Quackery in my back yard!

Oh, great. Orac just has to tell me that the University of Minnesota is going to host an anti-vaccine conference on 24 January.

First, let me say this, though: they get to do that. Presumably they've rented out (or possibly obtained student or faculty sponsorship) Cowles Auditorium at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, and just about anyone can do that. They may be fraggin' morons, but they're part of the public, and it's a public university.

Still, this is painfully stupid and a disservice to the public trust. It's a conference in which a train of pseudo-experts will lie, lie, lie in order to sell books -- in fact, I suspect it's a bit of a con to peddle their books, since the $99 admission fee includes dumping a pile of crap, the garbage these guys have written, in your lap. That $99 is also one reason I won't be attending, much as I'd like to document the dishonesty; of course, another reason I won't be going is that I doubt this gang of propagandists will be entertaining, much less informative.

I recognized some of the speakers' names, and others I looked up. It's largely a hodge-podge of shills from the Age of Autism blog -- so right there you know it's not going to be very good.

1. Louis Conte: a policeman who wrote a novel about a conspiracy.

   Tony Colletti, a good suburban cop and father, finds himself drawn into the controversy over vaccines and autism when he tries to uncover the truth behind the shadowy Vaccine Court. His dangerous journey forces him to will risk his life and honor while confronting corrupt government officials, the powerful pharmaceutical industry, and disturbing elements of his own past. Colletti and his allies battle spies, Russian gangsters, and sexual predators preying upon disabled children. They go to war against foes who manipulate the media, fabricate scientific research, and viciously attack those who question vaccine safety.

2. David Lewis, a retired environmental microbiologist, who has a history of defending Andrew Wakefield (incompetently), and who believes in a "conspiracy with the pharmaceutical industry and government agencies to exact what he calls “retribution” on the purportedly innocent Wakefield.".

3. Kent Heckenlively, a former attorney and a contributor to the Age of Autism blog and notorious nut.

4. Judy Mikovits, a scientist whose claim to fame, a paper in Science, was retracted under a cloud, and who was so untrustworthy that she was jailed for stealing lab notebooks…and she was fired.

5. Mark Blaxill, a guy with an MBA, and another Age of Autism crank

   and professional loon. He has no scientific qualifications at all.

6. Dan Olmsted, another AoA hack, a journalist with very little knowledge of science, who thinks of himself as a martyr for True Science.

7. Wayne Rohde, an attorney and JAQ-off.

8. Ann Dachel, an editor at AoA, who doesn't know any history at all.

9. Mary Holland, another lawyer. Orac does not think highly of her.

10. Kim Mack Rosenberg, a lawyer, and a contributor to this wonderfully titled book, "Vaccine Epidemic: How Corporate Greed, Biased Science, and Coercive Government Threaten Our Human Rights, Our Health, and Our Children". It's all a conspiracy!

So of these ten people, two have a science background, and one of them is disgraced and discredited. Four of them are lawyers or ex-lawyers. The others just seem to be lay people obsessed with finding a cause for autism.

I do love the fact that of the 9 slots in the schedule, 3 of them are going to one guy, Conte, whose credentials consist of having written a novel, filed under FICTION. That seems apt, since the rest of them are going to make shit up, too.