Mark Geier

Mark R. Geier (born 1948, Washington, D.C.) is a self-employed American physician and controversial professional witness who has testified in more than 90 cases regarding allegations of injury or illness caused by vaccines.^[1][2]

Geier and his son, David Geier, are frequently cited by proponents of the claim that vaccines cause autism. Geier's credibility as an expert witness has been questioned in several court cases. In 2003, a judge ruled that Geier presented himself as an expert witness in "areas for which he has no training, expertise and experience."^[1] In other cases in which Geier has testified, judges have labeled his testimony "intellectually dishonest," "not reliable" and "wholly unqualified."^[1] Another judge wrote that Geier "may be clever, but he is not credible."^[3]

Geier's scientific work has also been criticized; when the Institute of Medicine reviewed vaccine safety in 2004, it dismissed Geier's work as seriously flawed, "uninterpretable", and marred by incorrect use of scientific terms.^[1] In 2003, the American Academy of Pediatrics criticized one of Geier's studies, which claimed a link between vaccines and autism, as containing "numerous conceptual and scientific flaws, omissions of fact, inaccuracies, and misstatements."^[4] New Scientist reported that the institutional review board which approved some of Geier's experiments with autistic children was located at Geier's business address and included Geier, his son and wife, a business partner of Geier's, and a plaintiff's lawyer involved in vaccine litigation.^[5] In January 2007, a paper by the Geiers was retracted by the journal Autoimmunity Reviews.^[2] In 2011, Geier's medical license was suspended in several states over concerns about his autism treatments.^[6]

Career

Geier received a B.S. in Zoology in 1970, a Ph.D. in genetics in 1973, and an M.D. in 1978, all from George Washington University.^{[citation needed]}

Geier while at the Laboratory of General and Comparative Biochemistry, National Institutes of Health in the 1970s and 1980s was a student researcher from 1969–1970, a research geneticist from 1971–1973, a staff fellow from 1973–1974, on the professional staff from 1974–1978, and a guest worker from 1980-1982. He has been examining vaccine safety issues since then.^[1] He was an assistant professor of gynecology and obstetrics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (Baltimore, MD) from 1979–1982 and an assistant research professor, department of psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (Bethesda, MD) from 1981-1984.^{[citation needed]}

He was board certified by the American Board of Medical Genetics as a genetic counselor in 1987. In 1996, Dr. Geier was certified a Diplomate of the American Board of Forensic Medicine.^{[citation needed]} He has been a Fellow of the American College of Epidemiology since 2007.^{[citation needed]} He is a Fellow of the American College of Medical Genetics.^[7]

He is currently a self-employed geneticist and along with his son David Geier he operates several organizations from his private address in Maryland, including the Institute for Chronic Illness and the Genetic Centers of America.^[2] As a professional witness he has testified in more than 90 vaccine cases, in support of the view that there is a clear link between thiomersal and autism.^[1]

Research

In 1970, while at the National Institute of Mental Health, Geier co-authored a paper published in Nature reporting the first successful genetic engineering experiment in which bacteriophage Lambda carrying the galactose operon corrected the inability of cells in tissue culture from a patient with galactosemia to metabolise the milk sugar galactose.^[8] This work received a great deal of attention, and the research team was profiled in stories in Newsweek and the New York Times as a result.^[9]

Geier cowrote the article, "The true story of pertussis vaccination: a sordid legacy?",^[10] which won the 2003 Stanley Jackson award for papers published in the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences.^[11]

Geier has published several speculative articles with his son David Geier, suggesting a relation between mercury exposure during infancy and the onset of neurodevelopmental disorders.^[12]

Controversies

Geier and his son have published several speculative articles about a possible link between autism spectrum disorders and TCVs,^[12] generating some controversy.^[13] The American Academy of Pediatrics dispute the conclusion of the Geiers' paper claiming a correlation between thimerosal and autism, and criticized it for "numerous conceptual and scientific flaws, omissions of fact, inaccuracies, and misstatements".^[4]

