Direct Examination of Dr. Patricia Rodier (Expert Witness for the Government)

In addition to her academic honors, Dr. Rodier’s accomplishments include being funded by the National Institute of Health for the past ten years to study the genotype and phenotype of autism.

She began by criticizing the Bernard article which first suggested the thimerosal-autism connection, despite the fact that none of the experts on behalf of the families cited the article in their expert reports.  The environmental risk factors for autism as she sees it are exposure during early pregnancy to rubella, thalidomide, valproic acid, ethanol, and mesoprastol.

She has done one brain autopsy of a child with autism and pointed to the lack of nuclei in the facial expression area as having occurred during early gestation.

Cross-Examination of Dr. Rodier (Expert Witness for the Government)

While she did review the petitioner’s report on general causation, she can’t comment on Dr. Deth’s report because bio-chemistry is outside of her field.  She also acknowledged it is difficult to correlate behavioral symptoms from brain autopsies.

She didn’t disagree that environmental factors may come into play in autism, but that it had to be at an early stage.  She also agrees that no studies have attempted to look separately at regressive and non-regressive autism.

Redirect Examination of Dr. Rodier (Expert Witness for the Government)

Dr. Rodier goes over again that she only did one brain autopsy of a child with autism.  She picked the five environmental factors she did because there is good epidemiological evidence.

She believes the more likely cause of autism is an early prenatal injury rather than a post-natal environmental cause.

Special Master Questions

Special Master Hastings seemed intent on discovering why the witness thought there was such a difference in outcome between a child who is exposed to a virus which causes an encephalitis, and an infant who is exposed in-utero. Both exposures can cause an encephalitis.  Dr. Rodier seemed to fight him on this comparison.

The Special Master then used the example of how a person can lose their sight when they’re young or old.  There could be different reasons for the blindness, but the same result.  The witness agreed with this comparison.

Finally, Dr. Rodier that autism could conceivably be caused after birth through the actions of other mechanisms than the ones she has described.

Direct Examination of Dr. Steven Goodman (Expert Witness for the Government)

Dr. Goodman is on the faculty at Johns Hopkins, serves on many editorial boards, and is Editor-in-Chief of a journal called “Clinical Trials”.

Dr. Goodman serves on the board of the Institute of Medicine and was part of the group which dismissed the thimerosal-autism theory.  He made a point of saying that the theory is “theoretical” because saying it was “biologically plausible” gave it too much credibility.

He talked in general about his work as an epidemiologist.  He notes that the studies which have been done to date have not ruled out the possibility of a subgroup.

Cross-Examination of Dr. Goodman (Expert Witness for the Government)

Dr. Goodman did not think it a conflict of interest that two of the corporate sponsors for his journal “Clinical Trials” are major vaccine manufacturers.  His argument was that the companies only sponsored gatherings, not the ongoing work.

He does not have the expertise to directly comment on the report of Dr. Kinsbourne, or to comment on the study of mercury exposure in infant monkeys done at the University of Washington.

He also doesn’t have an opinion as to whether there is an actual increase in the number of autism cases.

Dr. Goodman has not followed events regarding the publication of data from the Vaccine Safety Data-link after 2004 and the efforts to allow petitioners to review that data.  He does believe that the list of medical personnel who wrote in favor of such a review, including the director of the National Institute of Health are credible people.

He does agree that such a study, looking specifically at high-risk people, such as the siblings of those with autism would be a good idea.

Special Master Questions

Special Master Hastings wanted to get his response to the Kinsbourne paper, but Dr. Goodman did not think he had the expertise to testify on it.

Goodman further clarified his testimony on how epidemiological studies could advance the question of the cause of autism.  They can’t rule out a subgroup, but can say whether the evidence suggests such a sub-group. 

The critical factor would be to determine how one subgroup is biologically different than another.  Then one could test whether this subgroup was uniquely susceptible to autism.

Concluding Thoughts on this Day of Testimony

Is it just me, or are the expert witnesses for the government sounding like mafia members taking the Fifth Amendment to keep from incriminating themselves? 

Or in this case, let’s call if the Expert Witness Fifth Amendment of “It’s not my field”, “I didn’t read it”, or “I didn’t follow that chain of events.”

Dr Rodier gave five possible environmental factors for autism, but said they could only do their damage before birth.  Let’s see if I can come up with an example which makes sense.

If I punch a pregnant woman in the stomach, her baby might be injured.  But if I punched a newborn baby in the head, he should be just fine.  Nope, that example doesn’t work.  But I’ll keep trying.

Actually, though, after some questioning by the Special Master, Dr. Rodier did agree that autism could be caused by events which happen after birth through the actions of mechanisms other than those she described.  Pretty much like blindness could be caused by many different mechanisms, but having the same result.

Then there’s Dr. Goodman who was on the 2004 IOM panel which suggested stopping all inquiry into the vaccine-autism question, but hasn’t followed the matter since that time.  Sounds like he took his own advice, but then that means his information is at least four years out of date.

But wait!

Several medical experts, including the head of the National Institute of Health suggested opening up the Vaccine-Safety Data-Link to independent researchers, but that hasn’t been done.  Dr. Goodman thinks that would be a good idea.  I don’t get it.  Does that mean he doesn’t believe his 2004 opinion that the issue shouldn’t be studied any further?

Oh, and like Dr. Rodier not being able to comment on Dr. Deth’s report, Dr. Goodman doesn’t feel he has the expertise to comment on Dr. Kinsbourne’s report of how thimerosal can cause autism in susceptible individuals, or those pesky studies from the University of Washington about how the thimerosal goes so easily into infant primate brains.

Like a reluctant mafia witness trying to save his life, it doesn’t seem these experts have much to say.

But what they aren’t saying seems to be coming through loud and clear to the Special Masters.

Kent Heckenlively is Legal Editor of Age of Autism.