Mark and David Geier (father and son)

[nicole]

From the Chicago Tribune:[/b][/size]

Physician team's crusade shows cracks
Dr. Mark Geier and son David tout powerful drug Lupron, but scientists see serious flaws in their research

Dr. Mark Geier has, he says, solved the riddle of autism. He says he has identified its cause and, in the powerful drug Lupron, found an effective treatment -- what he calls a "major discovery."

But behind Geier's bold assertion is a troubling paper trail that undercuts his portrayal of himself as a pioneer tilting against a medical establishment that refuses to embrace his novel ideas.

Time and again, reputable scientists have dismissed autism research by Geier and his son, David, as seriously flawed. Judges who have heard Mark Geier testify about vaccines' harmful effects have repeatedly called him unqualified, with one describing his statements as "intellectually dishonest."

"Dr. Geier may be clever," another wrote, "but he is not credible."

A physician and genetic counselor by training, Geier, 61, presents himself as the scientist who has unraveled autism's mystery, a claim that has won him a devoted following. He and his son tie the neurodevelopmental disorder to a mercury-based preservative called thimerosal, which has been removed from childhood vaccines except for some flu shots.

The Geiers have won support from the parents of autistic children who share their suspicion of the medical community, even though mainline scientists criticize their views. Parents who have used the Lupron treatment also praise the Geiers, and Mark Geier said scores of severely autistic children are improving steadily.

In appearances at conferences and seminars, the two operate as something of a tag team. The elder Geier is spontaneous and outspoken. He has called the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention a "rogue organization." Federal health officials, he said, are lying about vaccines that contain mercury. "We have thousands of internal documents showing the level of harm. ... This is the greatest catastrophe in the history of the Western world," he said at a recent autism conference.

David Geier, 28, who holds only a bachelor's degree in biology, is the wonky straight man, using a laser pointer to highlight data. He has put off ambitions of a medical degree or other doctorate in favor of working in what has become a family business, doing research and administrative tasks, Mark Geier said.

But the Geiers have been widely criticized for both their methods and their treatment. In 2003, the American Academy of Pediatrics concluded that a Geier study finding a link between vaccines and autism was marred by "numerous conceptual and scientific flaws, omissions of fact, inaccuracies, and misstatements."

The following year, the Institute of Medicine concluded in a report that the purported connection between mercury in vaccines and autism did not exist. The government-sanctioned committee of scientists reserved harsh words for the Geiers' work, saying their research was "uninterpretable" and marred by "serious methodological problems."

Abbott Laboratories, which sells Lupron in the U.S., once applied for a patent with the Geiers through a now-defunct joint venture with another drug company, yet never pursued work with them. A spokeswoman for the North Chicago-based company said there was no scientific evidence to justify further research.

Court records show that judges also have become increasingly wary of Mark Geier, who has testified close to 100 times in vaccine-related cases presided over by "special masters" in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. In what's commonly called "vaccine court," Geier testifies on behalf of parents seeking compensation for injuries their children allegedly suffered from reactions to thimerosal in vaccines.

In one such case, the special master called Geier's testimony "seriously intellectually dishonest." In another, Geier was termed "a professional witness in areas for which he has no training, expertise and experience."

The Geiers are not dissuaded by the criticism. Mark Geier said the courts are biased against him and that the medical establishment is more concerned about preserving drug companies' profits than about protecting children. "There's no question this will turn out to be true," Mark Geier said in an interview, referring to the vaccine-autism connection.

He predicts that the parents of autistic children will face lives filled with frustration and grief if his theories are not given a fair hearing and his Lupron treatment is not followed. "If we don't do something about these kids that are now filling our school systems, they are not going to die," he testified. "They're going to grow up, and they're not going to work, and they're going to need to be institutionalized, and it's going to be a tremendous strain on our world-leading society."

Federal judges, however, have said Geier is not qualified to make such claims or to treat autistic children. In one case, the judge concluded, "there is no evidence that Dr. Geier has either the training or the background to diagnose autism or to treat autism in any child."

