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Vaccine Court Judicial Conference: Panel Discussion Cancelled

Jul 3 2008 | Author: Sullivan

Filed Under Advocacy, autism | There are 2 comments.

Every year the Court of Federal Claims holds a " Judicial Conference " .

The point seems to be a good one: get the Special Masters (Judges) and

the lawyers together to discuss the system. The Vaccine court is

essentially non-adversarial and it is a pretty small community.

As noted in a letter from the Chief Special Master discussing this

year's Judicial Conference:

I believe wholeheartedly that the Bench and Bar must communicate

periodically to improve the system of justice. I believe this

Conference program – the panel discussions of general vaccine policy

issues and of the information underpinning vaccine compensation

decisions – can provide that important dialogue.

Sounds great. Let's face it, the community of professionals involved

is fairly small: a few Special Masters, a few law firms. The purpose

of the Vaccine Act was to make a non-adversarial program. They should

take advantage of that to make the system work as well as possible for

the people.

This year's Conference was going to be different: amongst other

events, they were going to hold a couple of panel discussions.

The first panel is tentatively titled " Vaccines: Balancing

Benefits with Parental Concerns (the autism issue?). " It will be

moderated by Sharyl Attkisson, a reporter with CBS Evening News. The

panelists will be Arthur , author of " Vaccines " ; Kirby,

author of " Evidence of Harm " ; Dr. Ed Marcuse, Professor of Pediatrics

at the University of Washington, who has served as a member and Chair

of HHS' National Vaccine Advisory Committee, and as a member of CDC's

Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices; and, Dr. Bernadine

Healy, Health Editor, TJS News and World Report and former Director of

the National Institutes of Health. There is no doubt that this

discussion will be lively and informative.

Yep, that's what Kirby has been talking about, to the point of

adding it to his bio for his recent speaking engagements.

Well, the word on the street is that this first panel has been can

canceled. There are no public details of why. I would not expect to

hear the details of " why " . That leaves the field open for people to

interpret as they will. We see way too much of that in the autism

community, so I'll try to stick to my own predictions and my own view

of the panelists.

I can already imagine the posts to the yahoo EOHarm group and other

places. I hope to be pleasantly surprised, but I suspect to hear talk

about how the subject was " too controversial " and how " controversial

reporters " are being kept from talking.

I don't know why this panel was canceled. I do know that I would not

have wanted to participate. It doesn't have anything to do with the

fact that there would be people, perhaps a majority, on the panel

whose opinions I disagree with. I agree that discussion is important,

and I think getting the right message out is vital. But I wouldn't

want to share the panel with people it has to do with the methods used

by some of the people on the panel.

So far, I have found Dr. Healy's comments to be without substance.

Notice that I didn't say without merit, but without substance. I've

heard vague statements about how people were " scared " to look for

susceptibility groups. I've heard about how the vaccine question was

put to rest " too soon " . Nothing that really backs those statements up;

they stand as opinions. Nothing about the actual science that

exists—especially about the lack of quality of the science that

purports to support the vaccine-causality question. I've heard

opinions, but not facts. I see someone who has made a minor media

splash, but not someone with autism credibility.

I honestly don't know why she was on the panel.

My major issue with the panel would have been the fact that it

included Mr. Kirby. While someone like Dr. Marcuse could be said to be

lending their credibility to the panel, Mr. Kirby would be using the

panel to enhance his own credibility.

Why should Kirby be be allowed to represent himself as an expert

(on similar footing as, say, Dr. Marcuse?) and add to his credibility

by being on this panel at all? Kirby is certainly no expert. He

has a book riddled with errors. He has blog post after blog post

demonstrating his lack of scientific acumen. The one thing he would

bring to the table would be his information about Hannah Poling. In

that he is an expert, but only because he is the only one given the

information. I don't see how his, well, interesting interpretations

would be of benefit to the members of the Court.

But, being wrong is the smaller issue. If you aren't wrong sometimes,

you aren't pushing the envelope. I am certainly wrong at times, as has

been demonstrated on this blog quite recently.

But when I am wrong, I am wrong in my quest to figure things out. If I

am correct, it is in the quest to figure things out. It isn't about

me. but asking and, hopefully sometimes, answering questions about

autism. (OK, and sometimes venting a little). One thing you will never

hear from me: " This isn't my crusade " . If I am wrong about vaccines, I

can't walk away. If I am demonstrably wrong about vaccines and autism,

you'll see me fighting hard on the other side. Autism isn't something

I can leave behind if a new book deal comes through. If someone leaks

a Court document to me, it won't be a boost to my career. And this

doesn't even touch on blog post after blog post misusing the CDDS data

to create the image of an epidemic or little hints of " bombshells "

which may or may not materialize. Again, being wrong isn't the point.

Being wrong in search of self promotion, that I have issues with.

If I could, I would give a gold star to Arthur for agreeing to

be on this panel. Not because I agree with him, but because it was

obviously going to be a painful experience based on the makeup of the

panel. Maybe I haven't been watching closely, but the only times I've

seen his name mentioned as a panelist for this Judicial Conference has

been in Kirby's announcements.

I would give a great big gold (heck, platinum-iridium) star to Dr.

Marcuse for even considering being on the panel. Of the entire panel,

he's the one person with real credentials in the field of vaccines.

If I were Dr. Marcuse or Arthur , I would have considered

seriously pulling out of this panel discussion once the details became

known.

This panel discussion was only a fraction of the Judicial Conference.

The rest is, as far as I can tell, still going to happen. For example,

the second vaccine panel discussion appears to be still " on " :

The second panel will utilize some of the information from the

first discussion and apply it when discussing the effects of decisions

under the Vaccine Compensation Program. The title for the second panel

is " Vaccine Compensation Under the Act: A Mix of Science and Policy? "

This panel will be moderated by Senior Judge Loren A. , who was

the Chief Judge when the Vaccine Program first began at the court in

1988. The panelists will be Conway, a petitioners' counsel since

the Program's inception; Randolph Moss, a partner at WilmerHale and

co-chair of the firms' Government and Regulatory Litigation Group, who

represents vaccine manufacturers; Dr. Offit, the Chief of

Infectious Diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, a

professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of

Medicine, and the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, RotaTeq;

Marguerite Wilner, former Vice-Chair of the Advisory Commission on

Childhood Vaccines; and Ruth J. Katz, Dean of the School of Public

Health at The Washington University. Previously, Dean Katz

served as counsel to the Subcommittee on Health and the Environment in

the U.S. House of Representative (then chaired by Congressman Henry A.

Waxman), where she helped develop the National Vaccine Act. With these

different perspectives, this promises to be an interesting discussion!

! ! !

That does sound like an interesting discussion. How does the Court

does mix science and policy? How should they balance the two? Those

seem likekey questions.

And there is another panel on ethics involving expert witnesses:

In addition to these two " must see'' vaccine discussions, this

year's Conference offers an Ethics panel that vaccine practitioners

will find quite meaningful. Judge Ellen Coster will

moderate a discussion regarding ethical issues involving expert

witnesses. The panel will include Special Master Vowel1 and a

law professor, ph from the University of Houston. With the

extensive involvement of experts in vaccine litigation, this panel

discussion should provide important information and considerations to

all vaccine practitioners.

I hope it is a very productive Conference for the Court. It already

seems to likely to be one of the more memorable Conferences, and it

hasn't even happened yet.

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