Talk:Mark Geier: Difference between revisions

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Biography?

Does anyone have any more information about Mark Geier as a person and scientist? We're sorely lacking details that are normally present in a biography: family, education and training (what schools, when?), even date of birth. Instead, much of this article consists of details that ought to be (or are already duplicated) in the articles Thimerosal, Andrew Wakefield, and MMR vaccine. Perhaps Mark Geier needs to focus more on Mark Geier. --TenOfAllTrades | Talk 01:20, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, insofar as the need for further biographical info goes; a request has been forwarded to Geiers' associates. The thimerosal article is quite unstable currently, there is little crossover with the Wakefield article (as it pertains non TCV issues) and while some duplication is to be expected, removal of all redundancy may skew the integrity and accuracy of the Mark Geier article. The expansion of the passage about one clearly upset 'master' appears overblown, so information on the background and qualifications of this individual also needs to be gleaned. Ombudsman 03:36, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Although I agree that the thimerosal article is being extensively reviewed and edited right now, I don't think that this article should properly serve as a holding pen for that information. If you're concerned it will be lost, copy it to the talk page there, and discuss it in its proper context.

With respect to the Wakefield statements, they certainly need editing from a POV standpoint. Andrew Wakefield's work has faced harsh criticism for conflicts of interest and small sample size; saying that US agencies are "stall[ing]] corroboration" of his research is rather misleading. I thought it was best to avoid as much as possible the whole Wakefield controversy, and attempt to describe the cost/benefit tradeoff of chelation therapy.

I don't think it's helpful to report that Geier was interviewed by NBC but didn't appear on television. Makers of documentaries often perform extensive interviews and record a great deal of footage that they don't actually air. NBC did air a debate between some other experts over the pontential role of vaccines in autism, so it's not that Geier's position was suppressed by the network. (I'm not sure that not appearing in a television special is notable in and of itself.) I left the beginning of that paragraph in place, because I thought it provided a useful context and rationale for Geier's work.

Was Geier the one who actually mined the CDC data for potential vaccine reactions? If so, then perhaps the information should stay here. Otherwise, I would suggest it belongs over in vaccine in a discussion on side effects.

With respect to the Special Master, there were actually several who rejected Geier as an expert witness. The anon provided a link citing the other cases. The one who wrote the specific order in the link is Laura Millman. She has served as a Special Master since 1991 (the decision linked above dates to 2003), and has had a law degree since 1976.

I would ask you not to engage in blanket reversion of edits. Hopefully an excellent article can be forged through constructive discussion on this talk page. --TenOfAllTrades | Talk 04:21, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps doing away with the NBC context is wise, but that begs the question of what is really going on here. Blanket deletions and insertion of POV is the standard operating procedure for the media and US health agencies, and it would be a shame if that were not addressed.

As for the criticism of Wakefield's purported financial interest in a certain study, little attention has been given to the irrationality of the timelines inferred by the smear campaigners, his timely and proper disclosures about the secondary study, and the egregious double standard on such conflicts. The very serious conflicts of interest for the IOM report and Danish epidemiological study (to point out the tip of the iceberg) are given a free pass by the media, scientific establishment and pro-vaccine campaigners.

Yes, the Geiers crunched the numbers, but they had to force the raw data out of the gov't via FOIA. It wasn't hard for them to detect the apparent fraud in the VAERS study: whereas an initial draft detected the correlation, after the lead author was hired by Glaxo, it was sanitized to meet industry criteria, just like the EPA gave a pass to the foregone conclusions requested by the energy industry with regard to mercury pollution. Scientific American just published an editorial bemoaning the way government agencies are giving industry a free pass on scientific input into decisions. Remember, US government agencies have impeded independent clinical research, making their manipulation of epidemiological reports all the more suspect. Are you aware yet of Wakefield's comments on the recent Japanese epidemiological studies?

