The Snyder Decision
By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.
William F. Buckley, Jr. once remarked "I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.”
The reason for the conservative writer’s strong democratic leaning was because of his perception that regular people, despite their varying political philosophies, when presented with real-world problems, would ask roughly similar questions and come to roughly similar conclusions. By contrast, the highly-educated often have a peculiar blind-spot when it comes to common sense. They seem to know everything, except for what’s important. The current financial melt-down illustrates the point of how highly-educated people can make spectacularly bad decisions. They can see the individual trees, but are blind to the forest burning down around them.
The decision in Snyder by Special Master Denise Vowell is another example of a spectacularly bad decision which would make the average person shake their head and wonder what happened to the judge’s common sense.
By now the pattern of these decisions is relatively clear. We have a discussion of the credentials of the experts, a decent recitation of the competing theories of the families and the medical authorities, and a declaration that the overwhelming weight of evidence favors the belief that thimerosal (mercury) could not cause immune disruption in infants, and could in no possible way cause autism.
This is where the average person remembers the last time they went to the seafood counter at their local grocery store and saw the warning that infants and pregnant women should avoid eating certain kinds of fish and limit their intake of others because of the possibility of high levels of mercury. They may also recall that the cold medicines they used as children have been pulled from pharmacy shelves because something about infant bodies can’t handle them as well as adults.
So the average person is aware that they’re supposed to try to avoid mercury, that children's bodies work differently than adults’ bodies, and yet they’re told the injection of mercury into babies doesn’t present any problems. This doesn’t make sense to the average person. He thinks somebody’s lying to him. The highly-educated person says, “Carry on!”
On the question of whether there is a rising prevalence of autism there were two sections which illustrate the disconnect between what any average person would conclude and the response of Special Master Vowell.
“There was general agreement among the witnesses that both the raw numbers of ASD diagnosis and the percentage of children with such diagnosis have risen dramatically in recent decades. However, there was no consensus that the rise represents an autism “epidemic” or even a true increase in the incidence of the disease . . . There was general agreement on the rate of ASD in the U.S. The U.S. estimate of 60-70 cases per 10,000 was derived from data from 14 different states. Illustrating some of the problems in case ascertainment, the rates among the states surveyed were highly variable, with New Jersey having an incidence of 107 per 10,000. In contrast, the rate in Alabama was 32-33 per 10,000, only 1/3 of the New Jersey rate.” (P. 52-53)
The average person would go to their local long-time teachers as I have done on many occasions and say something along the lines of, “You’ve been teaching in this district for more than thirty years. Do you remember having this many autistic kids in the past?” Inevitably, they’ll respond with something like “I went through nine years of teaching without ever hearing about a single autistic kid. Then I heard about one, but I never interacted with him. Then another ten years went by until we had another one. Now, they're all over the place.”
You look at each other, and maybe you say it, or maybe you don’t. But you both know. Something is going on.
Next you might wonder what the difference could be between New Jersey and Alabama and the first thing that would come to your mind would be access to medical care. You know it’s probably somewhat stereo-typical to say, but you’d have a general sense that people in New Jersey would have more access to doctors, and therefore it would be easier for them to get their children’s vaccinations done, than it would be in Alabama. You’d understand there might be other reasons, but differing vaccination rates would at least come to mind.
The most glaring example of this blindness to facts which would make the average person sit up and take notice is Colten Snyder himself. When Colten was 26 months old he had the communicative abilities of a 9 month old. After extensive treatment with Dr. Bradstreet, including dietary changes, IVIG treatments, and chelation, he became a normal 10 year-old. He is essentially "recovered." Even according to the government’s witness, Dr. Wiznitzer, none of his autistic patients have ever improved enough to lead a normal life as did Colten Snyder.
