“A Foolish Faith In Authority Is The Worst Enemy Of The Truth”– Albert Einstein
By Vera Sharav
Note from the World Mercury Project Team: Following is Part Six in Vera Sharav’s seven-part exposé of the complex and widespread corruption that exists in the vaccination program, the deceptive practices by officials of “authoritative” international public health institutions and further evidence of the callous disregard for the plight of thousands of children and young adults who suffer irreversible harm. Sharav’s research is a must-read by those in our community.
This recourse to authority is an attitude reminiscent of the American eugenics movement, when public health officials and academics at elite universities, embraced the pseudo-scientific tenets of eugenics, which were the basis for abhorrent discriminatory policies, including forced sterilization policies that were launched in the USA.[60]
The internal CDC documents reveal that in addition to major methodological flaws and inconsistencies, CDC scientists and Danish scientists collaborated in outright fraud. Thorsen and his co-authors manipulated the results by excluding the largest outpatient clinic in Copenhagen – comprising 20% of autism cases in Denmark – from the pre-1992 cohort – thereby artificially inflating the autism incidence in Denmark after 1992 when thimerosal had been eliminated from children’s vaccines.
Furthermore, the authors of the Pediatrics (2003) article falsified their findings by omitting the 2001 data from their published report. The published report claims an astoundingly high (implausible) increase in the autism prevalence rate in Denmark after the phase-out and removal of thimerosal between 1990 and 1999.
This case reveals much about the corrupted vaccine literature. Indeed, the research community has not only failed to examine Thorsen / CDC research fraud, journal editors are knowingly facilitating fraudulent research articles to influence vaccination policies that put thousands of children at risk, depriving them of living normal lives.
The publicly accessible, internal CDC correspondence[1] allows anyone to trace the underhanded route that led to the publication of the Madsen/Thorsen/ et al report in the journal Pediatrics – after it was rejected by the Lancet and by JAMA. A written communication between Dr. Thorsen and high ranking CDC official, Coleen Boyle (2003) reveals that when the paper was first submitted to Pediatrics with the 2001 data included; it was criticized by one peer-reviewer:
“The drop of incidence shown for the most recent years is perhaps the most dramatic feature of the figure, and is seen in the oldest age group as well as the youngest.” The reviewer questions the authors’ failure to discuss “the possibility that this decrease might have come about through elimination of [T]himerosal.”
The internal CDC documents further show that CDC brought pressure to bear on journal editors to publish the Danish studies. Dr. Cordero, Assistant Surgeon General, National Center on Birth Defects & Developmental Disabilities used his influence to persuade Dr. Lucey to publish the Madsen / Thorsen study, “Thimerosal and the Occurrence of Autism”
“I am writing in support of an expedited review and consideration of the enclosed manuscript… Specific aspects of vaccinations have been subject to inquiry includ[ing] the MMR vaccine and thimerosal…For thimerosal there are limited data…The Danish study is a powerful epidemiologic study …a key strength of the study is the ability to examine rates of autism prior to and after the discontinuation of vaccines containing thimerosal in Denmark in 1992. Contrary to what would be expected if thimerosal was linked to autism, the authors did not observe a decline in the rate of autism with the removal of thimerosal…
Its findings provide one strong piece of evidence that thimerosal is not causally linked to autism.” [Exhibit V: Cordero letter to Lucey]
How is it that even as thousands of journal papers are retracted from the scientific record – Retraction Watch counted more than 14,000 retractions– some are retracted for spurious reasons, others provide no explanation – yet, deliberately manipulated, fraudulent reports that were crafted to conceal vaccine safety hazards, have never been removed from the scientific literature. In fact, they continue to influence public health policy inasmuch as they were published in “authoritative” “high impact” journals.
In the case of Pediatrics, a fraudulent study was published despite the fact that its editors knew that the 2001 data was omitted from the final version.
US public health officials not only failed to disavow the fugitive’s research, federal officials have continued to collaborate and to co-author papers with him.
Dr. Thorsen continues to collaborate with the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Neonatal Research Network.
Federal dollars continued to flow to studies in which he was or is involved.
Thorsen is the named author of at least 19 reports following his fugitive status – “after his “disappearance”. The journals include: Pediatric Neurology (2016), PLoS One (2015), Pediatric Research (2014), Journal of Autism Development (2013), PLoS One (2013) (NCBI search)
Both the HHS and DOJ continue to use his research as grounds to reject vaccine injury claims in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation.
No retraction of the articles he was associated with during and subsequent to his 2004 to 2010 alleged criminal activities has occurred.
The entire US public health machine acts as if the indictment never occurred.
Public health officials and the news media are using fear and exaggeration about the risks of infectious disease in the U.S., as well as the risks posed by un-vaccinated children, which is pitting neighbor against neighbor and parent against parent. They use the classic divide and conquer strategy.
Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), responded to Thorsen’s indictment stating:
“even if the allegation against Thorsen is true, it does not mean his science is bad… Let’s assume it is true that he embezzled money, the notion that it casts the science into question is false. For these big epidemiological studies, it is hard to believe that one person could effectively change the data.” (Philadelphia Inquirer, March 2010)
Dr. Offit is considered to be a leading authority, an ardent and outspoken vaccine defender/ promoter. This statement encapsulates the low regard that vaccinologists have for the integrity of vaccine science. Of course, like most vaccine promoters, Dr. Offit’s blatant conflicts of interest have enabled him to “vote himself rich”. [61]He is quoted in Newsweek (2008) stating that the millions he made from the rotavirus vaccine patent: “was like winning the lottery.”
http://www.newsweek.com/dr-paul-offi...ism-link-91933
I believe that even if the allegations of embezzlement are not true, the evidence is indisputable that the studies produced by Poul Thorsen, and published in premier medical journals, are fatally flawed. By altering the inclusion criteria, excluding data that contradicted the authors’ claimed conclusion relegated the study to the ash heap of fraudulent junk science.
Furthermore, the following two studies “were conducted and results published without legally–required ethics clearances.”
A Population-Based Study of Measles, Mumps, and Rubella Vaccination and Autism” was published by The New England Journal of Medicine (2002);
The validity of Childhood Autism in the Danish Psychiatric Central Register (co-authored by CDC scientist Diana Schendel) was published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (2010).
“CDC officials knew that the psychiatric registry records were reviewed without required permissions and they covered it up. In what are completely unethical acts by all involved, the team members went into damage control mode and decided that they likely could obtain permission for ongoing and future studies.
They concluded that it would probably be impossible to get permission for research that was already finalized (and published). It is absurd that experienced federal grants management officials even discussed the idea of seeking a human subject safety review retroactively. These are serious ethical violations. [sic] they shed light on the pervasive culture of corruption at the CDC.”[62]
In January 2013, a Congressional hearing on autism[63] convened by the Government Oversight Committee.
Dr. Coleen Boyle (had by then been promoted to) Director of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, and Dr. Alan Guttmacher, Director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Institute of the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD) defended their agencies but provided no substantive information.
Boyle and Guttmacher evaded pertinent questions. When asked about why the number of children with autism has surged, they testified that autism has no known cause or cure; their focus was statistical tracking and detection tools.
When asked if CDC had sought constituent input?
Are there studies looking at the very aggressive way that we’re over-vaccinating our children”?
Are you looking at the impacts of combinations of vaccines”?
Boyle responded, “We know that vaccines save lives.”
No response was given to the following questions:
What steps were taken to ensure the integrity of the studies in which Thorsen was involved?
Why did the FDA and HHS take thimerosal out of all children’s vaccines except just the one or two or three, if there was no problem?
Both Republicans and Democrats were exasperated by the evasive responses.
Dr. Boyle finally acknowledged: “We have not studied vaccinated versus unvaccinated [children]”.
Dr. Guttmacher tried to impress the committee with non-specific claims of accomplishments: the NIH $169 million budget allocation for autism in 2011; he claimed “effective interventions…recent advances in networks” but could not give an example of an effective autism treatment resulting from the last 10 yrs in which the NIH had spent $500 million dollars on autism research, Dr. Guttmacher responded that progress had been “elusive” due to lack of funding. He did not wish to respond to the question, why thimerosal was still used in multi-vial vaccinations?
“I’m just sitting here, and I’m listening to all this. There’s something wrong with this picture. There’s something wrong… When you’ve got this combination of shots, and you go from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 88, it seems to me somebody would say, wait a minute, let’s put the brakes on this, and at least let’s try to figure out whether the multiple-shot situation is causing this —
If I’m giving a baby nine shots in a day whether that—I mean, how much impact that’s having… you said there’s a body of evidence with regard to vaccines…
Mr. Chairman, I don’t know where we go from here… if we’re going to err, let’s err on the side of keeping children safe even if we have to [sic] do a pause and give one shot a day.”
Mark Blaxill, the author of The Age of Autism (2010), which documents that autism did not exist before the introduction of vaccines in the 1930s. Blaxill presented testimony on behalf of Safe Minds:
“Autism is a public health crisis of historic proportions. Autism is a public health crisis of historic proportions. Worse than poliomyelitis. It’s devastating a generation of children and their families. We need to face up to the reality Autism is a national emergency. Autism rates didn’t just rise, they multiplied.The old surveys didn’t just miss 99% of children with autism.
It’s horrible but true; reported rates of autism have risen simply because there are more cases of autism. In the midst of this crisis, the federal agencies responsible for the health of our nation’s children have failed in their duty. CDC’s negligence has led the way. Many believe CDC has actively covered up the evidence surrounding autism’s environmental causes.
