Monday 4 January 2010

Jackie Fletcher gets legal aid, hires 'eminent scientist'

According to WiganToday.net, JABS' Jackie Fletcher has "…become the first person in the UK to be granted a form of legal aid to help take a claim to a Vaccine Damage Payment Unit tribunal."

This will be her second attempt to claim damages for her disabled son, whom she claims was damaged by his MMR shot - the first claim collapsed when it turned out she was trying to sue the wrong pharmaceutical company.

WiganToday.net then goes on:

And while the majority of the medical establishment remains set against links between the measles, mumps and rubella jab and conditions such as autism and Crohn's disease, the Fletchers now have the backing of an eminent American scientist who will testify for them.

And who's this eminent scientist you may well ask?

Dr Marcel Kinsbourne. Autism Diva has an interesting post on him and his performance at the autism omnibus hearings. Please read it - it's most amusing. He claims not to know the difference between an indexed and a non-indexed publication, it turns out he's not treated any children for 17 years (at the time of the hearing), and admits that if gut biopsy had not found measles, he would would no longer hold the opinion that this was a case of MMR causing ASD - it was shown that it was impossible for measles to have shown up in the gut biopsies.

So, hardly the expert that WiganToday claims. Presumably they're simply repeating what the Fletchers have told them.

I have every sympathy for Jackie Fletcher having to care for a severely disabled child for eighteen years or so, but hopefully when this is thrown out again she'll be able to admit she's wrong about the cause of that disability.

Edit: Kinsbourne's a favourite of John Scudamore's repository of all things anti-science, Whale.To. I think that says quite a lot about him… :-)

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