Please click here for my disclosure statements relating to the subject matter of this post.

More than you think.

I have not yet read David Kirby's book Evidence of Harm. But his presentation of the case for the thimerosal-autism link, based on what I've seen from his website, press appearances and other writings seems to be a perfect encapsulation of some of the worst features of contemporary mainstream journalism:

1) "How William Goldman Ruined Journalism" - This hasn't gotten enough attention in light of the Deep Throat revelation, but William Goldman's line "Follow the money," uttered by Hal Holbrook in the movie (it didn't come from the book itself) has led to almost 30 years of lazy Marxist journalism that follows the exact same script:

A) Policymaker does something objectionable doesn't do something virtuous (fill in your own blank);

B) Policymaker received moeny (a campaign contribution for a politician, some other connection for a non-elected official) from eeeeevil entity with an interest in the matter (pharmaceutical industry, Halliburton, etc.)

C) Ergo, policymaker is a wholly bought tool of Satan, and no other explanation for action/inaction is necessary. QED.

This pattern is especially egregious when it "follows the money" on one side only, ignoring equally interesting financial ties on the favored side. For example: assuming the pervasive links between the pharmaceutical/vaccine industry and the medical establishment who have dismissed the link means it is safe to discredit their views, while somehow not drawing similar conclusions regarding the equally pervasive conflicts affecting many of the players on the pro-link side. (I don't think Kirby actually ignores those conflicts in his book, like the RFK piece does, but doesn't it go without saying that the vaccine industry is part of the evil conspiracy that got us into war in Iraq (sorry, was that Halliburton or the Likud party? I can't keep my conspiracies straight), while trial lawyers are the good guys and thus there's no conflict of interest?)

If you only focus on the financial conflicts of one side and ignore those of the other, you're not "following the money," merely your own preconceptions.

2) The reliance on standard templates for telling stories, and shoehorning messy facts into those predetermined templates:

"Plucky parents of horribly ill children taking on unfeeling, big-money establishment" is one story to tell, and that's the one Kirby tells. Another story that could be told is "Anti-vaccine activists and trial lawyers prey on the desperation of parents of autistic children, and help bring about outbreaks of previously eradicated diseases leading to many preventable severe illnesses and deaths, based on 'junk science' and outright distortions." That story is at least as accurate, and probably more so, than the Kirby template. But it doesn't sound as good, for a variety of reasons. I have faith that it will be told, eventually.

3) Focusing on the buzz around a topic, rather than the topic itself. Kirby has a few posts at the "Huffington Post" cheerleading the attention paid to the RFK article and related activism as a good in and of itself. Sorry, but the fact that Don Imus won't shut up about the topic on his radio show does not make the underlying science any better.

4) Disingenuousness as to the author's beliefs and biases, which is worse than actually having them. ("It's not the crime, it's the cover-up.") I've spoken to Kirby and he seems like a really nice guy, and he is clearly motivated by sympathy for the activist parents of autistic children who are his protagonists. Hard to object to that sentiment. But when I've spoken to him and in much of his supporting commentary to the book, he strikes a really disingenuous tone: professing agnosticism as to the thimerosal-autism link on the one hand (which makes a handy defense against scientifically-based critiques) while his presentation buys into the pro-link side (as well as the poor-parents-versus-Goliath/Satan template; see #2 above) in every respect. Read this post and see if Kirby really is undecided about the matter:

Of course, it’s possible that this army of congressional investigators will determine that injecting organic mercury directly into newborn babies was a perfectly harmless thing to do, and did not trigger adverse reactions in a subset of children with a genetic predisposition to mercury sensitivity. They may declare that the synchronization of the autism epidemic and rising thimerosal exposures in the 1990s was merely an uncanny coincidence. They may find that a thorough review of a federal vaccine database, currently under lock-and-key, reveals zero evidence of an association. They may discover that removing mercury from autistic children yields absolutely no clinical benefits whatsoever. And, contrary to Mr. Kennedy’s assertions, they may conclude that everyone in the government and drug industry acted with nothing but the utmost forthrightness, untainted by malfeasance and conflicts of interest, openly sharing all that they knew about thimerosal’s toxicity with the American public.

(To take one of about 25 possible examples from the above paragraph, of course there are financial ties between the vaccine industry and the government agencies that could give rise to conflicts of interest. But it doesn't pass any test of rationality to say those ties necessarily discredit everything they've said against the thimerosal-autism link, while simultaneously asserting the Geiers' extensive work as expert witnesses arguing for such a link is no conflict at all.)