For reasons which continue to elude me, Special Master Vowell notes that “although Colten’s condition markedly improved between his diagnosis and the hearing, the experimental treatments he received cannot be logically or scientifically linked to the theories of causation.” (P. 3)
Later on she states that, “Rather than attributing Colten’s obvious improvements in speech, language, socialization, and behavior to the effects of IVIG, secretin, chelation, and/or dietary supplements, Dr. Wiznitzer noted that Colten’s developmental pattern was consistent with the natural history of autism in that those with the disorder are at their worst at the second or beginning of the third year of life. Speech therapy improved his speech, and Colten’s normal intelligence permitted him to benefit substantially from speech and language therapy.” (P. 256)
However, Colten’s “miracle-worker” speech therapist, Katherine Timlin only worked with Colten for 30 minutes, twice a week, and while she didn’t testify directly on the efficacy of the bio-medical treatments, it was clear she believed they were key to his recovery.
Let’s put this into the perspective of the common person. Let’s assume you go to the doctor’s office for a routine check-up and your physician finds something a little troubling in your results. She does some additional tests, and find you’ve developed an aggressive cancer which she predicts will kill you in six months. You go in for surgery to remove the cancer, and have radiation and chemotherapy.
Six months later you’re at a party and a friend inquires about your health. “Oh, I’m cancer-free according to every test they can give me,” you tell him.
“You must feel great about your treatment,” your friend replies.
You shrug your shoulders and say, “I’m not really sure it did anything. I think the cancer might have just gone away on its own.”
Your friend would laugh in your face.
I’ve tried to figure out how to explain this decision, and the best I can come up with is an example from the book, “Blink” by Malcom Gladwell. In the book Gladwell recounts the difficulty female musicians had in being hired by professional orchestras, particularly for the wind instruments. They were thought to lack the lung capacity of men. But when the auditions began to use screens, so the conductors couldn’t see the gender of the person playing, the number of women hired by professional orchestras increased five-fold.
Now the conductors would probably have sworn they were free of sexism, and may have truly believed it, but something else was clearly at work. Although the claim was made that they were simply listening to the music and picking the best people, the different results obtained after the use of the screens showed a significantly different mental process going on.
I can only conclude that something similar is at work in the minds of the Special Masters, and perhaps many people who will look at what we allege. Despite their efforts to carefully weigh the evidence, something else is tipping the scales. I don’t believe it’s money, at least in the crudest sense of the word. It’s money in the sense that it’s built the entire edifice and world-view in which the Special Masters are looking at these claims.
The inability to conceive of the idea that something has gone terribly wrong with this generation of children blinds them to see the facts which show something clearly has. I say this without malice towards the Special Masters, but I believe the prejudices they brought with them to the courtroom have prevented them from seeing any of the facts which support our beliefs.
It's only by understanding the depth of such unconscious prejudice that after years of hearing similar stories of regression after vaccination, and in this case, the recovery of a child that even the government's witness asserts is beyond anything he's ever seen that a magistrate could write as Special Master Vowell does that, "To conclude that Colten's condition was the result of his MMR vaccine, an objective observer would have to emulate Lewis Carroll's White Queen and to believe six impossible (or, at least, highly improbable) things before breakfast." (P. 278)
The father of one of my friends converted to Catholicism as an adult and was thus able to rise to the position of deacon. When my friend was eight-years-old he was molested by a priest. He told his father. His father responded by beating him for lying. Today we acknowledge that priests and other adults in charge of children can abuse them, but at the time such a thought was not entertained. The clergy were pillars of the community. Times have changed. Perceptions have changed. People like my friend have entered the church and they have a different response to these claims. They understand that such things do happen.
I don’t know if that means we'll need people with common sense, like Buckley's "first 400 members listed in the Boston telephone directory", who believe things can gone terribly wrong, so that when they see evidence of it they’ll act upon it. Or if there’s a way to change the dynamic like the screens for professional musicians, so it is truly an unprejudiced decision. Will we have to call the disorder something different than "autism"? Will we have to refer to the shots as something other than "vaccines"? I don't know.
But we need to find an answer to these questions or we will not prevail in the future.
