Kathleen Seidel run Neurodiversity.com, a great resource on all things related to autism. Recently she criticised , lawyer who is representing Lisa and Seth Sykes, who are suing Bayer on the grounds that their autistic son was harmed by RhoD immune globulin injections that contained thimerosal (a mercury based substance).

Mr. Shoemaker specialises in Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) cases. A particular type of legal case that allows the lawyers costs to be paid by the court regardless of whether they win or lose. Its purpose is to allow the poor and sick to sue but Mr Shoemaker is earning a fair amount of money from it.

Kathleen wrote on her blog:

The elimination of litigative risk, however, provides a motivation for VICP specialists facing a paucity of substantiable claims to nurture exaggerated public perceptions of vaccine risks; to overstate the likelihood that facts in compensable cases are similar to those that are not; to promulgate dubiously-supported claims of the range of maladies that might be caused by vaccines; and to encourage individuals and families grappling with chronic, disabling medical and developmental problems to attribute causation of those problems to heretofore unrecognized, “long onset” vaccine reactions.

You can find all the details of the subpoena here and the original article, here.

Regardless of your position on autism and vaccines, please support Kathleen against these bullying tactics from lawyers who have a vested interest in spreading dubious science and worrying parents.