Speaking of double standards, who are these 'masters' to condemn a medical doctor with a Ph.D. in genetics for his qualifications, of all things, when their own scientific qualifications for judging the Geiers is probably quite limited? Ombudsman 00:42, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This is getting a bit unwieldy, so I'm breaking up my response to the above comment into sections. --TenOfAllTrades | Talk 02:31, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Special Master

I'll address that last question first. First, reread the linked reference [1]. Geier was testifying as a medical expert who was introducing a diagnosis of vaccine-induced acute encephalopathy in a patient. To the best of my knowledge, Geier was not the attending physician and did not see the patient until well after the events took place; he was giving an opinion based on information in the case file and medical history.

The PhD in genetics is a red herring. It involves biological and not medical training, and would only be relevant to the matter in question if Geier was diagnosing a gene-linked disorder like Huntington's disease. His MD training is actually more on point, but Geier was an obstetrician and not a paediatric neurologist. By testifying that a particular patient suffered an acute encephalopathy, Geier was making a neurological diagnosis that he probably wasn't qualified to make. Geier further failed to meet the AMA's Code of Ethics standards for an expert witness in this case.

If Geier had wanted to testify about vaccine effects in general, or to the point that a reaction to vaccination may in some cases lead to acute encephalopathy, then as a published researcher in the field he would likely be qualified to do so. He was not qualified to make an neurological diagnosis after the fact for a specific patient, and the Special Master called him on it. --TenOfAllTrades | Talk 01:36, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

POV insertion by media, government?

I'm not clear on what you're saying about blanket deletions and POV with respect to the NBC piece. Geier's viewpoint was presented in the NBC series, just not by Geier. My understanding is that it got a very thorough airing. If you believe there is a systematic suppression in the media of anti-big pharma sentiment, I would have to disagree. The media loves to scare people, legitimately or otherwise. If there was even a hint of suppression and scandal, I would expect it to be plastered all over the news. It's good for ratings and circulation to stick it to drug companies and the government. If anything, it means that bad science gets more than its fair share of airtime in the interest of 'balance'—you need look no further than that absurd Fox piece on how the Apollo moon landings were faked. Although I agree with you that insertion of POV is the modus operandi of the media, I would suggest that their tendency is to side with the underdog lone crusader—not with the CDC, FDA, or any other part of the government.

Which important clinical research have government agencies impeded? You're going to have to be more specific on that. If you're referring specifically to Geier's work with VAERS data, I gather that there were serious concerns about him mishandling confidential patient information. --TenOfAllTrades | Talk 02:31, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Andrew Wakefield

I think we might be getting a bit off track with respect to Andrew Wakefield. I think the key question about him here is, what mention should he have in this article? Remember, we're writing an article about Mark Geier. --TenOfAllTrades | Talk 02:31, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

David Geier's occupation

David Geier isn't a lawyer; I am removing that assertion from the lead paragraph. To the best of my knowledge he isn't a member of any bar and he has no law degree. He is president of MedCon, a company which employs lawyers. MedCon draws part of its income from filing vaccine injury lawsuits, which may well be worth noting—but that doesn't make David Geier a lawyer. --TenOfAllTrades | Talk 12:41, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Chelation therapy

Chelation therapy is used by mainstream practitioners as a treatment for lead poisoning; I've removed the comment about "alternative practitioners" for that reason. What is controversial is the use of chelation agents in patients that do not have a very high body burden of heavy metals. --TenOfAllTrades | Talk 17:37, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm, I see your point, but I think maybe we could and should include both points: mainstream practitioners use it for certain very specific disorders; some alternative practitioners believe it, controversially, to be effective treatment for a much wider variety of conditions and disorders. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:56, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I actually had a heck of a time finding the work Geier did with chelation; there isn't anything apparent in PubMed. So far I've found one paper in an unindexed journal that has him as the last author (PDF is linked below):

Bradstreet J., Geier D.A., Kartzinel J.J., Adams J.B., Geier M.R., A case-control study of mercury burden in children with autistic spectrum disorders, J Am Physicians Surg, Volume: 8, (2003), pp. 76-79)

It's a pretty small study—not a lot of cases were examined. Has he published any further work on chelation? --TenOfAllTrades | Talk 01:07, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Detailed criticism