Related articles/sites:

- Should the Geiers be granted a patent on Lupron?
- LUPRON VICTIMS HUB
- Dr. Peter Rosi places blame on some parents for their babies' deaths [Dr. Peter Rosi is the longest-serving physician in Dr. Eisenstein's practice]
- Why not just castrate them?
- Why not just castrate them? (Part 2): The mainstream media finally notices the Geiers' Lupron protocol
- Why not just castrate them? (Part 3): The Eisenstein Homefirst connection
- Why not just castrate them? (Part 4): Dan Olmsted has a very short memory
- Generations of imbeciles White Coat Underground
- Do the Geiers hate autistic children? White Coat Underground
- Is lupron just a chemical restraint?
- The Lupron "Protocol", or Experimenting on Autistic Kids for Fun and Profit
- Chemical castration for autism: After three years, the mainstream media finally notices

---

From Science-Based Medicine by Dr. Steven Novella[/size]

"They [the Geiers] have made a career publishing bogus studies claiming to show a statistical correlation between vaccine and autism. Their studies crumble under peer-review, however. They have also spent a lot of time as expert witnesses for attorneys suing over vaccine injury. Their worst contribution to anti-vaccine nonsense, in my opinion, is a recent study in which they are treating autistic children with Lupron and chelation therapy. They were only able to get approval for this ethically dubious study by putting together their own IRB board packed with cronies."

[mnballetmom]

Geier gets kicked out as an expert witness, once again:

www.pointoflaw.com/archives/2009/05/another-nail-in.php
amlawdaily.typepad.com/blackwell.pdf

[kwombles]

Autism's False Prophets by Paul offit is well worth the read as a starting point in researching some of these individuals.

[kwombles]

conwebwatch.tripod.com/stories/2005/medicine.html

On the journal the Geiers published in:

"The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons seems to be little more than a conservative publication gussied up with a medical spin. A look at the references in the illegal-alien report, written by Madeleine Pelner Cosman -- a "medical lawyer" whose previous claim to fame appears to be a book on medieval cooking but who has also written an article for a group called Jews For The Preservation of Firearms Ownership -- is chock full of hardline conservative cites, including books by Michelle Malkin and former WND writer (and Slantie winner) Jon Dougherty and articles by Phyllis Schlafly and Tom DeWeese.

The lineup of articles for the edition of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons in which Cosman's article appears raises more flags. One article is by Andrew Schlafly, who is promoting the idea of a link between abortion and breast cancer, another by Bruce Schlafly. Does that name sound familiar? Yup -- Andrew and Bruce are the sons of Phyllis Schlafly, the longtime conservative activist. The latest book by Ann Coulter is also reviewed, which claims that "Liberalism (socialism), one of the most disastrous sets of ideas ever conceived, is at war with civilization." Makes one wonder about the peer review the journal claims to have.

In fact, the journal appears to have a highly malleable opinion of peer review, approving of it only when it suits its purposes. It sells a video that attacks what it calls "sham peer review" targeted at what it calls "disruptive doctors" (whose characteristics include "highly competent," "independent thinker" and "politically incorrect").

In 2003, the journal changed its name from the Medical Sentinel. The change was made, according to a press release, because it "more accurately represents the organization as a non-partisan professional association." (Certainly it's no coincidence that the new sounds a lot more highfalutin in the manner of the Journal of the American Medical Association.) Problem is, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), publisher of the journal, appears to be quite partisan.

AAPS members include Ron Paul, the libertarian Texas congressman, and Michael Arnold Glueck and Robert J. Cihak, who write the "Medicine Men" column for NewsMax (and used to write it for WorldNetDaily). Another NewsMax writer, Miguel A. Faria Jr., is a former editor of the journal. Andrew Schlafly, mentioned above, is AAPS' general counsel.