NIH has received the lion’s share of Congressional funding, money they have wasted on status quo research and gene studies. It’s absurd to focus on genetic research in this crisis, there’s no such thing as a genetic epidemic. In the financial world, the result of the pressure to manipulate numbers to provide the answers bosses want has a name – securities fraud…what CDC has given us is the medical equivalent of securities fraud. All to avoid the inconvenient reality of the autism epidemic.
In 2006, Congress gave the NIH a mission to “combat autism.” You authorized $850 million for that mission… NIH spent most of that money on the great autism gene hunt while blackballing environmental researchers and defying parent concerns. It’s been a colossal waste of money and time. Not a single case of autism has been prevented. Not a single child received improved treatments. We need to conduct independent research into the great unmentionables, mercury, and vaccines, connections that we’ve documented in the earliest cases.
We need accountable new leadership. Please root out the failures, the waste, the fraud, the negligence and the abuse of these agencies that aren’t doing their jobs.” Blaxill’s latest book, co-authored by Dan Olmsted is DENIAL: How Refusing to Face the Facts about Our Autism Epidemic Hurts Children, Families, and Our Future (2017)
Cong. Bill Posey made an announcement, and submitted new information for the Congressional Record: “I have information that the fugitive doctor had been involved in [sic] 21 of the 24 studies with CDC”.
Another Major Episode of CDC Fraud & Scientific Malfeasance Came to Light
In 2014, Dr. William Thompson, the senior CDC epidemiologist who co-authored the 2004 study published in Pediatrics blew the whistle and revealed that fraud had been committed by CDC authors (himself included) to conceal the higher risk of autism for African American baby boys who were vaccinated prior to 36 months and prior to 24 months of age. Beginning in 2013, in taped conversations with Dr. Brian Hooker, Dr. Thompson revealed how CDC destroyed evidence of the risk for autism. He provided primary documented evidence – a copy of data that had been deleted from the published article in Pediatrics (2004) the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.[64]
“We hypothesized that if we found statistically significant effects at either the 18-month or 36-month threshold, we would conclude that vaccinating children early with the MMR vaccine could lead to autism-like characteristics or features.”
When CDC scientists did find a statistically significant causal relationship between MMR and autism in African American boys, according to Dr. Thompson’s eyewitness account, CDC removed 260 black baby boys from the dataset and destroyed the data. The analysis in the published report in Pediatrics misrepresents the risk of having eliminated data from the dataset. That constitutes fraud.
Dr. Thompson stated that he wrote a letter alerting Dr. Julie Gerberding to the findings and suggested that the Institute of Medicine safety review committee should be informed of the risk, prior to its consequential February 2004 meeting. Dr. Thompson was reprimanded for contacting Dr. Gerberding and was put on administrative leave. He was threatened with being fired. In his taped conversation with Dr. Hooker – which was central in the film Vaxxed – he expressed shock by his own action:[65]
“Oh my God. I cannot believe we did what we did. But we did.” “It’s the lowest point of my career, when I went along with that paper. I went along with this, and we didn’t report significant findings.”
“I am completely ashamed of what I did. I have great shame now. I was complicit, and I went along with that paper. I have great shame now, when I meet families with kids with autism, because I have been part of the problem.”
Dr. Hooker re-analyzed the complete CDC dataset in 2014, including the data that had been omitted from the published study in Pediatrics (2004). It showed statistically significant adverse effects at both 24 months and 36 months (RR 3.36, 95% CI 1.50-7.51, p = 0.0019). The higher relative risk of autism for African American infant boys, vaccinated with MMR prior to 36 months, was (330%) compared to other babies. His re-analysis was published online by Translational Neurodegeneration on August 8, 2014:[65]
“The present study provides new epidemiologic evidence showing that African American males receiving the MMR vaccine prior to 24 months of age or 36 months of age are more likely to receive an autism diagnosis.
The results show a strong relationship between child age at the administration of the first MMR and autism incidence exclusively for African American boys which could indicate a role of the vaccine in the etiology of autism within this population group. The particular analysis was not completed in the original Destefano et al (CDC) study… the CDC study limited the total African American cohort to include only those individuals who possessed a valid State of Georgia birth certificate which decreased the statistical power of their analysis.”
However, Dr. Hooker’s article came under attack; pressure from the shadowy cyber enforcement squads,[66] that act as a police force to suppress every independent vaccine study that challenges the mantra: “there is no link to autism… vaccines are safe and effective”.
On August 27, the journal removed Hooker’s article with the statement: “This article has been removed from the public domain because of serious concerns about the validity of its conclusions. The journal and publisher believe that its continued availability may not be in the public interest”. There was no specific fault or mistake cited.[68]
On the same day that Dr. Hooker’s article was removed from the journal’s website, Dr. Thompson acknowledged the following in a statement issued by his lawyer (August 27, 2014):
“I regret that my co-authors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics. The omitted data suggested that African American males who received the MMR vaccine before age 36 months were at increased risk for autism. Decisions were made regarding which findings to report after the data were collected, and I believe that the final study protocol was not followed.”
