Mercury Fades: Sykes v. Bayer Dismissed · 2008-05-02 18:46

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.

Comments


  1. Then what in Hades was all this nonsense about the subpoena?

    I really hope that the judge looking into that takes this into account. It appears clear that the subpoena was a “parting shot”, and a total misuse of power.

    — Matt    2008-05-02 19:45    #

  2. Cliffy wrote about the Sykes boy’s supposed, “devastating lifetime thimerosal-induced injuries” I thought the Sykes boy was practically cured by all those dozens of chemical castration injections he's been getting and all the other stuff he's been “treated with” to “cure” his ASD. Their son has a “devastating” case of Asperger's syndrome doesn't he?

    Does anyone know if the Sykes boy will ever be allowed to enter puberty?

    — Ms. Clark    2008-05-02 20:00    #

  3. Maybe the prospect of getting sanctioned over the subpoena was enough to make the Cliffster think about what kind of sanctions he might receive if he continued to pursue the Sykes’s meritless suit against Bayer.

    It all just adds up to a bunch of frothing and flailing. Too bad Kathleen had to spend time putting them in their place, but it sure was fun to watch it happen.

    — isles    2008-05-02 20:47    #

  4. So ends the saga of the Church Lady and Cliffy. In time, he will blame the wrong reverend for his ill-advised decision to wade so deep into this ridiculous litigation with nothing but a contingency. He should have known all along it wasn’t thimerosal. It was SATAN!

    — Tom    2008-05-02 21:26    #

  5. 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.

    There’s also the question of whether it is a valid assumption, in the first place, that autistic children will require lifetime support.

    If, rather than uselessly playing the blame game, our society presumed competence and focused on providing good schools and equal employment opportunity, many of our autistic citizens would be enabled to support themselves.

    — abfh    2008-05-02 22:18    #

  6. He has not yet responded to the Order to Show Cause issued by Judge James R. Muirhead eleven days ago.

    Reading the “order to show cause”, Mr. Shoemaker was supposed to respond in 10 days. He missed the deadline.

    Does this mean that the court will decide based on the facts already in evidence?

    I am assuming the judge will act based on the information he/she has. However, I must assume that the judge will not look favorably on a lawyer who doesn’t attempt to explain himself.

    — Matt    2008-05-02 23:07    #

  7. Like Ms Clark I worry about the boy.
    Is anyone representing his interests in all this?

    — mike stanton    2008-05-03 02:51    #

  8. I’d also love to have a million dollars as a way to ensure some financial security for my son’s future. Parents involved in litigation should admit to this.

    The difference is that I would not try to game the system as a way to make money.

    I could name names of some parents who have autistic kids with evident familial autism, and who are heavily promoting the vaccine causation hypothesis.

    — Joseph    2008-05-03 09:23    #

  9. You mean, Joseph, that they perseverate on vaccines? That they might lack perspective-taking skills or empathy for those with other viewpoints? [shocked look] No…

    — Phil Schwarz    2008-05-03 16:30    #

  10. Yeah Phil, and some of the parents who blame vaccines even have the "stigmata" of autism themselves, a really big cranium.

    — Ms. Clark    2008-05-03 21:51    #

  11. The dismissal of the case shouldn’t have any effect on Shoemaker’s need to show cause why he shouldn’t be sanctioned. It does eliminate the possibility that any sanctions will affect the Sykes case. However, Shoemaker may be trying to protect other cases which will go down in flames.

    My guess is that Shoemaker will be a no show at the show-cause hearing. I think his reasoning will be that if he talks about his “reasoning” it will soon be apparent that he is not acting in good faith and shouldn’t just be sanctioned but should be disbarred and go to prison. Probably the Judge isn’t going to do that if Shoemaker ignores him, so that is what Shoemaker will do.

    — daedalus2u    2008-05-04 08:14    #

  12. The Court where that suit was filed is known as the ‘rocket docket’ because of the speed with which cases are dispatched. Lawyers I know say it was very nervy for them to file there in the first place because that court will not allow cases to drag on in discovery.

    Also, I learned in college that rh negativity (I presume that is why rho d was administered) has side effects of not just newborn death but mental retardation.

    MR kids are getting Autism dx nowadays.

    There are probably things going on with their little guy that are beyond current science. Science gives us the ability to save lives but there is a cost that sometimes those zygotes have other issues.

    I have Asperger’s,not that it matters. Runs in my family-no mercury here.

    Congrats on putting that dirty attorney on the ropes by compelling him in your own subpoena.

    ~Sarah

    — Sarah    2008-05-07 20:45    #