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Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Autism "Treatment" Provider, Mark Geier MD: Medical License Suspended

Updated May 27, 2011 Mark Geier's license to practice medicine in Washington is suspended

Updated May 23, 2011  David Geier was removed from the Maryland Autism Commission.

Update May 19, 2011

Mark Geier MD has been charged with unprofessional conduct.  His son, David Geier, has been charged with practicing medicine without a license.

I will be updating this silently as I find new posts and news articles.

Mark Geier MD and his son David Geier have been at the very heart of the "autism is vaccine injury" mythology for over a decade, although over and over again the senior Geier has been found to make careless errors and to be "seriously intellectually dishonest".  They also developed a "protocol" for "treating autism" using a powerful drug, Lupron, which in men, induces chemical castration.  The senior Geier's medical license was suspended effective April 27 2011.

You can download a copy of the complaint here  Download D2425004.271 (large PDF file; 1.8 KB) or directly from the following URL https://www.mbp.state.md.us/bpqapp/Orders/D2425004.271.PDF (same size file).

The following lists are of responses that approve of the suspension; responses critical of the suspension; and the backstory (previously published posts)

News Reports on the activities of Mark and David Geier

Responses approving of the suspension order and subsequent developments,  to date:


Responses critical of the suspension order,  to date:

  • May 20, 2011 at 4:30 pm PDT: no responses to date 
  • May 21, 2011 Patrick "Tim" Bolen at the Bolen Report Attack on the Geiers  (note this "report" contains ad hominem attacks on several people)

 

Backstory on Mark Geier MD and his research "associate", his son David Geier Specifically on Their Lupron "Protocol"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday, May 04, 2011 at 10:04 AM in autism, Skepticism and Quackery |

Comments

Kathleen Seidel

Thanks for the link, Liz, and for always being the first to pull together a comprehensive list of resources on the issue du jour. I doff my librarian's hat to you!

One minor correction about my post: it's not the full text of the order, only the general parts. I left out the sections describing the treatment provided to specific children; I also left out the footnotes. I did this because I had to transcribe the whole thing manually (it wouldn't load into my OCR program), and had to pare it down to size in order to blog the thing before bedtime!

Also, consider adding to your list a direct link to the order on the Maryland Board of Medical Practice website:
https://www.mbp.state.md.us/bpqapp/Orders/D2425004.271.PDF

Posted by: Kathleen Seidel | Wednesday, May 04, 2011 at 03:49 PM

Ross Coe

You knew when the Geirs were given access to government vaccine adverse reaction files, and reported vaccines are connected to autism, they had made instant enimies. They are being targeted as Wakefield was and they are receiving the same treatment.

Posted by: Ross Coe | Thursday, May 05, 2011 at 07:46 PM

Liz Ditz

Mr. Coe is mistaken on several levels. The Geiers didn't "make enemies". Leaving aside the medical mistreatment of children outlined in the Maryland medical board, above, they both had a track record of lack of integrity. Their research was corrupt in several ways.

Here is one example of how the Geiers used reports from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, from 2005:(emphasis addded)

July 14 2005

Prometheus at Photon in the Darkness: Geiers Cynically Publish Junk Science for Political Ends

While browsing through the literature on autism and thimerosal, I ran across a number of articles by the father-son team of Mark and David Geier.... Together, they have written over ten papers on autism, vaccines and thimerosal.

The source of Geier & Geier’s “data” for much of this flock of publications is the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database.....

...the VAERS database is not a good source of material for any epidemiological study, a fact acknowledged by the very people who maintain it. The purpose of the VAERS database is to act as a repository for any complications following a vaccination. These complications may be due to the vaccines or may be coincidental, but the VAERS team wants to hear about them all. After all, their purpose is to watch for any unexpected consequences of vaccinations.

Anyone can make a report to the VEARS database – not just doctors – and it will be accepted. In fact, there is no requirement for documenting that a vaccine was given or a complication experienced. This makes the VAERS database very sensitive, but not particularly accurate. This is not a secret - the VAERS website spells it out clearly.

To further complicate matters, many of the autism advocacy groups have, starting as early as 1996, decided to contaminate the VAERS database. By urging people to enter their autistic children – and the autistic of their friends and relatives – – into the VAERS database as vaccine-related injuries, they have made the database even more useless as an accurate tool of epidemiology though spurious and duplicate reports. But, they’ve made it a much better tool for political maneuvering.

Enter the Geiers, pere et fils.

By tapping into this vast reservoir of contaminated data, the Geiers have made themselves heroes of the autism-mercury movement. Given the concerted effort of over eight years to contaminate the VAERS database with reports of thimerosal-containing vaccines causing autism, it should come as no surprise that the Geiers have found that it supports the autism-thimerosal connection. This is no more of a surprise than catching trout in a lake that has been stocked with trout.