AAPS has done its share of Clinton-bashing. It was one of the groups that sued to force the release the names of those who advised Hillary Clinton's health care task force, and in 2003, it filed an amicus brief pressing for the public release of photos of former Clinton deputy counsel Vincent Foster taken following his 1993 suicide, something WND and NewsMax have agitated for to prove their theory that Foster was murdered, presumably at the direction of the Clintons, despite the fact that no less an a authority than conservative independent counsel Kenneth Starr ruled the death a suicide. (NewsMax's Christopher Ruddy, if you'll recall, wrote a conspiracy-theory book about Foster that even Ann Coulter dismissed as a "conservative hoax book.") An AAPS article argues no medical reason for doing so, just a vague statement that "[g]overnment needs to be held accountable."

Not surprisingly, with such support of conservative causes, AAPS has received much uncritical attention from the ConWeb. A December 2000 WorldNetDaily profile lovingly describes it as "supporting free-market principles in the world of health care." WND editor Joseph Farah said of the group in October 2000: "These people understand what government intrusion has meant to health care in this country."

NewsMax even offered its own endorsement of AAPS in a November 2004 article, after the American Medical Association suggested pulling the medical license of Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher for signing the execution warrant of a convicted murderer: "We suggest Kentucky and other states dump any association with AMA and consult with the far more sensible Association of American Physicians and Surgeons."

Beating up on the AMA is a favorite AAPS pastime. In a series of May 2001 NewsMax essays, Faria bashed the AMA for "joining the gun prohibitionist movement," allegedly skewing the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) for supporting "the emotionalism, rhetoric, and political correctness (and particularly so with fashionable and trendy issues) championed by the mass media" (as if the AAPS journal's anti-immigrant rant didn't follow its own conservative correctness), and opposing conservatives' idea of tort reform.

AAPS hewed to the conservative line in the Terri Schiavo case, unquestioningly promoting "allegations of spousal abuse that may have caused Terri's initial injury," linking to the deposition of William Hammesfahr -- he of the bogus Nobel Prize nomination -- and filing two amicus briefs on Terri Schiavo's behalf.

An AAPS newsletter titled "Why Terri Schiavo Had to Die" quotes a former AAPS president claiming that the Schiavo case "took on the trappings of the ‘final decision’ in the Roman Colosseum in the days of the gladiators":

When one of the gladiators was disarmed, he knelt in front of the victor, who looked to the crowd and the royal elite for their decision: thumbs up or thumbs down. The American public, according to television polls that described her condition inaccurately, was 80% in favor of killing Terri. The judicial elite, playing to the fervor of the crowd, showed thumbs down.
AAPS filed an amicus brief supporting Rush Limbaugh in his fight to keep his medical records private amid charges of doctor-shopping to obtain pain medication, claiming that the state of Florida's seizure of the records was "a violation of state law and an effort at 'Big Brother scrutiny' that will chill doctor-patient relations for all Floridians."

Also on the pain-pill front, AAPS has been an excuse-maker for William Hurwitz, a Virginia doctor specializing in chronic pain relief recently sentenced to 25 years in prison on drug-trafficking charges, essentially taking the view that relieving pain at all costs is a higher goal than the ethical and addictive implications of handing out OxyContin and morphine like candy. AAPS executive director Jane M. Orient wrote in a January commentary reprinted by United Press International and NewsMax:

Hurwitz was accused of being responsible for an epidemic of drug abuse in Virginia and many other states. Now that he's been shackled and carted off to prison, possibly for life, prosecutors may be popping champagne corks and preparing new indictments.

The effect on the illegal prescription-drug traffic in Virginia because he has been convicted will be precisely zilch.
Then again, a couple people might also still be alive. But Orient fails to point out examples of Hurwitz's negligence, such as a patient dying after he prescribed morphine to her in doses 40 times higher than anything she had previously received, other prescriptions for as much as 1,600 pain pills a day, or prosecutors’ claims that Hurwitz knowingly turned a blind eye to patients who were obvious drug addicts and drug dealers and that his waiting room was at times filled with stoned, sleeping patients with track marks on their arms from drug abuse.

