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Prompted by the RFK article and Kirby book, the NYT has entered the thimerosal-autism fray with an article titled "On Autism's Cause, It's Parents vs. Research." Some highlights:

But scientists and public health officials say they are alarmed by the surge of attention to an idea without scientific merit. The anti-thimerosal campaign, they say, is causing some parents to stay away from vaccines, placing their children at risk for illnesses like measles and polio.

...In recent months, the fight over thimerosal has become even more bitter. In response to a barrage of threatening letters and phone calls, the centers for disease control has increased security and instructed employees on safety issues, including how to respond if pies are thrown in their faces. One vaccine expert at the centers wrote in an internal e-mail message that she felt safer working at a malaria field station in Kenya than she did at the agency's offices in Atlanta.

The article's authors have put themselves firmly against the side espousing the thimerosal-autism link. While I agree with that judgment, I must admit that the article could be taught as a primary text in the Columbia School of Journalism, if the school has a class in "How to Get Your Viewpoint Across When You Can't Just Come Out and Say It." If the above excerpts weren't enough, check out the descriptions of the favored "experts" of the thimerosal-autism link exponents, the Geiers. The authors introduce the father-son team (with only the former being a doctor) as witnesses in hearings called by Rep. Dan Burton (previously famous for his lurid conspiracy theories, espoused on the House floor, about the death of Vince Foster) which also featured the following cast of characters:

In a series of House hearings held from 2000 through 2004, Mr. Burton called the leading experts who assert that vaccines cause autism to testify. They included a chemistry professor at the University of Kentucky who says that dental fillings cause or exacerbate autism and other diseases and a doctor from Baton Rouge, La., who says that God spoke to her through an 87-year-old priest and told her that vaccines caused autism.

Describing the Geiers' working conditions:

He and his son live and work in a two-story house in suburban Maryland. Past the kitchen and down the stairs is a room with cast-off, unplugged laboratory equipment, wall-to-wall carpeting and faux wood paneling that Dr. Geier calls "a world-class lab - every bit as good as anything at N.I.H."

(The article does not comment on what N.I.H. labs look like, but one can assume they do not feature "cast-off, unplugged laboratory equipment." I hope.)

Dr. Geier's credentials:

He has also testified in more than 90 vaccine cases, he said, although a judge in a vaccine case in 2003 ruled that Dr. Geier was "a professional witness in areas for which he has no training, expertise and experience."

In other cases, judges have called Dr. Geier's testimony "intellectually dishonest," "not reliable" and "wholly unqualified."

Any questions about what we're supposed to think of the Geiers?

Mind you, I think the description is wholly justified. But isn't there some degree of disingenuousness in laying it on that thick, without the writer having to put his/her own name behind an explicit judgment?

Actually, it's probably only fitting, given the phony agnosticism that pervades much of the favorable press coverage given to the pro-link forces. More on that in the next post.

For now, the NYT has earned an amnesty from my complaints. A temporary one, at least.