From Health Lover, Ilena Rosenthal:
http://ilenarose.blogspot.com

David Gorski is another Snake-oil Vigilante Vaccination Propagandist
... great expose on his perfidy.
www.BreastImplantAwareness.org/Snake-oil.htm#David-Gorski

http://www.ageofautism.com/2008/05/david-gorski-md.html

DAVID GORSKI, M.D.: THE WORLDWIDE w.nker OF "WOO"

Gorskiorac_1By J.B. Handley

What if you wrote a blog under a pseudonym-- “ORAC” --an acronym for
an online programming language and the name of a wayward computer in
an old BBC sci-fi series?

What if you also blogged as “SoCalGal” and pretended to be a woman?

What if you proudly declared to the world, “My recreation of choice
most evenings these days is to blog. It truly is my hobby”?

Then you would be David Gorski M.D, the Worldwide w.nker of Woo (he
uses the term “woo” to refer to what he believes is pseudoscience), an
annoying blogger who also happens to be a surgeon.

Mr. Gorski has become a bit of a thorn in the side of our community,
if only because his blog is widely read and quoted by others. Consider
a recent post from Mr. Gorski regarding the recent AutismOne
conference:

“If you want to know the difference between science and pseudoscience,
the AutismOne conference is a great example. In science, evidence and
experimentation rule. Scientists are always looking for ways to poke
holes in the prevailing hypotheses. True, we scientists don't always
live up to that ideal, and some of us may be too comfortable, but
nonetheless the real way to glory in science is to shoot down an
accepted hypothesis and replace it with one of your own--all through
evidence of course. No one ever won a Nobel Prize for incrementally
supporting the existing paradigm. In pseudoscience, on the other hand,
we see people safely wrapped in a cocoon of their own groupthink,
blissfully oblivious to contradicting evidence and not caring that not
only are the scientific consensus and multiple large, well-designed
epidemiological studies against them but that no one on "their" side
has been able to produce any scientifically compelling evidence to
support the vaccine hypothesis. Instead we get the Geiers and their
incompetent epidemiology or Dr. Laura Hewitson and her poorly designed
monkey studies, along with glaring conflicts of interest.”

Mr. Gorski’s blog, Respectful Insolence, is anything but. His putdowns
and demeaning language aimed at our community (and many of his
colleagues) are rampant. And, so, in the spirit of Mr. Gorski’s novel
use of the word “respectful”, I insolently offer up:

A DOZEN REASONS TO RESPECTFULLY HATE DAVID GORSKI, M.D.:

1. He lives in a very cheap glass house

Mr. Gorski writes proudly, “As far as I've yet been able to ascertain,
I'm the only academic surgeon with R01 funding in the world with an
active -- and, even more shockingly, even a somewhat popular -- blog.”

The obvious question that he never asks is, “Why don’t any of my peers
spend loads of their time publicly bashing other scientists?” The
answer to that question would be, “Because most research scientists
are not idiots who place ego gratification through reader adulation
above professional conduct.”

2. He is a nobody in the science world

I could care less about Mr. Gorski or his career. I’m sure he has
worked hard to get where he is. But, relatively speaking, Mr. Gorski
is a nobody. He’s an “Assistant Professor.”

When Bill Walton criticizes NBA players, he annoys some, but the man
is highly accomplished in his field, so people listen and respect his
point of view. Mr. Gorski’s only claim to fame is that he blogs
frequently enough to be high in the search rankings.

Mr. Gorski is very proud of himself. He writes: “I got into the
University of Michigan Medical School, which got around 3,000
applications every year for around 180 positions.”

Wow!!

3. He’s a complete w.nker

Some people are just such tool jobs they should probably not do a lot
of public blogging. Don’t take my word for it, just consider this gem
from Mr. Gorski:

“[In College] I was then, as I am now, pretty geeky and had only a
relatively small circle of friends. I rarely ‘partied.’”

This is the equivalent of John Candy mentioning in Stripes, “Some of
you may not have noticed I have a bit of a weight problem.”

Geeky? Really? With that stunning visage looking like the love child
of Lurch and Sam the Eagle, I figured you ruled the school.

4. He is a crazy daredevil

This one really bowled me over:

“So insane was I that one year I took 17 credits in the fall semester,
all but 3 of which were hard-core science classes, including graduate
level biochemistry, and then did the same thing again the next
semester.”

No! NO!!  You are a MADMAN!!

5. He often speaks in the third person

Why do people speak in the third person? Mr. Gorski not only does it,
but he speaks in third person pseudonym:

“You don't tug on Superman's cape
You don't spit into the wind
You don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger
And you don't mess around with Orac”

Oh, no, run!! Here comes Orac!!

6. He dismisses any scientists who consider the vaccine-autism
connection

This is a classic knee-jerk of the mainstream health establishment
when combating the growing evidence of a vaccine-autism connection:
paint any scientist who entertains the notion of a connection between
vaccines and autism as a crank. Consider his “respectful” comment
regarding Dr. Hewitson, a member of the recent vaccine-monkey study
discussed at IMFAR:

“Unfortunately, Dr. Hewitson wouldn't be the first researcher whose
personal brush with autism led her down the path of questionable
science; I hope she doesn't descent too far into
antivaccination-related research to get out before doing permanent
damage to her career.”