That kind of selective memory, like its selective support of peer review, seems to be a membership requirement for being in the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. It's a trait that sure makes AAPS fit in well with the ConWeb."

[kwombles]

“Dr. Geier and Mr. Geier presented to the committee an unpublished analysis of the VSD data. Only one slide depicted this information, and it demonstrated an increasing relationship between autism relative risk and amount of thimerosal. The basis of this calculation was not provided and additional data and methods were not described. Overall, the committee found the results of their analyses using VSD data uninterpretable, primarily due to the lack of a complete description of their methods, specifically in how they determined whether individuals belonged to the unexposed or exposed group. Given this lack of clarity, it is unclear how the incidence rate and the estimate of the relative risk could be calculated. The committee finds the results uninterpretable and, as such, noncontributory with respect to causality. “

Immunization Safety Review Committee(CB). Immunization Safety Review: Vaccines and Autism.
Washington, DC, USA: National Academies Press, 2004. p 52.
site.ebrary.com/lib/waldenu/Doc?id=10071429&ppg=66

[kwombles]

“The results of their studies are likewise improbable. For instance, in one study (Geier and Geier, 2003a), the R 2 was 0.98, suggesting that the thimerosal content of DTP vaccines (excluding all other TCVs) explains 98 percent of the variation in autism rates. The R 2 is improbably high and means that all other potential factors (e.g., genetic or environmental factors) only explain 2 percent of the variance in autism rates. Furthermore, the R 2 explains variation at the individual level; the authors’ calculations, however, are a line through averages. Using averages instead of individual points results in the disappearance of most of the variability in a data set (Nordin, 2004). As a result of these significant methodological limitations, the committee finds the results of their studies to be uninterpretable and, as such, they are noncontributory with respect to causality.”

Immunization Safety Review Committee(CB). Immunization Safety Review: Vaccines and Autism.
Washington, DC, USA: National Academies Press, 2004. p 62.
site.ebrary.com/lib/waldenu/Doc?id=10071429&ppg=76

Copyright � 2004. National Academies Press. All rights reserved

[nicole]

Great job, kwombles!!

[uscientist]

This comment is pending approval and won't be displayed until it is approved.

Giers exposed

www.chicagotribune.com/health/chi-autism-lupron-may21,0,242705.story
www.chicagotribune.com/health/chi-autism-lupron-geiers-may21,0,983359.story

[kwombles]

www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/22/lupron-autism-miracle-dru_n_206757.html?show_comment_id=24679745#comment_24679745


For a moment, I'd like to daydream: this article, this prominent rebuttal of all things Geiers will have a stunning ripple effect in the autism continuum. Parents who have latched onto the various biomedical woo-interventions will stop, step away from the HBOT, step away from chelation, away from Lupron, away from megadoses of vitamins, step away from vaccine fearmongering, and take a deep breath and reconsider everything. Reconsider and then begin to read any decent critical thinking text, a general psychology text or Malcolm Gladwell and Daniel Gardner (who do a fantastic job of explaining things to the layperson). Then, these parents will back away from GR and AoA fast, start reading Simon Baron-Cohen and other leading autism researchers. They will invest in texts that deal with operant conditioning, theory of mind, and social skills training. They will accept that cause of autism, now that they have a child with autism, isn't really relevant to them any more, what really matters is intense intervention for the child, working on eye contact, working on when it is appropriate to engage in stimming behavior and when it would be best to not do so, why it is important to comply with the requests of parents and teachers even when the child doesn't see a reason to, to work on social scripts so that the child will know what to say and when, and that it is okay to say, "I'm sorry, I don't understand."

[kwombles]

WTF? Maggiemom had a nice comment on there, we had a good exchange, and it's all disappeared except my I have a dream post.

Y'all get a minute, go post over there. Please! ;-)