss the suit for lack of jurisdiction, arguing that neither lived in the District of Columbia, neither had entered into any contracts there, neither had performed any research there, neither had engaged in any conduct there that was harmful to the Geiers, and neither had communicated in any way with anyone there while preparing the article. They maintained that their conclusions about the Geiers’ studies and the lack of evidence for a causal relationship between thimerosal containing vaccines and autism constituted expressions of scientific opinion, not harmful acts.

In a separate motion filed two weeks later, Drs. Schwartz and Pickering described themselves as subordinate officials at the CDC, and their article as a “discretionary scholarly review and critique… a project to contribute to the scientific knowledge base regarding the epidemiology of thimerosal and ASD.” They countered that the right to access to the courts applies to litigants rather than witnesses, and that the problems Dr. and Mr. Geier had encountered in their efforts to be “fairly considered” as expert witnesses in VICP cases preceded the publication of the Pediatrics article.

On December 12, Dr. and Mr. Geier opposed Dr. Parker and Dr. Todd’s motion to dismiss, arguing that the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia had jurisdiction over the Colorado doctors because their criticisms could potentially affect the outcome of VICP petitions being adjudicated in D.C.. They speculated that by recommending “aggressive vaccine protocols” and concluding that thimerosal containing vaccines posed no undue risk to children, the two doctors “might well have been instruments of harm to an entire generation of children.” They asserted that the doctors might also be motivated to assist pharmaceutical companies out of concern that damage awards might jeopardize the flow of research funding to the University of Colorado Health Science Center. They asserted that by “defaming” Dr. and Mr. Geier, Drs. Parker and Todd had “attempted to subvert the fact-finding process of the Autism Proceeding,” and characterized their jurisdictional arguments as an attempt to “seek refuge shelter [sic] in their home state” using “hit and run tactics.” They maintained that by expressing opinions about the merits of studies on the safety of thimerosal containing vaccines, the Colorado defendants had “voluntarily chose to participate in this maelstrum [sic] focused in D.C.,” had engaged in “malignant actions directed at the Federal Claims Court,” and should therefore expect to be “haled into court” in that jurisdiction. They called attention to Dr. Parker’s participation at the 2005 National Immunization Conference, where she presented the findings of the Pediatrics article, as further support for the D.C. court’s jurisdiction over her. They characterized both Dr. Parker and Dr. Todd as “allies” of HHS, and claimed that the District of Columbia is “the only jurisdiction that has an overwhelming interest in the issue of mercury poisoning from vaccines.”

In their rebuttal, Dr. Parker and Dr. Todd observed that by bringing the lawsuit:

[Dr. and Mr. Geier] seek… to insulate their research from legitimate criticism, thereby enhancing Dr. Geiers’ ability to serve as a full-time, professional expert witness. In doing so, the Geiers disserve the academic model they profess to follow, which has always recognized that a disagreement between scientists “belongs to the language of controversy, rather than the language of defamation.” Dilworth v. Dudley, 75 F.3d 307, 310 (7th Cir. 1996).

On December 1, the American Academy of Pediatrics filed its own 45-page motion to dismiss the claims against them. The accompanying Memorandum of Law cited sixty-six cases, District of Columbia statutes and other authorities supporting the AAP’s positions. The AAP contended that the inferences drawn by Dr. and Mr. Geier could not be reasonably drawn from the passages they alleged were defamatory, and pointed to the authors’ criticisms of studies conducted by other scientists as well those conducted by Dr. and Mr. Geier. With respect to their effort to inflate a single sentence to defamatory status, the AAP observed that:

[C]ourts have rebuffed efforts to transform publications that merely raise legitimate questions about matters of public concern into defamatory implications of fact… [T]he Fourth Circuit recognized in Chapin v. Knight-Ridder, Inc., 993 F.2d 1087 (4th Cir. 1993) that a publication that “invite[s] the public to ask” questions about matters of public concern is the “paradigm of a properly functioning press.” Although the court acknowledged the “answer” that “Chapin is a dishonest man… was certainly within the wide range of possibilities” flowing from the defendant’s article, that is “precisely why we need and must permit a free press to ask the question.”