Kent Heckenlively is Legal Editor of Age of Autism
Kent, I have a question -- something I'm not clear on. For the rest of the 4,900 cases -- those that don't choose to opt out now -- what is the impact of these decisions? Will the other cases still be heard by judges? But these scientific questions are considered closed/decided? Can the other claimants present new evidence?
Thanks for this article!
John Fryer, I like your list!
Posted by: Twyla | February 23, 2009 at 11:47 PM
Hi
Yes COMMON SENSE, COMMON SENSE and more COMMON SENSE.
SCIENCE today uses STATISTICS and when STATISTICS are in use SCIENCE becomes more SEANCE than SCIENCE.
Dont forget the 6 IMPOSSIBLE things to believe before breakfast:
1 Mercury is not toxic
2 Ethyl mercury is not as toxic as methyl mercury and is completely different and totally harmless to one day infants
3 Practical experiments are not SCIENCE. So when you see a growing cell destroyed its not true.
4 The similarity of autism and mercury poisoning of more than 100 clinical signs is just an illusion.
5 Children that get better when treated for mercury posioning didn't have autism even though they were diagnosed and rediagnosed as autistic.
6 Only doctors that believe mercury is non toxic should be listened to
NO it must be COMMON SENSE, COMMON SENSE and only COMMON SENSE
Posted by: John Fryer | February 18, 2009 at 06:23 AM
"highly-educated people can make spectacularly bad decisions"
So many articulate posts here in the last few days - and then this one by Kent.
I had the pleasure of hearing Gladwell speak on this topic recently - he told the story of the Kuros, and how in the end, it took no more than a split second for art historian Evelyn Harrison to see it for the fake that it was. Meanwhile, it had taken the scientists months to (mistakenly) verify it's authenticity. She laid her reputation on the line based on "gut feeling" - she knew what she was looking at - reams of data, teams of experts, months of analysis - in a heartbeat she knew they were all wrong.
The current "time to move on" attitude is the fake Kuros sitting in the living room - Harrison would be like the autism mom walking into that same room - she would know crap when she sees it.
Posted by: Randy | February 17, 2009 at 01:58 PM
Thankyou Kent for your perfectly appropriate article. We need to replace the phrase scientific concensus with the term RITUALIZATION OF SCIENCE. The Masters cannot be objective because their view of vaccines has long ago left the realm of logic and reality and they have listened to the priests in white coats, who know not what they do.
By unusual coincidence, on the very day of the Omnibus decisions, for the first time in 37 years of running my school, a mother brought to my school a nearly newborn baby. She pulled down the blanket so that I could see the little one better and suddenly I was horrified and aghast. That tiny baby was so delicate, so small, so different from an adult human or even the 2 year olds in my school. To imagine that every day tiny babies like that are given injections of foreign materials and chemicals and mercury and aluminum and simply because they manage to survive, those injections are deemed "safe". A sight that should have brought me joy brought me horror instead. Later my horror turned to anger as I thought of my young daughter; If she had remained a pediatrician, she would have had to carry out those injections mandated by some high priest of medicine and one day been stricken with remorse.
We'll just keep fighting for the truth in the best way we know
Posted by: Cherry Sperlin Misra | February 17, 2009 at 12:51 PM
Mr. Heckenlively gave an excellent analysis of the case. Blindness to scientific facts when it comes to "alternative medicine" is nothing new. We have a medical system in which over 500,000 are killed every year due to the medications or treatments they receive. (http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2004/mar2004_awsi_death_01.htm)
Yet, if there is even ONE death from some alternative treatment or herb (think MaHuang which was removed from the shelves about 3 years ago because of one death in Florida), headlines are everywhere and with no counterbalancing viewpoint. When Merck's Vioxx was linked to 60,000 deaths, it made headlines for a few weeks and then not much further news! Do you see the duplicity here?
