Autism Street

In addition to a growing response from the blogging community (list documented by Liz over at I Speak of Dreams), please don’t miss Orac’s recent post:

“An Open Letter to David Kirby and Dan Olmsted About The Kathleen Seidel Subpoena”

The entire post is worthy reading, and Orac indirectly notes the apparent silence of bloggers David Kirby and Dan Olmsted on the issue so far.

You are both journalists. I realize that neither of you at present work for the traditional press and that both of you seem to devote yourselves mainly to blogging (Mr. Olmsted at the Age of Autism and Mr. Kirby at the Huffington Post), but I have to believe that you both still consider yourselves to be at heart journalists. That is why I am writing this to you and posting it publicly on my blog. If you’ve ever read any of my posts on this issue, you probably realize that I strongly disagree with your positions and that at times I have been quite harsh in my judgment of articles you have both written. I am, however, hoping that for this one issue, upon which (I hope) we can all agree that you will for the moment put that aside and consider what I have to say. I am appealing for your condemnation of what has been done to autism blogger Kathleen Seidel.

[Let's] lay it out for you just what the stakes are. Ask yourself: What would your reaction be if, hours after you published a post or article critical of, say, Julie Gerberding, the CDC’s lawyers issued a subpoena demanding “all documents pertaining to the the setup, financing, research, and maintaining” your blogs; bank statements, canceled checks, online or offline donation documents, and tax returns; all documents (e-mails, notes, memos, letters, etc.) pertaining to communications related to your blogs …

[and the list goes on]

I’ll be interested to see how (if) David Kirby and Dan Olmsted respond.

Don’t miss the discussion following Orac’s post either.