The Deer Crusade and Collateral Damage
Thank you to Sheri Nakken for creating a site to house the insightful articles of Dr. Edward Yazbak.
From Articles by Dr. F. Edward Yazbak: F. Edward Yazbak, MD, FAAP of Falmouth, Massachusetts, practiced pediatrics and was a school physician in Northern Rhode Island for 34 years. He was formerly the Assistant Clinical Director of the Charles V. Chapin Hospital, a specialized infectious disease hospital and the Director of Pediatrics at the Woonsocket Hospital in Rhode Island. He was also the Pediatric Director of the Child Development Study, the Brown University division of the NINDB Collaborative Study and an assistant member of the Institute of Health Sciences at the University.
Since 1998, Ed has devoted his time to researching vaccine injury and the increased incidence and autoimmune causes of regressive autism focusing on maternal re-vaccination with live viruses.
Ed has been recognized as an expert witness on autism, pediatric disabilities, vaccine injury and Shaken Baby Syndrome. He has also published extensively.
Ed and Maureen, a pediatric nurse practitioner, have four children and twelve grandchildren. Their family like many others has been severely affected by autism.The Deer Crusade and Collateral Damage
By F. Edward Yazbak
Four years ago, on February 16, 2009 to be exact, Ms. Melanie Phillips wrote a long exposé in The Spectator titled “A deer in the headlights”[1] that started with the following paragraph:
“Eleven days ago, Brian Deer renewed his onslaught against Andrew Wakefield in the Sunday Times. I wrote about it here and made the point that, since Deer’s allegations sparked the General Medical Council case against Wakefield which would not have occurred without his involvement, he was effectively a principal player in the story he was reporting — a clear conflict of interest and breach of journalistic standards”
To which, Mr. Deer apparently reacted by stating:
“I did not lay the initial complaint against Wakefield. This allegation is a fabrication, albeit rather a small one in the MMR issue. The GMC asked me for my journalistic evidence arising from published stories. It was my public duty to supply my findings to this statutory regulator.”
Not being a journalist or a lawyer in England or elsewhere, I am not an expert on breach of British journalistic standards or on how journalists behave or should behave but it seems to me that it really does not make much difference whether Mr. Deer approached the GMC or whether the GMC approached him first. Either way, it seems peculiar that a medical regulatory group actually considered evidence obtained by a reporter in its investigation of a fitness to practice matter. In the United States, State Licensing Boards investigating physicians’ research issues are certainly not likely, to the best of my knowledge, to request information from a freelance “investigative reporter” or to consider any information offered by such a reporter.
I should quickly mention here that a British Court recently found fault with the GMC findings and reversed the GMC decision in favor of Professor John Walker-Smith.
After documenting and discussing in detail the GMC - Deer “Chicken and Egg” saga, Ms. Phillips went on to discuss the then recently published verdict in the Cedillo case.
According to the Phillips report, Mr. Deer apparently posted the following on the Left Brain Right Brain website:
That said, I’m also very proud that, like the GMC, the US government sought my help in mounting its case in Cedillo, copiously borrowing pages of evidence from my website and displaying some in court. I was surprised by this. I assumed that they would have sophisticated contacts with other governments and with industry, and could pretty much get what they wanted. However, on a number of occasions I would come home, find an email from the department of justice asking me for a document, and see that the next day it was being run in court. Bit of a seat of the pants job by the DoJ (brought about by the plaintiffs changing their case at the last minute). Indeed, I recall supplying a key document on the O’Leary lab business, which the DoJ didn’t seem to know about just weeks before the hearing. Hence the late surfacing of Bustin and Chadwick. It was me wot done that, and I’m glad. I don’t say these things to boast, only perhaps to wonder why — if there are all kinds of grand conspiracies behind the defence of vaccine safety — governments and regulators are so untogether that a mere journalist can get ahead of them in the game.
Intrigued by the statement that “The United States Government” had asked Mr. Deer for help, I submitted on April 14, 2010, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Department of Justice, (DOJ) for all communications by Mr. Deer.
On November 3, 2010, I received several documents from the Attorney in Charge of the FOI/PA unit at DOJ together with a cover letter informing me that he was releasing eleven pages but withholding four in order to “protect the personal privacy of an individual”. Attachments were also not released.