We are ALWAYS hearing about the need to "control" this disease and "control" that disease (e.g., hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis pain, etc.), but never allowed to hear how to REVERSE such conditions with natural medicine. We are never allowed to hear about the hundreds of thousands of lives that could be saved by exposure to adequate sunshine (http://tompetrie.net/id8.html). Again, our minds are being controlled by what we are allowed to hear! But if you're smart, you'll TURN OFF your television and do some independent research and study!
Lack of logic is really not the issue. It is dishonesty and intellectual laziness that is, in my opinion, more at issue. Like one writer noted, how can mercury in fish be dangerous, but mercury in vaccines (or in Hg amalgam fillings --and they're 48-52 percent mercury!) are absolutely harmless! It's the principle of the lie: tell it often enough and no matter what evidence is presented, the truth can't win.
Ask to see an autistic child who has NEVER been vaccinated and they can't be produced! Even the Amish of Pennsylvania have only 2 cases and they were BOTH ADOPTED children, vaccinated BEFORE then moved in with their adoptive parents. Now why can't judges see the truth? It's called bias and the power of the "popular opinion."
Perhaps we should consider the quote of John F. Kennedy who had this to say in 1962 (Yale commencement speech, June 11):
"As every past generation has had to disenthral itself from an inheritance of truisms and stereotypes, so in our time must we move on from reassuring repetition of stale phrases to a new, difficult, but essential confrontation with reality."
"For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived and dishonest--but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forbears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."
We need independent thinking and with the brainwashing of the "corporate controlled media", this independent thinking will be hard to come by. That is why articles like this need to be spread far and wide! And the next time there's a protest march in Trenton (or another city), parents need to be there in mass not a mere 100 like at a march in Albany this past summer! American families really need to turn off their televisions, wake up and smell the deception!
Posted by: Tom, nutritionist | February 17, 2009 at 07:22 AM
To: TheTruthIsOutThere
I have seen your same comment on so many ND nutjob sites...seriously, get a new opening line. We're bored already!
Posted by: Julie Swenson | February 17, 2009 at 01:24 AM
PhillyLisa, my daughter did not "naturally progress" either. We began biomed a few months ago and she went from cranky and miserable with circles under her eyes to happy, calm, and alert. At age six she is still nonverbal and not potty-trained; that hasn't changed yet, but we were at a park today and one child climbed on a toy train and sang "All aboard the Choo-Choo Train!" like the song on the Disney Channel. A bunch of children went running to "board" the toy train. My daughter with autism was one of them. Instead of fixating on the holes in the steps of the playground equipment like she would have done six months ago, she was TRYING to play with the other children.
She also blew out all six candles on her birthday cake a few days ago. Last year she still did not even have the concept of "birthday".
We have a ways to go, but I am daring to hope that her future is not as bleak as I once thought it would be.
Posted by: Chris | February 17, 2009 at 01:16 AM
Twyla -
I am very aware that there is danger of discouragment right now. Things are not going very well for children with autism, and the state I live in is no exception. Schools appear to be trying to balance their budgets at the expense of special education. The autism insurance mandate has failed (for the moment) in my state. Then we have these misguided decisions from the vaccine court. All of these assaults coming so close together in time can easily lead to discouragement.
It doesn't last very long here at AoA. Articles and comments tend to be encouraging, just when we all need encouragement. The point of my previous comment was for all of us to be careful to avoid overcompensating and going in the other direction (overconfidence). Let's all hope that the other side succumbs to overconfidence and makes plenty of mistakes that our side can exploit.
I will never give up advocating for my daughter and attempting to recover her to the fullest extent possible.
Posted by: Carolyn M. | February 16, 2009 at 10:39 PM
Sadly, the Special Masters in this case did not view the evidence objectively, but decided to view the evidence through the lense of scientific consensus. Because "consensus" says it is so, it must be so. This is not how science is supposed to be.
TheTruthisOutThere, one of the things that separated the human race from animals, the civilized from the barbaric, is the ability to have a disagreement of opinion without malice or ridicule.
