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Dr. Mark Geier, Entities and Relationships Bob Apthorpe 10 May 2011 Inverting the Pharma Shill Narrative: Dr. Mark Geier, Entities and Relationships Bob Apthorpe 10 May 2011 Tiring of the antivax/autism industry’s ’pharma shill gambit’ and evidence-free notions of conspiracy, an experiment is performed in internet research using recently-discredited doctor Mark A. Geier as a seed. The process of mining verifiable public databases for entities and relationships is explored, detailed with several examples. The limits of the technique are noted and the distinction between real and faux conspiracy theorists is revealed. On the Origin of a Research Project It wouldn’t be a witch hunt if you people didn’t cast spells and fly around on brooms A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words, so a few weeks ago I started mapping out entities and relationships in the anti-vaccination/autism industry1. I call it an industry because no 1 A subset of the full map is attached at small amount of money is involved when you consider all the dubi- the end of this essay ous supplements, devices, tests, and treatments sold (some paid for by insurance, properly and otherwise), the monetary awards under the VICP 2 and the fees booked by attorneys and expert witnesses, 2 United States Department of Health the money raised through conferences and donations, speakers fees, and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration. National book royalties, etc., etc. Surely this pales in comparison to the amount Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, of money pharmaceutical companies spend developing new drugs, May 2011. URL http://www.hrsa.gov/ vaccinecompensation testing them for safety and efficacy to win licensing approval from the FDA as well as the money they make selling those drugs and vaccines. Nobody would argue that; however, the appearance of a con- flict of interest is not evidence of malfeasance. Arguing that it is is a rhetorical technique known as ‘poisoning the well’ 3. Accusing one’s 3 Wikipedia. Poisoning the Well, May opponent of being in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry even 2011b. URL http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Poisoning_the_well without the appearance of a conflict of interest occurs with such fre- quency in arguments about vaccination and autism that it has been nicknamed the ‘pharma shill gambit.’ 4 It being such a common, ju- 4 Orac. The "pharma shill" gambit : venile and diversionary tactic got me thinking – if I’m part of some Respectful Insolence, August 2005. URL http://goo.gl/jTZsb vast-yet-poorly-concealed conspiracy for simply arguing that vaccines are safe and effective and don’t cause autism, then could it be my opponent is also a member of a vast-yet-poorly-concealed conspir- acy too? After all, Dr. Andrew Wakefield 5 was paid over £400,000 5 Sarah Boseley. Andrew Wake- by a personal injury lawyer to find a link between the MMR vaccine field struck off register by General Medical Council | Society | The Guardian, May 2011. URL http://www. guardian.co.uk/society/2010/may/24/ andrew-wakefield-struck-off-gmc inverting the pharma shill narrative: dr. mark geier, entities and relationships 2 and autism6. He also held a patent on a single vaccine which stood 6 Brian Deer. Brian Deer investi- to replace the combined MMR vaccine had his hypothesis been con- gates MMR - legal aid funding, May 2011. URL http://briandeer.com/ firmed. He disclosed neither of those facts in his now-retracted paper wakefield/legal-aid.htm. How An- in the Lancet nor during his press conference which kicked off the drew Wakefield was paid to attack MMR, investigation by Brian Deer UK MMR scare. And yes, I know Dr. Paul Offit held a patent on the rotavirus vaccine RotaTeq currently produced by Merck. The differ- ence is that Offit has never caused a national panic while deliberately omitting that he stood to gain handsomely from said panic. Regardless, a conspiracy7 needs more than one actor and multiple 7 In this case, a faux conspiracy; the actors imply links between them. distinction will become apparent later. So I did what any good faux conspiracy theorist does: I began researching. Reading is Fundamental How?Simple.Read a book. I read two: Autism’s False Prophets8 8 Paul A. Offit. Autism’s False Prophets: and Deadly Choices9, both by my unindicted co-conspirator and Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure. Columbia Univer- Pharma Shill First Class with Oak Leaf Cluster, Paul Offit. If he sity Press, 2008. URL http://www. knew about a pretend anti-vaccination industry conspiracy, surely worldcat.org/isbn/9780231146361 9 he would have identified the major players in one of his books. Paul A. Offit. Deadly