It’s interesting to contrast Mr. Gorski’s comments with those of Dr.
Bernadine Healy, a graduate of Harvard University, Harvard Medical
School, former CEO of the Red Cross, and former President of the
National Institutes of Health:

"There is a completely expressed concern that they [mainstream
scientists] don't want to pursue a hypothesis because that hypothesis
could be damaging to the public health community at large by scaring
people. First of all, I think the public’s smarter than that. The
public values vaccines. But more importantly, I don’t think you should
ever turn your back on any scientific hypothesis because you’re afraid
of what it might show."

It’s worth pointing out that Dr. Healy does not blog under a pseudonym
nor has she actively called out any specific researchers to accuse
them of being “cranks.”

7. He knows Hannah Poling better than her Dad (a doctor) does

When the Hannah Poling case hit the news, Mr. Gorski was quick to
support many of the talking points the other side used to try to
minimize the impact of the court’s decision. It’s interesting to
compare Mr. Gorski’s comments with those of Jon Poling, Hannah’s
father- a practicing neurologist.

Mr. Gorski writes:

“Mitochondrial disorders of the sort suffered by Hannah are genetic in
nature and rare, an estimated 5.7 individuals per 100,000
worldwide…the subset of these disorders that cause autism-like
symptoms is even more rare.”

But, Dr. Poling, a neurologist, says:

“No one knows if Hannah’s mitochondrial dysfunction existed before
receiving vaccines.”

Mr. Gorski writes:

“…what was really diagnosed was a regressive encephalopathy that had
some features of ASD…The bottom line is that it is fever from any
source, be it a vaccine reaction or, more commonly, an infection that
can exacerbate mitochondrial disorders and provoke encephalopathy.
Moreover, because of the confounding factor of multiple ear
infections, it's not 100% clear that her vaccinations even caused her
regression”

But, Dr. Poling says:

“Our daughter, Hannah, developed normally until receiving nine
vaccines at once. She immediately developed a fever and
encephalopathy, deteriorating into what was diagnosed, based on the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or D.S.M. IV,
as autism.”

Mr. Gorski writes:

“…mutations in the same gene that Hannah had a mutation in are
incredibly rare…it is very likely that the reason the Poling case was
dropped as a test case from the Autism Omnibus is because it is so
unusual and atypical.”

But, Dr. Poling says:

“How many Hannah Polings are out there?  The short answer is that
nobody knows.  However, there is emerging data to suggest that she is
not alone. Dr. Shoffner will be presenting his experience with 37
patients with combined autism and mitochondrial dysfunction at the AAN
meeting in Chicago this April. 65% of his referrals are positive for
mitochondrial dysfunction.  Of course, his yield is subject to
referral bias as a mito expert, so the prevalence of mitochondrial
dysfunction in Autism is surely less than 65%. The best estimate to
date of the prevalence of mitochondrial dysfunction in autistic
patients comes from Oliviera et al. in a population of 120, 5 of 69
(or 7.2%) showed mitochondrial dysfunction.  If this is generalized to
the US estimate of 1 million patients with ASDs, then the number of
kids like Hannah could be 72,000!  Isn’t this worth further study?”

Mr. Gorski Says:

“It is also known that children with mitochondrial disorders are prone
to develop an encephalopathy in response to stress or fever that can
cause them to regress. The source of this stress is often an
infection, such as a cold or normal childhood illness, that results in
a fever. The reason is that the mitochondria are the "batteries" or
energy sources of the cell, and mitochondrial diseases can lead a
child to be "energy challenged," so to speak.

But, government attorneys and scientists conceded in the Hannah Poling
case that the cause of her encephalopathy was:
“…underlying mitochondrial dysfunction, exacerbated by vaccine-induced
fever and immune stimulation that exceeded metabolic reserves.”

8. He thinks our kids spontaneously recover

“Spontaneous Recovery” has been a semantic trick used by the
mainstream to explain why some of our kids recover, despite the fact
that it means absolutely nothing. “Spontaneous” does not describe what
happened, biologically, to allow a child to go from severely impaired
to normal. It shows an extreme lack of medical curiosity.

Mr. Gorski subscribes to the “Spontaneous Recovery” theory to explain
our recovered kids. I pressed him on this issue in private emails,
asking him how, as a physician, he can ignore the stories of formerly
diagnosed children now living normally? His response was that it is,
“very easy to be fooled, particularly in the cases of mild ASD.”  Mr.
Gorski’s science that supports the position of spontaneous recovery is
a sole study titled Diagnostic stability in very young children with
autism spectrum disorders. The study, featuring all of 77 children,
looks at diagnosis of all ASD labels over time. Take a read for
yourself.

Mr. Gorski’s response to what he contends is “pseudoscience”
is…pseudoscience.