Now, the Geiers are intelligent people and they can read the VAERS disclaimers. They are also very aware of the ongoing effort to “stock” the VAERS database with vaccine-caused autism. Having thus eliminated ignorance and stupidity, there appears to be only one conclusion left.

I have occasionally been accused of cynicism. In fact, I have been accused of being one of the most cynical people on the planet. But the degree of cynicism that is required to publish “scientific” articles with data you know (or should know) to be false is far beyond my meager abilities. The Geiers appear to have joined the inner core of the autism-mercury cabal that is willing to do whatever it takes to “win”.

Since any scientist who even takes a cursory (and unbiased) look at the Geier & Geier studies will immediately know they are garbage, who are they writing them for? Obviously not doctors or scientists. How about…politicians? Yes, it’s really that cynical – publishing articles using garbage data in order to have “scholarly” citations for testimony to Congress. It’s all part of the political plan of the autism-mercury cabal – have autism declared, by an Act of Congress, to be caused by mercury. It isn’t science, but it might just work.

Posted by: Liz Ditz | Thursday, May 05, 2011 at 08:36 PM

David N. Brown

I shamelessly nominate the following from my site:
http://evilpossum.weebly.com/cures.html
"Even Worse" doc download

Passage of particular interest:
It can be said, at the start, that any positive association of autism with excessive testosterone would have to be considered surprising at best and improbable at worst. As a a matter of “common sense”, a surplus of a growth hormone would be expected (rightly or wrongly!) to accelerate physical development, and lead to greater size and strength compared to same-age peers. No such pattern is evident in autistic children. If anything, they tend to have the opposite problem: Autistic children are routinely reported as small compared to same-age or even younger children, and also having poor muscle tone. Thus, by outward appearances, autistics have no more need for hormone suppressants than anorexics do for diet pills! This does not mean that a diagnosis of elevated testosterone is out of the question. It does mean that the Geiers' claim was counterintuitive at the start, and that a large body of evidence should have been necessary to get it taken seriously.

David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona

Posted by: David N. Brown | Friday, May 06, 2011 at 12:14 AM

Squillo

Well done, as always, Liz. Am writing the CA BOM to urge them to follow suit.

Posted by: Squillo | Friday, May 06, 2011 at 08:25 AM

Liz Ditz

I confess I downloaded David Brown's excellent essay with the intention of adding it to the list of resources, and then just...didn't until this morning's nudge. Thank you David.

Posted by: Liz Ditz | Friday, May 06, 2011 at 04:36 PM

Liz Ditz

Mr Coe claimed that the "Geiers are being targeted." Here are more examples of criticisms of the Geiers scholarship.

May">http://aap.org/profed/thimaut-may03.htm">May 2003 American Academy of Pediatrics message to clinicians: Study Fails to Show a Connection Between Thimerosal and Autism

relevant to Geier MR, Geier DA. Thimerosal in childhood vaccines, neurodevelopment disorders and heart disease in the United States. J Am Physicians Surg. 2003;8:6-11

The American Academy of Pediatrics provides the following information for clinicians who may be aware of recent press surrounding an article that claims to show a correlation between thimerosal and autism.1 This paper uses data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) inappropriately and contains numerous conceptual and scientific flaws, omissions of fact, inaccuracies, and misstatements.

The most important weakness of the article is the reliance on VAERS data to draw conclusions about adverse event associations or causality. VAERS is a passive surveillance system for reporting possible vaccine adverse events that depends on health care professionals, patients, and others to file reports. Health effects reported to VAERS as being associated with vaccines may represent true adverse events, coincidental occurrences, or mistakes in filing. Inherent limits of VAERS include incomplete reporting, lack of verification of diagnoses, and lack of data on people who were immunized and did not report problems. Data from VAERS are useful for hypothesis generation (raising questions) but should not be used for research aimed at determining whether vaccines cause certain health problems (hypothesis proving), as was done in the article by Geier and Geier.

The Message to Clinicians goes on to detail 15 specific failings of the 2003 Geier and Geier paper.

The following year IOM Report on Vaccines and Autism: September 20 2004

Thimerosal does not cause autism; nor does the MMR vaccine. This is the conclusion reached by The Institute of Medicine’s Immunization Safety Review Committee in its report, Vaccines and Autism. (1)....

The IOM report described two studies by Geier (6) which had reported an association between MMR and autism as “characterized by serious methodological flaws and their analytic methods were nontransparent making their results uninterpretable, and therefore non-contributory with respect to causality.”

In other words, the studies by Geier could not establish a causal relation between MMR and autism because of their methods—such as using statistical measures incorrectly and omitting facts about their research approach. Similar problems were found in six other studies by Geier (7) and one study by Blaxill (8), which reported findings of an association between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism. In addition, Geier’s expertise in neurological disorders has been questioned. (9)

1. Institute of Medicine. Immunization Safety Review: Vaccines and Autism. Washington, DC: National Academies Press 2004.