choices : how the anti-vaccine movement threatens us all. 10 But where to start? Since he’s in the news this week , I’ll pick Basic Books, 2011. URL http://www. Dr. Mark A. Geier as a representative member of my opposing faux worldcat.org/isbn/9780465023561 10 conspiracy. Put his name into Google and see what turns up. Maybe This was written on May 5th 2011. Dr. Geier’s medical license was suspended he’s published in a journal, maybe he runs an organization, maybe he in an emergency action in Maryland speaks at conferences, maybe he testifies as an expert witness11. Who Chicago Breaking News. Trib Update: knows? Google does. Write this information down someplace. Md. suspends autism doctor’s license - chicagotribune.com, May 2011. URL So far, a single player isn’t much of a faux conspiracy. I would http://goo.gl/HzQiN. Byline: Steve need to show a web of players and evidence of the relationships be- Mills and Patricia Callahan 11 In fact, he does all of these things tween them. The nice thing about the internet is that you can fairly quickly confirm facts printed in books (a good faux conspiracy the- orist trusts no one and confirms his or her sources.) It also helps if you read books with references to sources. It wasn’t difficult to con- nect Dr. Geier to the “Institute of Chronic Illnesses, Inc.” given the well-documented problems with its institutional review board (IRB) 12. 12 Kathleen Seidel. neurodiversity As a medical research outfit, the Institute of Chronic Illnesses, Inc. weblog: An Elusive Institute, June 2006. URL http://goo.gl/sTFD7 would probably be set up as a non-profit and that non-profit would likely have to be registered with the federal and state governments if it wanted to take advantage of being tax-free and offer tax deduc- tions for donations. Having served on the board of directors of a national non-profit organization, I know a little about the non-profit world. For one thing, you still have to file statements with the IRS, and for another, those statements are a matter of public record. So, inverting the pharma shill narrative: dr. mark geier, entities and relationships 3 should you want information about the Institute of Chronic Illnesses, Inc., you can go to a website devoted to research into non-profits such as the National Center for Charitable Statistics. If you are very lucky, they will have a search engine and links to IRS filings13. Select 13 National Center for Charitable pages of IRS Form 990 for the Institute of Chronic Illnesses, Inc. are Studies. NCCS - Search Active Organizations, May 2011b. URL appended to this essay. http://nccsdataweb.urban.org/ PubApps/search.php I Am Not A Number, I Am A Free Man. Maybe Both. One of the useful bits of information about an organization is it’s Employer ID Number, or EIN. This is akin to a Social Secu- rity number for corporations. The EIN of the Institute of Chronic Illnesses, Inc. is 203444055. This may or may not come in handy later, but it’s a scrap of tangible, verifiable evidence – a piece of the UFO, hairs from Bigfoot, a scale from the Loch Ness Monster. Someone with access to a real business intelligence service such as LexisNexis or Bloomberg can take that EIN and pull information that us faux conspiracy theorists don’t have access to. Other than that, the EIN isn’t very interesting, at least not as interesting as IRS Form 990 14. 14 Wikipedia. IRS Tax Forms: 990, May IRS Form 990 is more verbosely known as “Return of Organization 2011a. URL http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/IRS_tax_forms#990 Exempt From Income Tax.” This bit of bureaucratic paper contains a trove of information: names and positions of organization officers, if and how much they get paid, major donors and the amounts they donated, donations and payments made by the organization to other individuals or organizations, etc. Why do non-profits have to file tax returns if they pay no tax? Easy – it’s so the government can tell if a tax-exempt non-profit is behaving the way it said it would when it applied for non-profit status. For example, there’s a special category for political lobbyists – they’re tax-exempt but donations to them are not tax-deductible. If you are a charity you can do a little lobbying and still accept tax-deductible donations as long as your political activity is a small part of your overall activity. Mostly, Form 990 exists to let the IRS know if you’ve converted your lifestyle into a big tax dodge and to let others know where their charitable contributions are going. For our purposes, we see who’s been funding the Institute of Chronic Illnesses, Inc. A researcher from Georgetown University do- nated equipment and supplies. The non-profit Autism Research Insti- tute gave cash.
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