The first day’s testimony for the Autism Omnibus has been posted, and Autism Diva has the scoop.
I haven’t had a chance to peruse the PDF file of the testimony, but what the Diva reports is plenty damning. Maybe I was wrong to be so pessimistic in my earlier post. Dr. H. Vasken Aposhian’s testimony is even lamer than my post suggested. On the other hand, the emotionalism in this trial still worries me, as does the uncritical press coverage concentrating on the plaintiffs’ “feelings” and only mentioning in a single sentence or two, down near the end of the article or report, that–oh, by the way–there is no science to support a link between vaccines and autism and the scientific consensus is that there is no link.
As bad is Dr. Arthur Krigsman, a Wakefield accolyte who also thinks that the MMR vaccine causes autism and “autistic enterocolitis.” The Diva nails it:
Today they have Dr. Krigsman on the stand. He says that Michelle Cedillo got damaged intestines from measles in the MMR vaccines, apparently. He spent a long time describing how he knew that her intestines are damaged (she has ulcers and nodular hyperplasia, inflammatory bowel disease, maybe Crohn’s disease). He said when he put her on some prescription drugs to suppress her immune system, she stopped suffering from apparent bowel pain, diarrhea and that her arthritis got better. But if Michelle Cedillo has live measles virus in her gut that are causing the lymphoid hyperplasia, wouldn’t it be a really bad idea to suppress her immune system with powerful immune suppressants? Didn’t she get the measles in her intestines because the thimerosal in her other vaccination suppressed her immune system?
Does that make sense at all?
Nope. Immune suppression is usually reserved for diseases with an autoimmune component, like inflammatory bowel diseases. But then no one ever said that the antivax contingent cared much for keeping their own stories straight. Any story will do, as long as it blames vaccines for autism.