The American Academy of Pediatrics rebuttal was six pages long and listed fifteen specific flaws that they perceived in the Geier's work, as well as comments about the general misuse of VAERS data. Whether you agree with their points or not, the AAP's criticism is definitely "detailed". "Emphatic" and "scathing" might also be acceptable adjectives, but "detailed" strikes me as the most neutral. Removing the adjective implies that the AAP just didn't like the study and issued a one-page press release or something. --TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 23:51, 2 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I read the AAP "rebuttal" and it only convinced me of Geier's merit, so adjectives that come to my mind are "weak," "pathetic," or "counterproductive to the critical mind." We could perhaps compromise on "lengthy," but I proposed avoiding an adjective altogether. --Leifern 00:03, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

The compromise wording seems reasonable. --TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 01:20, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

NY Times Article

Copied from article main page:

The children who received greater amounts of mercury were more likely to have a complaint filed with the Vaccine Adverse Event

Reporting System (VAERS). Further studies by the Geiers yielded similar results.[1]

The link after this statement is pointing to a NYT article. This particular article has caused some controversy (and public rebuttals). But nonetheless, it doesn't "work" with the text.

The link to the article would be more appropriate after this line:

Nevertheless, Dr. Geier says public health officials are "just trying to cover it up."

However, if the NYT peice is going to be used as a source for the Geier article I feel it would be more "honest" to mention that it has received negative attention for it's unbalanced presentation. Becca77 11:01, 8 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

New Paragraph

If Neurodiversity is to continue to contribute to this article it is only fair that the readers know what their position is on autism research, treatment, etc. They somehow want to prevent the diagnosis and treatment of severely autistic children most of whom never speak, who often are violent and who without treatment will almost certainly need life time care. (IP user)

First, the paragraph is irrelevant to the article. There's already an article on neurodiversity if anyone cares to look. Second, "Neurodiversity" is a movement, not a Wikipedia contributor. Clearly, Neurodiversity advocates contribute to Wikipedia, just as curebie advocates do. Third, I was not aware that "they" want to prevent a diagnosis. Neurodiversity advocates clearly oppose unproven and dangerous treatments. There's no evidence that they oppose clearly effective clinically proven treatments. They are divided on semi-experimental treatments such as ABA. Fourth, about 50% of Kanner autistics attain "good or very good" speech. I'm not sure where you get your data from. Data on PDD-NOS (the most common type of ASD) is not available. It's not clear that violence among autistics is more common than in the general population. Whether autistics need a "lifetime of care" (and it's not clear what IP User means in regards to this) has not been shown to be dependent on "treatment". Neurodivergent 17:59, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the paragraph explaining what neurodiversity is was irrelevant to the article to being with, and has grown to contain too much information about neurodiversity, Kathleen Seidel, and the other activities of neurodiversity activists. These should be in separate articles if needed. I propose the paragraph should be removed, and perhaps replaced with a short phrase that states Kathleen is a neurodiversity advocate/activist. Readers can check what neurodiversity is by clicking on the link. The neurodiversity article has a section on criticism of neurodiversity. Neurodivergent 22:23, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Finally, I should clarify that I am in no way associated with Neurodiversity.com. I'm just a reader of that blog. But my username might confuse IP User. Neurodivergent 22:23, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's interesting to note that the IP address of a frequent contributor (and "Ip user"?) resolves to Silver Spring, MD, home of the Geiers. To what degree is this a vanity article? - DaveSeidel 22:30, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

IP User is likely David or Mark Geier, but I did not feel like outing him. Some edits are probably vanity edits, even though the article was started by Obudsman. It's unclear how appropriate it is for someone to edit the article about themselves. It could even lead to inclusion of information that is unpublished "original research". The paragraph added by IP User about "Neurodiversity" (or Kathleen perhaps) was intended to deflect attention from embarrasing information. Neurodivergent 23:19, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As there have been no objections to my proposal to delete the irrelevant pragraph, I'll just go ahead and delete it. Neurodivergent 23:57, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

8-2-06 I have attempted to edit this article to remove things that are totally inaccurate and I have tried to update the article while not removing any of the negative editorial things which various people have added to this article. I should point out that this is supposed to be an encyclopedia not a blog. I have never seen such contoversial things put in an encyclopedia before. Dr. Mark Geier