Rep. Dan Burton trying to influence Autism Omnibus hearing

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http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/ ... to_use.php

I don't know if any of you are interested in the whole Autism Omnibus vaccine hearings thing... but if you are this is an interesting development.

If you want to read more about the garbage Hitlan et al paper D'oC has blogged about it. http://www.autismstreet.org/weblog/?p=158
It's all about scamming and twisting data to try to implicate thimerosal as a cause of autism.

http://photoninthedarkness.com/?p=137 Prometheus has written about the Hitlan paper, too.

Rep Burton is antivaccine, he also has had a scientologist as an assistant, that assistant (Beth Clay... she has a photo of herself with various Scientology folks on her website, including one of her leaning on/hugging Tom Cruise and the two of them smiling for the photo) has been in the middle of stirring up the whole vaccines-cause-autism thang.

Hehehe, well if Tom Cruise says it's true it must be!!

He's almost on par with Chuck Norris in strong-factor...

I had no idea that there was even a remote chance that the Omnibus lawsuit would rule in favor of the plaintiffs. This is actually really bad news because it will only serve to give more reason for parents to choose dangerous chelation therapies for their children. It will also turn out to be a huge money maker for DAN quacks selling their woo to parents in denial of the real cause of their children's autism.

This is an excerpt from Autismdiva's first link.

Personally, though I am totally not a legal expert in any way... I look at it like, "anything is possible," but there is no way the petitioner (parents) can win this. Their evidence so SOOOOOO bad, it's like hysterically, derisibly (is that a word?), shockingly bad. Their expert witnesses are pathetic.

No one knows what a judge might be thinking... but the petitioners, to me, have already lost...

Then, if they lose... the bad news is that the parents can try again in civil court to go for the vaccine manufacturers, so I understand. Sometimes it looks like the PSC (lawyers) are trying to lose the Omnibus hearing so that the parents CAN then go sue the vaccine manufacturers... but maybe the PSC is just as stupid as they look....

But then I'm biased and cranky...

I don't understand how you would take on something as huge as the pharmaceutical industry without extremely good evidence. Regardless of whether it's true or not, surely you'd have a wealth of absolutely conclusive evidence to back yourself up with?

In a way I admire them just for taking on such a huge, powerful industry like that... that takes a lot of courage... but I still wish they'd just accept it as the hereditary condition it is and move on.

If they have genuine mercury poisoning, then fine. But my understanding of mercury poisoning is that the symptoms rarely mirror autism properly, and that although it can lead to neurological damage and developmental/learning disabilities it's really nothing like autism or aspergers?

hmmm...in the 19th century, the only 'treament' for Venereal disease was injections of Mercury. I wonder if this caused any AS?.... sheesh...

I think the condition has been around as long as humans have. We just found a name for it in the last half-century...

It's a gamble for the personal injury law firms. When they started out, especially, it looked like if you tilted your head and squinted and only listened to certain people that some people might think vaccines could cause autism. But as time went on the stories started to fall apart on many, many levels. There has been NO autism epidemic for one thing. No epidemic, no reason to implicate anything that changed at any time.

Anyway... they had buckets full of bluster, lies and bluff and an army of parents, some of whom are outright liars, perhaps most of whom have been convinced that a vaccine made their kid autistic. These parents are more than willing to stand before a judge and sob hysterically , " mm... mmm... muh'my buhb bubh bubhaaayyybeeee!! ! You poisoned muh m' muh my buubh baybee!! !!" Yes, some of the parents believe it's true, but some are just lying because their a pot of gold waiting for them. The point is there are loads of people who will pay a hysterical mother whatever she wants if she'll JUST STOP CRYING! A sobbing mother whose claims her baby was changed by a gov't mandated vaccine is like a gold mine for the lawyers.

Mrs Cedilllo was described as joking,laughing and talking to her husband throughout most of their case. Not paying attention at all. For them it's a gamble, they put out time and energy and maybe get a few tens of thousands of dollars or whatever the pay off is, in return.

Their daughter was obviously not damaged by vaccines. The testimony was hysterical. I mean, I was like you have got to be kidding, you expect people to buy this line???

Anyway, yeah big pharma has lots of lawyers, but over and over again sheister lawyers for plaintiffs have convinced juries to go against big pharma when big pharma was actually innocent.

Big pharma is no doubt actually guilty often enough, but they aren't guilty of every health problem on planet earth, but if a stinking low life shark of a lawyer thinks he can convince a jury to pay off for his client, well why not, there's no penalty for trying.

In the case of the omnibus the Federal gov't (taxpayers) actually pay for the expert witnesses to testify (or lie as was sometimes the case in the autism omnibus hearing). So it's not like the lawyers are out that much to conduct the case.

It is quite frankly impossible to get "mercury poisoning" from the amount of mercury in any vaccine, even if given to the tiniest premature baby. It's entirely cooked up and it's a pack of lies. No child of any sort any where has "mercury poisoning" from any vaccine. It's totally, absolutely absurd. it's like believing in the Easter bunny. It's like ... come on, this is pathetic! It's just pathetic.

It's an urban myth that vaccines can cause autism or any real form of mercury poisoning.