I should probably state here that I am a friend of the Cedillo family and that I am still convinced that the decision in Michelle’s vaccine injury compensation case was flawed. There are simply no genetic causes that could have resulted in so many serious multisystem complications in a child who was normal at birth and in the first year of life. At the very least and even discounting the serious gut disease and the positive measles virus Genomic RNA testing, Michelle’s severe unrelenting chronic arthritis that developed shortly after vaccination was undoubtedly an adverse event to the rubella component of the MMR vaccine she had received. In fact that specific complication has been a “Table Injury” for years and still is today.[2]
According to the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program,[3] the “Table” consists of “a list of injuries and conditions presumed to be caused by vaccines, and the time periods in which the first symptom of these injuries and conditions must occur after receiving the vaccine. Unless a different cause is found, the court presumes that the condition was caused by the vaccine if the first symptom occurs within the listed time periods.”
Like many, I am still wondering whether the Cedillo case had been destined for defeat when it was chosen to be the “first test case” of the Omnibus Hearings with 5,000 or so other cases waiting in line.
Anyway … All released e-mails from Mr. Deer to the DOJ were addressed to only one employee.
The very first e-mail was dated Tuesday April 3, 2007 at 11:44 AM and appeared to be a response to that employee’s request for information on how to obtain certain TV dispatches from the United Kingdom.
In that first e-mail, Mr. Deer explained how and where the TV
dispatches could be obtained and then casually volunteered:
The above certainly suggests that it was Mr. Deer who first offered to send his “long letter to the GMC” to the US Department of Justice.
In a follow-up e-mail to the same DOJ employee on Wednesday April 11, 2007 at 12:51 PM, [Subject: Letter to UK GMC] Mr. Deer wrote:
The above seems to suggest a scenario somewhat similar to that discussed by Ms. Phillips in “A deer in the headlights”. Mr. Deer can surely boast that the US Government (the DOJ representative) requested his letter to the GMC when in fact he had clearly offered the letter in his earlier message when he said: “You can have it.”
Now that was simply brilliant!
In that same April 11, 2007 e-mail, Mr. Deer went on to say:
Mr. Deer then ended his e-mail by:
Three comments would seem justified:
- The last sentence certainly suggests that Mr. Deer was at the very least concerned about distributing the information he had sent to the GMC
- RE the second statement in the e-mail of April 3rd:
A judge only released the children’s records in question to Mr. Deer in November 2006 for the sole purpose of defending a libel suit and for no other reason. One could argue that even mentioning them in an e-mail may have been inappropriate unless of course Mr. Deer’s last sentence “But I am not sure how this helps you” was a veiled hint to the DOJ lady to also “request” them, like she had seemingly requested the GMC letter.
3. RE: Mr. Deer’s own revelation that his original letter to the GMC actually contained “a number of highly general allegations”:
According to Webster, the definition of allegation is:
- The act of alleging
- A positive assertion; specifically : a statement by a party to a legal action of what the party undertakes to prove
- An assertion unsupported and by implication regarded as unsupportable <vague allegations of misconduct>
One can only presume that “highly general allegations” are even less reliable then regular Webster allegations. Mr. Deer’s “allegations” must have been if, as he wrote, the GMC lawyers needed to ask him “a number of very detailed questions” and … the very careful Attorney in Charge, FOI/PA unit at DOJ actually withheld the release of the complete e-mail attachment containing Deer’s letter to the GMC.
***
At 1:48 PM on April 11, 2007, less than an hour after that previous
e-mail, Mr. Deer sent a follow-up message to his DOJ contact [ Subject: “Your
request for information about Andrew Wakefield”] in which he volunteered:
Even if Mr. Deer actually believed that the US Government had asked for his help, the above can only suggest that Mr. Deer had now made himself a “principal player” in the Cedillo case, to borrow Ms. Phillips’ words. Because of his obsession with Dr. Wakefield, his personal crusade was now trampling the rights of an American family that he did not even know and that had never been involved in the British Brawl he had created.