6. Geier M, Geier D 2003. Pediatric MMR Vaccination Safety. International Pediatrics, 18: 108-113.

Geier M, Geier D 2004. A comparative evaluation of the effects of MMR immunization and mercury doses from thimerosal-containing childhood vaccines on the population prevalence of autism. Medical Science Monitor, 10(3): PI33-39

7. Geier MR, Geier DA. Thimerosal in childhood vaccines, neurodevelopment disorders and heart disease in the United States. J Am Physicians Surg. 2003;8:6-11 (See AAP’s review of the article)
8. Blaxill M (2001). Presentation to Immunization Safety Review Committee. Rising Incidence of Autism: Association with Thimerosal. Washington DC.
9. U.S Court of Federal Claims. Office of Special Masters. October 9, 2003 (See footnote 1 on page 3).

As any reader can see, the Geiers own failures of integrity and scholarship are at fault.

Posted by: Liz Ditz | Friday, May 06, 2011 at 04:39 PM

Chris

Mr. Coe, I see you are back! Would you care to explain how what happened to Roald Dahl's daughter after measles was akin to autism? I'd really like to know.

Posted by: Chris | Friday, May 06, 2011 at 09:03 PM

Liz

Dear Mr. Coe,

Thank you for visiting my blog.

There have been several responses to your comment.  Perhaps you would like to return and address those comments.

Posted by: Liz | Friday, May 06, 2011 at 09:08 PM

anonymous

disemvowelled potentially libelous comment


Nw t s tm fr smn t xps Dr. Gr's Txs c-hrt, Vl Krnk, mn wh hs bn ndr psychtrc cr mn tms wh clms h rcvd n "v lg" dctn frm tw yr cllg, Rd, n Prtlnd, R. H ls clms tht h fndd hs wn T cmpn n Prtlnd b th nm f "Xnm", whch n fct, s tmp gnc n bsnss n Prtlnd fr th pst yrs! Mr. Krnk's brth nm ws "Vl lrc jd". Hs brth fthr, Rfg (Rlph) jd ws n lchlc schzphrnc. Hs mthr, Ptrc Krnk ws mrrd svn tms, hd chldrn wth vrt f mn nd ws dpl nvlvd wth L. Rn Hbbrd nd hs Chrch f Scntlg. n f hs brthrs hs mltpl cnvctns fr dmstc vlnc, th thr s n prsn fr mltpl cnts f chld rp. n hlf sstr hs tw chldrn fthrd b n f hr stp-fthrs. pblc rcrds rqst f hs hm ddrss shws cnstnt plc ctvt. Ths s smn tstc prnts wnt t fllw?

Posted by: anonymous | Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 07:10 AM

anonymous

Re: disemvowelled potentially libelous comment

It is ONLY liable, if it is FALSE. I can prove each and EVERY part of my post about Dr. Mark Geier's buddy in Texas.

Posted by: anonymous | Thursday, May 26, 2011 at 09:31 AM

Liz Ditz

1. Anonymous comments are cowardly
2. The word you are looking for is libel, not liable.
3. Provide documentation of your claims and you are welcome to post them here.

Posted by: Liz Ditz | Thursday, May 26, 2011 at 09:40 AM

Low Carbon Steels


Good stuff as per usual, thanks. I do hope this kind of thing gets more exposure.

Posted by: Low Carbon Steels | Monday, July 11, 2011 at 12:32 AM

Foronda

Well done, as always, Liz. Am writing the CA BOM to urge them to follow suit.

Posted by: Foronda | Monday, December 05, 2011 at 05:55 AM

Auth

in his book from 1953. That they knew what mercury could do to a child's brain, One could also argue, that with all the nwarings out there about Mercury and Thimerosal. That certain people wanted this in the children at all cost, for what ever reason. Be it Greed or to make a step ford society. A partial lobotomized state of varying degrees, is what is appearing to be the out come. So far. That, is exactly what we are seeing in today's children. You could argue, I am just a conspiracy theorist. I could argue, Fact is! he said it and we are living it today. And asking Did theThimerosal cause it????As said in 1953, in his book impact of science on society BTW You can no longer down load these pages, from the internet. No one was buying the E book Russell being quoted as saying we would put mercury in vaccines, and other compounds to produce a partial lobotomized state Also from Russell who advocated the use of vaccines to induce partial chemical lobotomies and create a servile zombie population,When reading this next Quote,please remember the non profit organization every child by two Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible. Bertrand Russell, “The Impact of Science on Society”, 1953, pg 49-501953. Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society: the subject which will be of most importance politically is Mass Psychology . The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for a generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen. As yet there is only one country which has succeeded in creating this politician’s paradise.”11 Do I think It is a conspiracy of the medical community. No! but someone wanted it (Thimerosal) to stay in the vaccines, because in the next post I will send it shows that they were warned about the inefficacy and the Toxicity of the preservative for decades. Also in the nwarings, they were suggesting the total removal of it! from everything it was in. All the way down to butt balm, that was in 1948 and again in 1982. The sad thing is, it was an American Medical Association grant that paid for the study. And it was good enough back then, to be in the JAMA. So today, those at the AMA know the truth about Thimerosal and will still not come forward. The AMA paid for the study,and found that Thimerosal is weak as an antimicrobial at best. And dangerously Toxic down to an unbelievably low level, AND SAID NOTHING!!!!!! In japan they they have been known to fall on their own swords, for far less incompetency. Here we promote them, and pay them over six figures. And that is why, that health insurance cost as much as a mortgage in TX on a3 bed room brick home. $1200 to $1400 a month. Here is the problem, of why this is so hard to believe. any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible. Bertrand Russell, “The Impact of Science on Society”1953, pg 49-50