9. Solely citing epidemiology, he says the vaccine-autism debate is
over

Mr. Gorski often writes of the “…science failing to find a link
between vaccines and autism.”

Mr. Gorski uses many of the tricks of the mainstream in trying to make
it seem like the vaccine-autism debate is over. In order to do this
successfully, you have to ignore some ugly truths:

- All studies conducted have been done by conflicted parties
- Most studies have only considered thimerosal levels in vaccines, and
then only compared kids who received more thimerosal versus those who
received less
- No studies have ever considered children who received the entire
vaccine load versus those who received none

Consider a comment from British Epidemiologist Geoffrey Rose, which
would support the folly of solely analyzing vaccinated children:

“Imagine, Rose suggested, if everyone smoked a pack of cigarettes
every day. Any study trying to link cigarette smoking to lung cancer
‘would lead us to conclude that lung cancer was a genetic
disease…since if everyone is exposed to the necessary agent, then the
distribution of cases is wholly determined by individual
susceptibility.’”

Or, this commentary on epidemiology from the New England Journal of
Medicine:

“A common feature of epidemiological data is that they are almost
certain to be biased, of doubtful quality, or incomplete…Problems do
not disappear even if one has flawless data, since the statistical
associations in almost any nontrivial set of observations are subject
to many interpretations. This ambiguity exists because of the
difficulty of sorting out causes, effects, concomitant variables, and
random fluctuations when the causes are multiple or diffuse….Even when
the data are generally accepted as accurate, there is much room for
individual judgment, and the considered conclusions of the
investigators in these matters determine what they will label cause.”

So despite holding other scientist to the highest standards, Mr.
Gorski will gorge on narrowly-constructed, ratshit epidemiology funded
by the CDC to close the case on vaccines and autism?

10. He thinks we should be more careful when we vaccinate monkeys

Mr. Gorski was quick out of the blocks to criticize the emerging
results from a study that vaccinated monkeys on the US vaccine
schedule and compared them to unvaccinated monkeys. In fact, he seems
to be developing an entirely new theory about why the vaccinated
monkeys appear to be so sick. He writes:

“How long is the life expectancy and time to maturity of these
monkeys? In other words, were the investigators scaling down the time
between injections proportionally to the difference in time to
maturity between humans and these monkeys? That could end up being a
lot of shots in a short period of time. So I looked it up. Rhesus
Macaque monkeys live around 25 years and males reach sexual maturity
by around four years of age, approximately 1/4 of the time it takes
humans males to reach sexual maturity. That means, if I interpret
correctly the methodology claiming to "adjust for age" that these
monkeys could have received a lot of shots in a really short period of
time.”

Did he just say that “a lot of shots in a really short period of time”
could cause a problem?

Boy, that sounds familiar.

Thanks for looking out for the monkeys, Dr. Gorski, don’t mind the
several million kids over here who got “a lot of shots in a really
short period of time” and are now completely f.cked up. The CDC’s
epidemiologist, who now works for Glaxo Smith Kline in the vaccine
division, says they there is no link based on his “well designed”
study comparing kids who got a lot of mercury with those who got quite
a bit. You should feel like you have this all figured out.

11. He’s not a parent

While hard to believe based on Mr. Gorski’s stunning looks,
confessions of being “geeky” in college and blogging as his only hobby
(what’d he do before blogs?) – Mr. Gorski has yet to procreate.

This means Mr. Gorski’s exposure to autistic children, schools
bursting with special needs kids, and parents in every community
lamenting developmental challenges in their kids is non-existent. I
highly doubt he has any friends who went to the doctor for a “well
baby” visit and returned with a child descending into autism.

12. He’s got it backwards

Mr. Gorski writes:

”The one good thing is that the point of graduate school in sciences
is more to teach you how to think and how to apply the scientific
method. Science changes so rapidly that the information we had to
learn was not as important as learning how to teach ourselves, read
the scientific literature, and apply it to our research.”

Mr. Gorski does not live up to the lofty standards he has set for
himself or his colleagues, many of whom he publicly berates and
humiliates. As an individual, he is a nobody, which is why he blogs
under a pseudonym.

The reason Mr. Gorski drives us nuts is because he selectively applies
his scientific standards to anything that supports his position—a
common behavior of the mainstream health establishment. He reminds us
of our pediatricians who told us we were crazy.

In Mr. Gorski’s world, highly flawed epidemiology gets a hall pass but
anybody or anything that supports a connection between vaccines and
autism is quackery written by cranks. Ask him to apply his high
standards to the CDC’s “science” and he won’t do it.

Claude Bernard, in An Introduction to Experimental Medicine, wrote:

“It is better to know nothing, than to keep in mind fixed ideas based
on theories whose confirmation we constantly seek, neglecting
meanwhile everything that fails to agree with it.”

Dr Bernandine Healy has been imploring her colleagues to open their
minds to the possibilities of what our community is saying. The
Worldwide w.nker of Woo, David Gorski, would be well served to listen.

JB Handley is Editor at Large for Age of Autism and co-founder of
Generation Rescue.

in JB Handley | Permalink

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