Simply put, raising questions about the scientific reliability of a study does not, as a matter of law, imply that the research was falsified or fraudulent…

…[T]he statements in the Pediatrics article… were made in the context of an ongoing scientific debate about the hypothesized association between thimerosal and autism, and thus constitute a non-actionable expression of opinion rather than actionable statements of fact… A scientific debate about a medical question of significant public concern clearly is a context in which the intended audience — here, medical professionals — reasonably expects the participants to express opinions. Scientific and medical research is characterized by inquiry into uncertain and often competing ideas. Typically, after a theory is advanced, others closely examine the idea, along with the data and scientific methodology on which it is based, and offer their opinions about all of them.

…To permit the free and open debate that leads to advances in science, courts routinely instruct that views and criticism expressed in this context should not be the subject of litigation. “[I]n the area of medical research, criticism of the creative research ideas of other medical scientists should not be restrained by fear of a defamation claim in the event the criticism itself also ultimately fails for lack of merit.” Ezrailson v. Rohrich, 65 S.W.3d at 382 (Tex. App. 2001)… Knowledge is better advanced when a scientist addresses opinions critical of his or her ideas through more speech rather than by defamation lawsuits: “Scientific controversies must be settled by the methods of science rather than by the methods of litigation. More papers, more discussion, better data, and more satisfactory models — not larger awards of damages — mark the path toward superior understanding of the world around us. Underwager v. Salter, 22 F.3d 730, 736 (7th Cir. 1994).

…The Geiers’ tortious interference claims all fail as a matter of law. In Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988), the plaintiff similarly attempted to avoid the strictures of defamation law by bringing an intentional infliction of emotional distress claim based solely on a publication that plaintiff contended injured him. The Supreme Court, however rejected the plaintiff’s maneuver, and Falwell stands for the proposition that the courts may not permit plaintiffs, through creative pleading, to invoke other torts as a means of “end-running… requirements of defamation law.”

The Help Bails Out

With the exception of Dr. and Mr. Geier’s exchange with Drs. Parker and Todd, little of substance transpired in the case from mid-December 2005 to mid-March 2006. Dr. and Mr. Geier offered no response to the AAP’s arguments, and on March 14, the court dismissed with prejudice all claims against the organization.

Three days later, Dr. and Mr. Geier informed the court that Mr. Moody had withdrawn from the case due to the unexpected death of a close friend and “conflicting professional commitments,” and requested an indefinite stay of the proceedings to enable them to identify new counsel. The co-authors responded with briefs recounting the plaintiffs’ frequent delays and missed deadlines, and their attorneys’ failure to respond promptly to emails and telephone calls, and expressing their desire to bring the case to a speedy conclusion.

Four days after that, Dr. and Mr. Geier submitted an opposition to the motion to dismiss filed by Dr. Schwartz and Dr. Pickering four months before. The forty-four page document, signed by both Mr. Moody and Mr. Hennessey, contains a lengthy legal defense of the Geiers’ claim that the CDC employees’ authorship of the article constituted a “final agency action” that deprived Dr. and Mr. Geier of their “constitutionally protected liberty interest in continued employment as expert witnesses in vaccine court” and their “constitutional right of access to the courts for themselves and on behalf of vaccine-injured claimants… as expert witnesses, a tribunal uncorrupted by false statements by government agents.”

On March 29, the court granted Dr. and Mr. Geier’s motion for a stay of proceedings. In mid-April, Dr. and Mr. Geier moved to dismiss the case without prejudice, claiming that they had been unable to locate new lead counsel and were therefore incapable of proceeding with the case. Dr. Schwartz and Dr. Pickering promptly filed a motion to dismiss the claims against them, in which they recounted the exasperating progress of the case, and reiterated their perspective on the lawsuit as a whole.

This case borders on the frivolous. Four scientists published a scientific article in a peer-reviewed journal, Pediatrics, reviewing and critiquing several other studies. Among the numerous criticisms of the numerous studies, Plaintiffs focus on probably the most innocuous of the criticisms — that the Plaintiffs’ studies did not explain where they obtained data which Defendants understood to be unobtainable from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Plaintiffs cannot bring a defamation action — and even if they could the Article comes nowhere near being considered defamatory. Rather, they are attempting to claim… that the government is conspiring to ruin their careers by accusing them of fraud. The simple fact is that the Article speaks for itself and the Defendants did nothing improper, much less actionable.

…The vast majority of the Article’s analysis consists of explaining the numerous and weighty reasons why the twelve epidemiological studies contain various flaws that should prevent the scientific community from using those studies to conclude that there is a demonstrable link between autism and thimerosal. It should go without saying that this sort of criticism of other scientific studies is the life-blood of medical research and the advancement of scientific knowledge.