Posted by: Auth | Sunday, March 18, 2012 at 12:45 AM

Laura

Pediatrics. 2010 Sep 13.Prenatal and Infant Exposure to Thimerosal From Vaccines and Immunoglobulins and Risk of Autism.Price CS, Thompson WW, Goodson B, Weintraub ES, Croen LA, Hinrichsen VL, Marcy M, Robertson A, Eriksen E, Lewis E, Bernal P, Shay D, Davis RL, Destefano F.Neurotox Res. 2010 Jul;18(1):59-68. Epub 2009 Sep 16.Are neuropathological cnotidions relevant to ethylmercury exposure?Aschner M, Ceccatelli S.Neuropsychological Performance 10 years after Immunization in Infancy with Thimerosal-Containing VaccinesAuthors: Tozzi AE, Bisiacchi P, Tarantino V, De Mei B, D'Elia L, Chiarotti F, Salmaso S.Source: Pediatrics, February 2009, Vol. 123(2):475-82Mercury Levels in Newborns and Infants after Receipt of Thimerosal-Containing VaccinesPichichero ME, Gentile A, Giglio N, et alPediatrics, February 2008; 121(2) e208-214Mercury, Vaccines, And Autism: One Controversy, Three HistoriesBaker JPAmerican Journal of Public Health, February 2008;98(2): 244-253Continuing Increases in Autism Reported to California's Developmental Services System: Mercury in RetrogradeSchechter R, Grether JKArch Gen Psychiatry, January 2008; 65(1):19-24Early Thimerosal Exposure and Neuropsychological Outcomes at 7 to 10 YearsThompson WW, Price C, Goodson B, et al; Vaccine Safety Datalink TeamN Engl J Med, Sep 27, 2007; 357(13):1281-1292Thimerosal Exposure in Infants and Developmental Disorders: A Prospective Cohort Study in the United Kingdom Does Not Support a Causal AssociationHeron J, Golding J, ALSPAC Study TeamPediatrics, September 2004, Vol. 114(3):577-583Thimerosal Exposure in Infants and Developmental Disorders: A Retrospective Cohort Study in the United Kingdom Does Not Support a Causal AssociationAndrews N, Miller E, Grant A, Stowe J, Osborne V, Taylor BPediatrics, September 2004, Vol. 114(3):584-591Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines and Autistic Spectrum Disorder: A Critical Review of Published Original DataParker SK, Schwartz B, Todd J, Pickering LKPediatrics, September 2004, Vol. 114(3):793-804The Evidence for the Safety of Thimerosal in Newborn and Infant VaccinesClements CJVaccine, May 7, 2004, Vol. 22(15-16):1854-1861Safety of Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines: A Two-Phased Study of Computerized Health Maintenance Organization DatabasesVerstraeten T, Davis RL, DeStefano F, et alPediatrics, November 2003, Vol. 112(5):1039-1048The Toxicology of Mercury Current Exposures and Clinical ManifestationsClarkson TW, Magos L, Myers GJNew England Journal of Medicine, October 30, 2003, Vol. 349(18):1731-7Association Between Thimerosal-Containing Vaccine and AutismHviid A, Stellfeld M, Wohlfahrt J, Melbye MJournal of the American Medical Association, October 1, 2003, Vol. 290(13):1763-6Thimerosal and the Occurrence of Autism: Negative Ecological Evidence from Danish Population-Based DataMadsen KM, Lauritsen MB, Pedersen CB, et alPediatrics, Sept. 2003, Vol. 112(3 Pt 1):604-606Autism and Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines. Lack of Consistent Evidence for an AssociationStehr-Green P, Tull P, Stellfeld M, Mortenson PB, Simpson DAmerican Journal of Preventive Medicine, August 2003, Vol. 25(2):101-6

Posted by: Laura | Sunday, March 18, 2012 at 09:27 AM

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