So, looking at your openly mocking tone, what does that tell us about you? There are ways to disagree without being an ass.
Posted by: Caro | February 16, 2009 at 06:29 PM
What is wrong with these judges?!? They can’t even see that there has been an actual increase in autism?? It is so frustrating for people like this to have the kind of power they have. And they blindly believe that their prejudice is scientific skepticism.
In some ways it was too bad to start off with just a few test cases. If they heard a few hundred people telling similar stories of vaccine reactions followed by autistic regression accompanied by immune system issues (IBD, allergies, fevers, seizures, eczema, etc.) and often followed by improvements with biomedical treatments, maybe there would be more reason to think after a while, “Hmmm, maybe there’s something to this.” But no doubt their prejudices would still be strong enough to withstand all evidence that does not fit into their world view. At any rate, now they have voiced opinions which they will not want to change, because what prominent person wants to say, “I now see that I was wrong then.”
Carolyn & M. – I don’t see any danger of overconfidence. There is danger of discouragement right now. We need confidence, so that we do not give up.
Interesting article in Spectrum magazine this month about an interview with Dr. Bernadine Healy, BTW. I don’t think it is online yet.
To “TheTruthIsOutThere” – wow, what an impressive comment. Really showing your tremendous intellect – what fascinating information and ideas. You must be so proud.
Posted by: Twyla | February 16, 2009 at 04:31 PM
We need a jury and one that is not hand picked by the DOJ,HHS and CDC.
We know that the special masters were picked by the Bush administration so since the administration was pro-vaccine we know they most likely picked special masters that support this philosophy.
The decisions by the special masters do not have vibes of unbiased human beings.
Posted by: Richard | February 16, 2009 at 03:36 PM
@TruthIsOutThere, who wrote:
"David Taylor - Don't forget your tinfoil hat. "They" can read your brainwaves, you know...:
Thanks for the perfect example to support my point. You just uttered the equivalent of "zealot anti-vaccine parents looking for someone to blame and a government handout."
I hope you have more thought and openness in understanding the causes and treatment of autism than you show here.
Posted by: David Taylor | February 16, 2009 at 01:29 PM
Carolyn M. - You are correct; I was not trying to imply over confidence – I am sure we are on the same team. But, what I am implying that this is not a fight that our children can afford to lose. That this is a fight till the end and I honestly believe we will win. Did you read the Congressional Record? This was back in 2003 and should have been a catalyst for this continued fight.
There are a ton of parents like myself who will endeavor (until I’m dead) until the truth prevails. It is nothing about being over confident, but a plain fact that one should never ever underestimate driven parents protecting their children. The gloves are off, that’s nature at its core.
We are not going away, EVER. And that is not over confidence; that is a fact.
Posted by: M | February 16, 2009 at 11:56 AM
Adding to the discussion about Alabama vs. New Jersey autism rates, and reinforcing what Sorsha says, last year New Jersey's Public Health Council went as far as to make it mandatory for all children to get the flu shot before they enrolled in preschools. Here is a quote:
"New Jersey children who attend any public or private school or day care facility are currently required to have 35 doses of 13 vaccines, including an annual flu shot starting at the age of 6 months. The New Jersey government mandates more vaccines than any other state in the country and is the first government in the world to mandate flu and meningococcal shots."
(http://newstranscript.gmnews.com/news/2009/0128/front_page/032.html)
Posted by: WE SHALL OVERCOME | February 16, 2009 at 11:48 AM
vaccines required for school entry vary greatly from state to state, depending on how much money the state can allocate for mandated vaccinations. Why might NJ have greater numbers of vaccine-related autism than Alabama? We all know NJ mandates more vaccines than any state in the Union. Alabama requirements don't even list Prevnar, flu, hep B or Hep A. In addition, Alabama requires fewer doses of DTaP, HiB and Varicella for school entry. This might well explain why Alabama students are better off. Less vaccines = less autism.