Limited access to Vaccine Safety Datalink records

The Geiers have been granted access to the Vaccine Safety Datalink records,^[14] but the National Immunization Program found that "during the first visit the researchers conducted unapproved analysis on their datasets and on the second visit attempted to carry out unapproved analyses but did not complete this attempt. This analysis, had it been completed, could have increased the risk of a confidentiality breach. Before leaving, the researchers renamed files for removal which were not allowed to be removed. Had it gone undetected, this would have constituted a breach of the rules about confidentiality."^[14]

Lupron

The Geiers have developed a protocol for treating autism that uses the drug Lupron. Mark Geier has called Lupron "the miracle drug" and the Geiers have marketed the protocol across the U.S.^[15] The Geiers filed three U.S. patent applications on the use of Lupron in combination with chelation therapy as a treatment protocol for autism based on the hypothesis that "testosterone mercury" along with low levels of glutathione blocks the conversion of DHEA to DHEA-S and therefore raises androgens which in turn further lower glutathione levels, ultimately providing a connection between autism, mercury exposure, and hyperandrogenicity, specifically precocious puberty.^[16][17][18]

According to expert pediatric endocrinologists, the Lupron protocol for autism is supported only by junk science.^[15] The reaction of mercury and testosterone which the therapy is intended to treat is actually based on a protocol used to create testosterone crystals for use in X-ray crystallography rather than a physiological process that occurs in the human body.^[19] Although Abbott Laboratories sells Lupron in the U.S. and cooperated with the Geiers in one of the patent applications, it is no longer pursuing work with them, citing the nonexistence of scientific evidence to justify further research.^[20]

When treating an autistic child, the Geiers order several dozen lab tests, costing $12,000: if at least one testosterone-related result is abnormal, the Geiers consider Lupron treatments, using 10 times the daily dose ordinarily used to treat precocious puberty. The therapy costs approximately $5,000 per month. The Geiers recommend starting treatment on children as young as possible, and say that some need treatment through adulthood.^[15]

Expert witness testimony

Geier has been qualified as an expert witness in Federal Court^[21] and has been accepted as an expert witness in approximately 100 hearings for parents seeking compensation from the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program for alleged vaccine injuries to their children. In 10 of these cases, "Dr. Geier's opinion testimony has either been excluded or accorded little or no weight based upon a determination that he was testifying beyond his expertise."^[22][23]

Medical licenses suspended

On April 27, 2011, the Maryland State Board of Physicians suspended Mark Geier's medical license as an "emergency action", saying he "endangers autistic children and exploits their parents by administering to the children a treatment protocol that has a known substantial risk of serious harm and which is neither consistent with evidence-based medicine nor generally accepted in the relevant scientific community."^[24] The board ruled that Geier misdiagnosed patients, diagnosed patients without sufficient tests, and recommended risky treatments without fully explaining the risks to the parents. They also ruled that he misrepresented his credentials, including during an interview with the board. Geier's lawyer, Joseph A. Schwartz III said the basis of the complaint was a "bona fide dispute over therapy", and hoped for a fair hearing to challenge the board's accusations.^[25]

The suspension was reaffirmed in May of 2011^[26], and upheld on appeal in March 2012, after a full evidentiary hearing before the Office of Administrative Hearings in Maryland.^[27] Geier's licenses to practice medicine in the states of Washington,^[28] Virginia ^[29] and California ^[30] were suspended as well.

In 2011 his son David Geier was charged by the Maryland State Board of Physicians of practicing as a licensed physician, when he only has a Bachelor of Arts in biology.^[31]

See also

Pervasive Developmental Disorders portal

• Controversies in autism

Notes and references

External links

• CaseWatch.org - "Dr Mark Geier Severely Criticized", by Stephen Barrett, M.D.
• IOM.edu - Immunization Safety Review: Vaccines and Autism, Institute of Medicine, May 17, 2004
• Dr Mark Geier in error of magnitude - Court report, June 25, 1990