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Two weeks ago, the Pulp published a small item about Mark and David Geier — a father-son team of self-proclaimed autism experts who treat the condition with a powerful chemical castration agent called Lupron. They’re from Maryland, but their interests run deep in Florida.
They’ve got a clinic here, out in Pembroke Pines, and they’ve long enjoyed the support of Dr. Gary Kompothecras of Sarasota — a chiropractor and advocate for fringe autism treatments who’s good friends with our erstwhile governor, Charlie Crist. In 2008, Crist appointed Kompothecras to his special Autism Task Force, and Kompothecras — or “Dr. Gary,” as he’s known — used his political muscle to pressure the Florida Department of Health to give the Geiers Florida’s confidential vaccination records so they could run a study that, they hoped, would conclusively prove the link between vaccines and autism.
That there is no such link has been well-demonstrated. The
allegedly autism-causing agent in vaccines — ethyl mercury, minute
amounts of which are found in the vaccine preservative thimerisol — has
long been removed from almost all vaccines, with no resultant decrease
in the number of new autism cases. But even if ethyl mercury did cause
autism, the science behind the Geiers’ Lupron treatments would have been
highly dubious. But nobody seemed very interested in doing anything
about it.
Until recently. Not long ago, Maryland Gov. Martin
O’Malley appointed David Geier — the son of Dr. Mark Geier — to his
own autism task force — the Maryland Commission on Autism. On the task
force’s website, the younger Geier was referred to as “Dr. David Geier —
diagnostician” — though he is not a doctor, nor was he trained as a
diagnostician, as we pointed out here
on May 10. Maybe the news made the rounds. David Geier has now been
charged with practicing medicine without a license, and the governor has
personally booted him from his task force. Today, a letter from the
governor’s office appeared in the Baltimore Sun that read:
Dear Mr. Geier:
The
purpose of this letter is to advise you that, effective today, you are
no longer a member of the Maryland Commission on Autism. I regret that
you were not willing to withdraw from the Commission and that this
action is therefore necessary.Although no reasons for this
actions are required, the reasons include (1) that you do not at the
present time qualify to serve on the Commission as a “diagnostician” …
and (2) that you have been charged under the Maryland Medical Practice
Act with practicing medicine without a license.Sincerely,
Martin O’Malley
Governor
As of this writing, the elder Geier — the one who really is a doctor — has had his medical license suspended in Maryland. The Geiers’ Pembroke Pines clinic is still open for business.
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