Two things struck me when I viewed the video that's up in the upper right corner on that page. The first is "What's their lawyer doing with them?" I mean, the decision is already in, and this is a civil case, not a criminal case. Were they afraid that they would say something incriminating? Or were they afraid that they would say something that would jeopardize the amount of the pending settlement?
So then I looked up the lawyer. The lawyer is Cliff Shoemaker, who is no stranger to vaccine litigation. As it says on his website,
"Today, Cliff is one of the lawyers focusing his attention on the national disaster that occurred in the 90's when we poisoned a substantial number of our children with mercury, creating an autism epidemic."
Cliff was also evidently the lead attorney for CoMed (Lisa Sykes) in suing the FDA to get mercury out of vaccines.
The other thing that struck me about that ABC interview was that the father, Dr. Jon Poling, referred to the head of the CDC, Dr. Julie Gerberding, as "Ms. Gerberding" when there's about 3:30 left in the video. Now it may have just been a slip of the tongue on his part, but I find it hard to believe that a doctor would not know that the head of the CDC was a physician (who also holds a Master's in Public Health). And I also find it hard to believe that a doctor would not use a fellow physician's title when referring to her. Unless of course he was trying to purposely make her seem less knowledgeable and important. I mean, after seeing over at Kristina Chew's site that Jenny McCarthy is calling for the immediate resignation of Julie Gerberding as the head of the CDC, I started to wonder. If I was a conspiracy theorist, I might think that the Polings were coordinating with the Age of Autism folks to try and get Gerberding removed.
Meanwhile, Lenora pointed out in a comment to my last post that Dr. Poling gave an interview over at WebMD that didn't seem to jive with the press conferences.
Indeed, in that interview Poling says both
"I don't think the case should scare people," says Poling, 37, who emphasizes that vaccines, like all of medicine, carry risks and benefits.
as well as
"Vaccines are one of the most important, if not the most important advance, in medicine in at least the past 100 years. But I don't think that vaccines should enjoy a sacred cow status, where if you attack them you are out of mainline medicine."
"Every treatment has a risk and a benefit. To say there are no risks to any treatment is not true.''
"Sometimes people are injured by a vaccine, but they are safe for the majority of people. I could say that with a clean conscience. But I couldn't say that vaccines are absolutely safe, that they are not linked to brain injury and they are not linked to autism."
This interview seems to be a "face saving" attempt by Dr. Poling with the mainstream medical community. A way for him to say that he knows that there is no science behind the court decision, but that he didn't need science, just a little doubt. The WebMD quotes are clearly different from his media interviews, where he emphasizes that he feels strongly that there are thousands of other cases just like his. Statements that will certainly scare people away from vaccination.
I find it hard to comprehend why a physician could (rightly) admit that there are risks to every procedure or treatment, and then feel entitled to payment when something happens. Has he bought into the theory that every bad outcome needs to be compensated? I hope he isn't too disappointed when patients start sueing him for every bad outcome that happens to them, whether it was his fault or not.
My parents used to criticize me hanging out with certain kids because they weren't good kids. They rightly told me that I would be judged by the company I keep.
Well, Dr. Poling, I think you're going to be judged by the company you keep, as well as all the comments you make. A little backsliding on a medical site won't make up for the fear mongering and atrocious statements not backed up by science that you make to the media, or the fact that you are hanging out with people who hold views that are not supported by any science at all.