…The alleged harm of being shut out of work as expert witnesses, which Plaintiffs attribute to the work of DOJ lawyers arguing on behalf of HHS, fails in light of the published decision of the Court of Federal Claims (dated October 9, 2003), which expressly disqualifies Dr. Geier as an expert witness and expressly finds it “doubtful that Dr. Geier fulfills the American Medical Association (AMA) guidelines for expert witnesses.” This order predated the Article’s publication by over a year.

…The Geiers also cannot overcome the simple fact that all of the First Amendment cases they cite regarding the right of access to the courts apply only to potential litigants — that is, the right of access to the courts is the right to sue and have one’s rights vindicated. Expert witnesses have no constitutional right under the First Amendment to be called to testify on behalf of other litigants. Alternatively, the Geiers have no standing if, as they now assert, “they are vindicating the rights of the underlying claimants to have the Geiers as expert witnesses.” [emphasis added]

In and Out of Legal Limbo

On May 15, 2006 — after eight months had passed and untold attorneys’ fees and court costs were incurred by the defendants — Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan granted Dr. and Mr. Geier’s motion to dismiss the case without prejudice. It remains to be seen whether they will ever enlist new counsel willing to revive their claims against Dr. Parker, Dr. Todd, Dr. Schwartz and Dr. Pickering — four scientists who critiqued a collection of epidemiological studies, expressed considered opinions and corrected mistakes in the manner to which scientists are accustomed, then found themselves targets of legal action.

In light of the motions filed on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire, it appears that no matter how moribund Geier v. HHS may be, its core argument survives and has its supporters in the bar — i.e., that analysis and commentary on scientific subjects should be exempt from constitutional protections and construed as an intentional tort if those whose theories and methods are persuasively challenged seek to profit from arguing their positions on the witness stand.

Sources cited:

Sykes v. Bayer (Case 1:2008-mc-00013, U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire) (docket linked from Justia.com).

Subpoena (March 24, 2008)
Motion to Quash Subpoena (March 31, 2008)
Endorsed Order (April 21, 2008)
Motion for Admission pro hac vice of John F. McHugh (May 6, 2008)
Declaration of John F. McHugh (May 6, 2008)
Motion to Allow Late Filing of Motion to Expand Time to Respond to Order to Show Cause (May 6, 2008)
Motion to Expand Time to Respond to Order to Show Cause (May 6, 2008)
Memorandum of Law in Support of Motion to Expand Time to Respond to Order to Show Cause (May 6, 2008)

Geier et al. v. Department of Health and Human Services et al., Case 1:05-cv-01749-TFH, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (filed Sep. 1, 2005; dismissed May 15, 2006) (locally-hosted docket report with links to substantive case documents).

Sarah K. Parker, Benjamin Schwartz, James Todd, Larry K. Pickering, Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines and Autistic Spectrum Disorder: A Critical Review of Published Original Data. Pediatrics, Vol. 114, No. 3, September 2004, pp. 793-804.

Mark Geier, David Geier, Neurodevelopmental disorders after thimerosal-containing vaccines: a brief communication. Explorations in Biological Medicine, No. 228 (Oct. 2003), pp. 660–664.

Mark Geier, David Geier, Thimerosal in childhood vaccines, neurodevelopmental disorders, and heart disease in the United States. Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Vol. 8 (Mar. 2003), pp. 6-11.

Mark Geier, David Geier, An assessment of the impact of thimerosal on childhood neurodevelopmental disorders. Pediatric Rehabilitation, Vol. 6 (Apr.-Jun. 2003), pp. 97–102.

Mark Geier, Deposition, Easter v. Aventis Pasteur (Case 5:03-cv-00141-TJW, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kansas), November 12, 2004 (locally-hosted docket report with links to substantive case documents).
Part 1
Part 2 (pp. 268-286 contain passages about the Pediatrics article)
Part 3

Sarah K. Parker, Benjamin Schwartz, James Todd, Larry K. Pickering, Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines and Autistic Spectrum Disorder: A Critical Review of Published Original Data (Letter to the editor). Pediatrics, Vol. 115, No. 1 (Jan. 2005), p. 200.

Mercury Fades: Sykes v. Bayer Dismissed · 13 days ago

On Thursday, May 1, 2008, the parties to Sykes v. Bayer filed the following Voluntary Stipulation of Dismissal With Prejudice in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Pursuant to Rule 41(a)(1)(ii) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Plaintiffs, Lisa Sykes and Seth Sykes […] and the Defendants, Bayer Corporation [et al.] enter this Voluntary Stipulation of Dismissal with Prejudice, of this action with each party to bear its own costs and attorney fees.