Posted by: Sorsha | February 16, 2009 at 11:10 AM
M -
You may not have meant it this way, but your "Get ready for a fight we can't lose" appears to be much too overconfident. We need to avoid overconfidence. Overconfident people make mistakes, frequently serious ones. We cannot afford serious mistakes.
We want our opponents to make the serious mistakes. We want them to underrate us as opponents because if they do so we will have an advantage. We must also be able to capitalize on our opponents mistakes, and use them to the best effect possible for us and our children.
Posted by: Carolyn M. | February 16, 2009 at 11:07 AM
David Taylor - Don't forget your tinfoil hat. "They" can read your brainwaves, you know...
Posted by: TheTruthIsOutThere | February 16, 2009 at 10:51 AM
Kent,
Thanks for your thoughts and ideas. Your analogies are perfect and help guide a better understanding. This decision was just so disappointing on many levels but especially due to blatant bias.
We have many factors to work against, including the obvious: money, power, deception, but there is what I have always seen as the charming minister phenomenon (if you have seen Robert Mitchum, ie "good: "evil" in "Night Of The Hunter"- you will get this) but it is the idea that people will believe whatever is told to them if
if it fits into their world view.
We are seeing it with some of the people that work for organizations like ECBT or even AS -- the idea that a "historical life-saving vaccine" could cause this disability called autism, is just against what the tv preacher has told them. I don't think it is a money deal for all of these folks but an almost religious fanaticism that facts and science have not yet broken.(think Rosalynn Carter) It is the same process that produces prejudice in race, sexual preference, religion, political parties, etc. The roots lie in ignorance.
It may be that to win this war, the science will lead the way and those with an ability to understand will follow and others will continue to hear the siren of that tv minister(s), until those deceptive ministers are dismantled, piece by piece.
I think we are on that road now.
Posted by: Teresa Conrick | February 16, 2009 at 10:38 AM
All of you, PLEASE Google “Congressional Record – Extension of Remarks May 21st, 2003 – Pages E1027-1030” which is called “Mercury in Medicine Report – Hon. Dan Burton of Indiana in the House of Representatives.” Read it -
Page E1030 Conclusion: THE CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE NOTES…
“However, the Committee, upon a thorough review of the scientific literature and internal documents from the government and industry, did find evidence that thimerosal did pose a risk.
Thimerosal used as a preservative in vaccines is likely related to the autism epidemic. This epidemic in all probability may have been prevented or curtailed had the FDA not been asleep at the switch regarding the lack of safety data regarding injected thimerosal and the sharp rise of infant exposure to this known neurotoxin. Our public health agencies’ failure to act is indicative of institutional malfeasance for self-protection and misplaced protectionism of the pharmaceutical industry.”
Please remember that Congress already came to its conclusion that there was something mighty wrong here. We can’t be foolish to allow three Special Masters who serve the same government that mandates the vaccinations to close this matter. Ultimately, we will have to bring our cause in front of a jury, within the eyes of the American public where we will have the openness of discovery procedures and fairness. Just recently look how they are trying to modify the Combat Autism Act so as not to allow continued research in vaccinations – much to hide.
The more you research this issue and understand our American governmental history (WMD comes to mind very quickly), it is very oblivious that our government cannot be trusted to tell the truth. It seems that the only way we will probably learn the truth, will be in an actual court of law and not some “dog and pony show” orchestrated by Special Masters who also work for that same government.
Folks, the gloves are off. Get ready for a fight we can’t lose, nor will lose in behalf of our children. “Don’t Stop - Keep Pushing.”
M -
For “A” and so many Others
Posted by: M | February 16, 2009 at 09:27 AM
Kent, great analysis. We know these special masters got it wrong, wrong and wrong again; the real question is how and why. I think you offer some of the best explanations and analysis I've come across, ones that should help us digest (rather than simply gag on) these rulings and move forward. Best, Dan.
