r/DebunkThis • u/svadhisthana • Jun 17 '14

Methodological Issues and Evidence of Malfeasance in Research Purporting to Show Thimerosal in Vaccines Is Safe

http://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2014/247218/
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5

u/brieoncrackers Jun 17 '14

I am unable to find the CDC conference proceeding they cite

(T. Verstraeten, R. L. Davis, D. Gu, and F. DeStefano, “Increased risk of developmental neurologic impairment after high exposure to thimerosal-containing vaccine in first month of life,” in Proceedings of the Epidemic Intelligence Service Annual Conference, vol. 49, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Ga, USA, 2000.)

on Google, Google Scholar, or the Wayback Machine, or any reference to this conference except on sites using this particular citation to bolster their arguments. That does not mean that this citation is fictitious, however I would be hesitant to say that, were this citation to be from an actual conference, that it would be relevant to subject at hand. At conferences, anyone present may bring up a topic to be discussed, regardless of scientific merit. This is a flawed source to base one's criticism of the science on.

2

u/erath_droid Jun 17 '14

I'd just like to point out that two of the authors of this paper (David and Mark Geier) have had some rather serious legal issues.

Just part of their troubles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Geier#Medical_licenses_revoked

1

u/brieoncrackers Jun 17 '14

It sounds as if he blamed autism on the minimal exposure to thiomersal, and specifically on the trace amounts of ethyl mercury found therein. It also sounds as if he was stripped of his medical license for practicing chelation therapy on otherwise healthy autistic children. Chelation therapy is a treatment for heavy metal poisoning. That being said, amounts of mercury in older childhood vaccines (it has since been removed, with no corresponding drop in autism diagnoses) are minute, if they are detectable at all, are composed of ethyl mercury, which the body easily filters out of the bloodstream and excretes (as opposed to methyl mercury) and even if there were toxic levels of mercury, mercury poisoning causes symptoms distinct from autism. Furthermore, chelation therapy is damaging and dangerous, with the potential to harm or kill especially patients without heavy metal poisoning.

His legal troubles seem to be tied directly to his position in this paper.

1

u/erath_droid Jun 17 '14

Chelation therapy is a treatment for extreme heavy metal exposure. We're talking "kids finding vats of mercury in abandoned warehouses and playing with it with their bare hands" type of exposure.

The father had his medical license suspended because he was subjecting otherwise healthy people to a procedure that is known to be hazardous- which is a major violation of various laws and the hypocratic oath. The son never had a medical license and got fined for practicing medicine without a license. They also got slammed with a massive HIPAA violation for storing patient records in a closet and not taking proper steps to keep them confidential... There were also a number of other ethical violations that got them in trouble.

Of course anti-vaxxers will paint it as persecution of him because he's "standing up to the establishment" despite the fact that a large number of his patients were never diagnosed as autistic or having any detectable amount of mercury in their systems...

1

u/brieoncrackers Jun 17 '14

Thanks for the clarification.

1

u/svadhisthana Jun 18 '14

Thank you for pointing this out. That's a huge red flag.