Although all this was very sad, I did have to smile just imagining the Court scene with the DOJ attorney discussing MMR and Autism with Andy Wakefield.
***
There is little doubt that Mr. Deer’s information led to the “late surfacing of Bustin and Chadwick” at the Cedillo hearings. As I discussed in some detail in “Busting Rules”[4], there was plenty wrong with the ”late surfacing” of medical experts in such a high profile vaccine injury compensation case and really nothing wrong with the O’Leary test results that Deer’s friends tried to shoot down under oath.
My trust in the O’Leary test results was reinforced by a US study published in September 2008, after the Cedillo Hearings had concluded and before Special Master Hasting had filed his decision of February 12, 2009.[5]
That study[6] was sponsored by a CDC grant to the American Academy of Pediatrics and by NIH individual grants and conducted by expert researchers from Columbia University, Harvard University, the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics. The authors ran all their tests in three laboratories: The O’Leary lab in Ireland, a special Columbia University lab in New York and a CDC lab in Atlanta.
In their abstract, the authors stated: “Results were consistent across the three laboratory sites”. Later under Real-Time-PCR Assays the authors reiterated: “All laboratories correctly identified all positive controls … All laboratories correctly identified all negative controls.”
***
Recently, Mr. Deer published three articles in the BMJ and traveled to Wisconsin, Oxford and other places to discuss his “Investigations”.
That is all well and good if he can sleep at night and ignore the fact that his wild crusade against Dr. Wakefield resulted in extensive collateral damage. There is certainly nothing to be proud of about cheating an injured girl of her rights or about hurting a suffering family, thousands of miles away.
May be Mr. Deer can remember that when he looks in the mirror!
F. Edward Yazbak MD, Falmouth, Massachusetts
[1]http://web.archive.org/web/20120306180541/http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3362116/a-deer-in-the-headlights.thtml Accessed 2/16/2013
[2] http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/vaccinetable.html (Accessed 2/28/13)
[3] http://www.immunizationinfo.org/issues/immunization-policy/national-vaccine-injury-compensation-program-vicp (Accessed 2/28/13)
[4] http://www.vaccinationnews.com/busting-rules-f-edward-yazbak-part-2-3 (Accessed 2/28/13)
[5] http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/vaccine_files/Hastings-Cedillo.pdf (Accessed 2/28/13)
[6] http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0003140 (Accessed 2/28/13)
As usual, an excellent article by Dr. Yazbak. Everyone of his articles are masterpieces. I know him as a wonderful advocate for autism over the years and a down to earth decent human being. I'm proud to call him a friend of mine.
Thank you, Dr. Yazbak.
Posted by: Raymond Gallup | March 15, 2013 at 10:22 AM
Think I`ll pour myself a beck`s
Posted by: Angus Files | March 14, 2013 at 06:22 PM
Chadwick,lied,lied,lied,lied,and lied...LIAR!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vgQalXaIxs
Posted by: Angus Files | March 14, 2013 at 06:01 PM
I think it is understandably difficult for the US or any other country to comprehend the nature of the General Medical Council in the UK and its role in the examination of complaints against individuals within its profession, especially at the time of the Wakefield trial. However since the exoneration of Prof Walker Smith last year in the High Court, the GMC was, by necessity, forced to concede to its limitations as an examination board and advised to restructure its organisation and improve its level of expertise, which was exposed by the Court during WS's retrial as being woefully inadequate in certain such complex areas. In other words yes, they were originally a bunch of amateurs in a quasi legal situation and they had to become professionals. Let's hope they did it.
Posted by: Patricia | March 14, 2013 at 05:47 PM
Let's give Deer credit for Chadwick because as sure as eggs is eggs Chadwick lied in his declaration. He swore: "I [Chadwick] specifically asked Dr Wakefield not to include me on the list of authors of the Lancet paper because I was not comfortable with the fact that we had found lots of negative results for measles virus in tissues from the autistic children."
But in his court testimony Chadwick gave a different reason:
"Ms. Patton: Why isn't your name on the [Lancet] paper I just referenced?
Chadwick: Well, my name isn't on that because none of my data went into that paper. There was a manuscript which did use some data from Dr. Kawashima's lab, and I asked for my name to be taken off anything that was related to PCR data because I wasn't comfortable with the data."