Posted by: dan olmsted | February 16, 2009 at 08:53 AM
Dr. James Coplan, the one who blames David Kirby for the death of the Hib baby, promotes that "natural history of ASD" nonsense as well. Following this theory, my highly intelligent nine-year-old should have had her worst symptoms at age two and should have recovered by now. Instead her autistic symptoms grew increasingly worse, despite her natural intelligence, reaching a low point at age seven. We saw no significant improvement until after we began alternative treatments and therapies, the kind of things these doctors like to call "experimental." The difference is like night and day. It's frightening to think what might have happened if we had not begun this course of treatment. Two years ago, the school psychiatrist thought she should be on Haldol. A teacher at at her previous school was suggesting ADHD drugs. I look back on the hell we experienced as a family and it seems like it was all a horrible dream. We were losing our daughter. Now, two years later, we're recovering her.
Posted by: PhillyLisa | February 16, 2009 at 08:34 AM
Anger = fear and indignation. Fear turns neighbors into enemies. And fear can be taught.
"How DARE they question the system. sotte voce.... "and what if they're right, my grandbaby is due next month."
Posted by: Stagmom | February 16, 2009 at 08:30 AM
Mark--
Shared your article with my wife, who made a good point: The blindness of Special Master Vowell that resists logic, evidence and even common sense is a condition and we all share--even us in this movement. Although our blinders have been lifted when it comes to the role of vaccines in our children's illness, we still can wear those blinders when it comes to other issues.
Example: Kristi and I also work on the 9/11 Truth issue. It is stunning that so many Americans whom we admire, including journalists working on the autism issue, cannot bring themselves to entertain the possibility that anything but the official conspiracy theory (Arab hijackers with box cutters) could be possible.
These are the same officials saying vaccines are safe for everyone and Bradstreet didn't really recover that Colten Snyder, yet the blinders remain. These folks remain safe and comfortable, their worldview unchallenged.
So before we rail against the Special Masters and the heavily tinted lenses through which they viewed our children's cases, I hope that we can see clearly what we are up against: Not only greed, fear and the intransigence that comes with power. But also a part of the human condition--an unconscious control mechanism that makes us prefer the warm cocoon of ignorance over the harsh and unforgiving light of truth.
I challenge all autism parents: Can you look at a set of evidence that challenges your worldview and overcome your blindness better than the Special Masters? Here is a test:
Survivors & Family Members for 9/11 Truth
http://patriotsquestion911.com/survivors.html
Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth
http://www.ae911truth.org/
Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth
http://rl911truth.org/
Firefighters for 9/11 Truth
http://firefightersfor911truth.org/
Pilots for 9/11 Truth
http://pilotsfor911truth.org/
Military, Intelligence & Government Officials for 9/11 Truth
http://patriotsquestion911.com/
Lawyers for 9/11 Truth
http://www.l911t.com/
Posted by: David Taylor | February 16, 2009 at 08:18 AM
I have read these decisions and the one thing that stands out for me is the vitriol that is evident in the evaluation of the experts that support the vaccine-autism link. It just seems way over the top. Further, I can't imagine another medical mystery where the first hand accounts of parents are given no credence. Thousands of stories that are the same or substantially the same is compelling evidence that will not continue to be brushed aside.
Posted by: Mike | February 16, 2009 at 08:07 AM
Thank you for this insightful analysis, Mark. Gives us good talking points when discussing these decisions in general and this one in particular.
Posted by: David Taylor | February 16, 2009 at 07:26 AM
What exactly is the "natural history" of autism that Dr. Wiznitzer speaks of. Should all ten year olds be recovered. Mine isn't. How does he explain Sky Walker?
I have to disagree and believe that money is at the root of all of this. Maybe not directly to the special masters but to their bosses who are politically appointed. Besides, getting a fair trial from employees of HHS is like asking OJ's mother if OJ is innocent. We need a jury.
Posted by: maggie | February 16, 2009 at 06:43 AM