The document filed with the court provides no further information about the basis for the parties’ agreement to terminate the proceeding. The fact that the plaintiffs agreed to dismiss the lawsuit that they initiated two years ago, and the fact that this agreement was reached in the midst of the discovery process, suggests significant problems with the reliability of the testimony and evidence they sought to present to the court.

The declining viability of their case notwithstanding, Rev. and Mr. Sykes and their enablers have busied themselves until the last minute in their efforts to dragoon non-parties into the fray of litigation. One week ago, vaccine injury attorney Kevin Conway, Esq. filed a Notice of Appearance in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, followed by Mr. Clifford Shoemaker’s Memorandum of Law opposing Dr. Marie McCormick’s Motion to Quash the third-party subpoena served to her in Sykes v. Bayer. Oral argument was scheduled for next Wednesday, May 7.

The Memorandum questions the integrity of Immunization Safety Review Committee members, characterizes them as “agents of the government” by virtue of their voluntary service on a non-governmental scientific committee, and cites as evidence of corruption the supposedly inconsistent findings of committee reports issued in 2001 and 2004. (The 2004 report assessed studies conducted after the 2001 report was issued.) The Memorandum quotes at length from various politicians and government officials supportive of vaccine-injury litigants’ concerns, and asserts that deposition of Dr. McCormick would promote “appropriate disclosure and continual transparency” with respect to official and quasi-official decisions relating to the use of thimerosal in vaccines and other biological products.

Rev. and Mr. Sykes’ agreement to dismiss Sykes v. Bayer should effectively nullify any subpoenas issued by their attorneys in connection with it, and should result in the cancellation of Dr. McCormick’s date with Mr. Conway and (perhaps) Mr. Shoemaker. However, the dismissal would not necessarily nullify any disciplinary proceedings that might be brought against Mr. Shoemaker if it were determined that he had abused the discovery process in the case. (He has not yet responded to the Order to Show Cause issued by Judge James R. Muirhead eleven days ago, subsequent to my own Motion to Quash.)

Mr. Shoemaker’s Memorandum regarding the McCormick subpoena asserts that Rev. and Mr. Sykes’ son “will require millions of dollars to pay for his devastating lifetime thimerosal-induced injuries.”

Now that they have agreed to abandon their claims against Bayer — whose RhoD immune globulin product may well have saved their son’s life — Rev. and Mr. Sykes and their legal team will need to find a new target if they wish to continue to wage their autism=mercury-poisoning campaign in the courts. Given the promise they made in their January 31 motion for leave to file an amended complaint, and given the mercury-causation proponents’ recent revival of interest over a possible link between autism and power plant emissions, it is reasonable to anticipate that they may next file suit against Dominion Resources, operator of a coal-burning power plant in Richmond, Virginia.

There is no question that disabled individuals and those who support them need practical, respectful support in many life domains. There is no question that Dominion Resources needs (and is working) to clean up its act. There is also no question that the same could be said of certain pharmaceutical corporations. Whether Dominion Resources, Bayer Corporation, GlaxoSmithKline, or any other deep-pocketed corporate entity should be obligated to compensate parents for the life-long support of their autistic children is quite another question.

Front Page News · 18 days ago

The front page of today’s Concord Monitor features an overview of the advocacy, debate, research and writing that have occupied me these past few years — A forceful voice in autism debate, by Margot Sanger-Katz. In addition to interviewing me at length, Ms. Sanger-Katz interviewed Dr. Mark Geier, Amy Carson of Moms Against Mercury, and Dr. Irving Gottesman of the University of Minnesota. (Subpoena-meister Clifford Shoemaker, Esq. did not return her call.) Many thanks to Ms. Sanger-Katz for her comprehensive, sympathetic discussion of my work.

Also, Friday’s Charlotte Observer included an account of Dr. Rashid Buttar’s hearing before the North Carolina Medical Board. The review panel has recommended that Dr. Buttar be prohibited from treating children or patients with cancer, and that his license to practice medicine be suspended indefinitely. The Board is expected to issue an official decision by July 2008. This story has been blogged at Respectful Insolence, Science-Based Medicine and Left Brain/Right Brain. Once the Board issues a final decision, you’ll be able to find it here.

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Debate or Defamation? · 8 days ago