The paper that Chadwick (presumably) asked for his name to be taken off of was a different paper, not the Lancet paper. The Lancet paper contained no PCR data at all.
Posted by: Carol | March 14, 2013 at 11:14 AM
Be aware,
Mr. Deer's invitations to "speak" at various venues is likely a "cover" for him entering the country to collaborate with DOJ and other "concerned" parties. He likely has been given private medical records of us citizens in vaccine court under cover of "court order" which is ludicrous in the US. You need to do a foi again.. There is certainly more now... They have to do what they did to Wakefield here now... Do not think they are not doing it.
Posted by: Notbuyingit | March 14, 2013 at 11:07 AM
Debra and Mark,
Indeed, this matter is also discussed by Melanie Phillips in 'A Deer in the headlights' referenced in this article.
http://web.archive.org/web/20120306180541/http:/www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3362116/a-deer-in-the-headlights.thtml
John
Posted by: John Stone | March 14, 2013 at 10:40 AM
from selective hearing 19min:35sec
www.youtube.com/watch?v=id_AxZ3zHAc
This is the letter that Deer wrote to the GMC on February 25th 2004 just 3 days after his article for the Sunday Times entitled “MMR research scandal”
“Following an extensive inquiry for the Sunday Times into the origins of the public panic over MMR, I write to ask your permission to lay before you an outline of evidence that you may consider worthy of evaluation with respect of the possibility of serious professional misconduct on the part of the above named registered medical practitioners”
Do these words sound like an approach to the GMC or a response?
Posted by: mark | March 14, 2013 at 10:29 AM
Deer remarks:
"That said, I’m also very proud that, like the GMC, the US government sought my help in mounting its case in Cedillo, copiously borrowing pages of evidence from my website and displaying some in court. I was surprised by this. I assumed that they would have sophisticated contacts with other governments and with industry, and could pretty much get what they wanted."
Or wasn't he just always the mule moving the contraband about for other people who were content to let him get his hands dirty?
Posted by: John Stone | March 14, 2013 at 10:00 AM
Thank you Dr. Yazbak!
Deer's actions in the Cedillo case show how monstrous he really is. And I am right there with Bob Moffitt; Deer was enabled by a legion of people who represented government and industry and who were willing to throw a child to the side to protect "The Program."
A government that partners with a man like Brian Deer to attack a disabled child's pursuit of justice is no different than the monster it partners with.
Posted by: Louis Conte | March 14, 2013 at 09:41 AM
I don't blame the moral and ethically bankrupt Brian Deer for boasting:
"It was me wot done that, and I’m glad. I don’t say these things to boast, only perhaps to wonder why — if there are all kinds of grand conspiracies behind the defence of vaccine safety — governments and regulators are so untogether that a mere journalist can get ahead of them in the game."
Unfortunately, there are many, many people .. in public health, pharmaceutical industry, academia .. national and local politics and media .. that should have "trouble sleeping at night" for their contributions to the "wild crusade against Dr. Wakefield" that has undoubtably resulted in the extensive collateral damage that has been done .. and .. continues to be done .. to thousands of families whose children suffer vaccine injuries.
In the grand scheme of things .. without the determined collaboration of those organizations .. Brian Deer's "allegations" would have been dismissed as casually as one would dismiss the dung clinging to their shoes after walking through the cow pasture.
Posted by: Bob Moffitt | March 14, 2013 at 06:56 AM
This is comment from Mr Deer
“I did not lay the initial complaint against Wakefield. This allegation is a fabrication, albeit rather a small one in the MMR issue. The GMC asked me for my journalistic evidence arising from published stories. It was my public duty to supply my findings to this statutory regulator.”
Yet in the excellent film SELECTIVE HEARING a letter is shown that states Mr Deer approached the GMC please see this film
Posted by: Debra | March 14, 2013 at 06:53 AM
The e-mails exchanged by Deer are all 'cyber-redacted' You can read them here:-
http://www.wellwithin1.com/The%20Deer%20Crusade%20and%20Collateral%20Damage.pdf
Posted by: Jenny Allan | March 14, 2013 at 06:03 AM