“My concern has been the decision to omit relevant findings in a particular study for a particular subgroup for a particular vaccine. There have always been recognized risks for vaccination and I believe itis the responsibility of the CDC to properly convey the risks associated with receipt of those vaccines.
I have had many discussions with Dr. Brian Hooker over the last 10 months regarding studies the CDC has carried out regarding vaccines and neurodevelopmental outcomes, including autism spectrum disorders. I share his belief that CDC decision-making and analyses should be transparent.”
Dr. Thompson then forwarded the documents to a U.S. Congressman William Posey who has repeatedly requested a congressional investigation.[69]
“Mr. Speaker, I believe it is our duty to insure that the documents that Dr. Thompson are not ignored. Therefore I will provide them to members of Congress and the House Committees upon request. Considering the nature of the whistleblower’s documents as well as the involvement of the CDC, a hearing and a thorough investigation is warranted.“So I ask, Mr. Speaker, I beg, I implore my colleagues on the appropriations committees to please, please take such action.”
On August 26, 2014, Sharyl Attkisson, an investigative journalist who earned numerous awards as CBS science correspondent (1993-2014), conducted taped telephone interviews with Dr. Frank DeStefano,[70] Director of CDC Immunization Safety, who co-authored the Pediatrics (2004) study.
He confirmed the verity of the confessions of CDC whistleblower, Dr. William Thompson about the omission from the published Pediatrics report, of children in the dataset, for whom there were no birth certificates here.
In a telephone interview, DeStefano defended the study and reiterated the commonly accepted position that there’s no “causal” link between vaccines and autism. But he acknowledged the prospect that vaccines might rarely trigger autism.
“Wouldn’t say it’s a myth, I’d say[sic] all the evidence, thus far, points to that there’s not a causal association between vaccines and autism…It’s a theoretical possibility…It’s hard to predict who those children might be, but certainly, individual cases can be studied to look at those possibilities.”
Attkisson writes, “They’re not even trying. A CDC spokesman told me that:
“the agency is not currently investigating the relation between vaccines and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Further, CDC does not have any planned research addressing vaccines and autism. CDC believes that this topic has been thoroughly studied and no causal links have been found. Current CDC ASD related research focuses on determining how many people have ASD and understanding [other, not vaccine-related] risk factors and causes for ASD”.[71]
When Dr. Thompson attempted to leave, CDC gave him a $24,000 bonus – a retention fee. Apparently, CDC continues to employ Dr. Thompson, because they feel more secure with him as an agency employee, enabling them to scrutinize his activities. Clearly, they feared his being outside the agency, which would risk that he might disclose additional CDC secrets.
CDC Continues to Conceal the Authentic 1999 Verstraeten VSD Study Findings.
When a request was filed with CDC to provide Dr. Verstraeten’s original dataset for independent analysis, CDC officials claimed the data were “lost.” Even after approval was granted, Dr. Mark Geier was blocked from gaining access to CDC’s Vaccine Safety Dataset which is the data CDC relied upon its study published Pediatrics. CDC continues to disseminate false reassurances in its “Science Summary Fact Sheet” claiming: “The evidence is clear: thimerosal is not a toxin in vaccines… there is no relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism in children.” As its “evidence,” CDC cites the Danish studies.
In January 2017, the President and Executive Vice President of the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a press release in opposition to a federal vaccine commission on immunizations.
Fernando Stein, MD, FAAP and Karen Remkey, MD, MBA, MPH, FAAP stated: since we already know that: “vaccines are safe. Vaccines are effective. Vaccines save lives.” AAP declared that there is no need for further examination pf vaccine safety:
Vaccines prevent forms of cancer.
Claims that vaccines are linked to autism have been disproven by a robust body of medical literature.
Claims that vaccines are unsafe when administered according to the [CDC’s] recommended schedule have likewise been disproven by a robust body of medical literature”.
However, when asked to provide citations to any peer-reviewed study that supports AAP’s claim that “vaccines prevent forms of cancer” or to cite the “robust body of medical literature” that supports its claims, the AAP declined, with a “no comment” response. (Immunization News, 2017)
WMP NOTE: This concludes Part Six. The final segment of this series will be entitled: Multiple Industry-Saturated Collaborating Partners Set the Agenda for Vaccination Policies.
Previously published articles: Sharav’s Introduction to the full article, L’affaire Wakefield: Shades of Dreyfus & BMJ’s Descent into Tabloid Science, outlines her well-researched and documented belief that, “Public health officials and the medical profession have abrogated their professional, public, and human responsibility, by failing to honestly examine the iatrogenic harm caused by expansive, indiscriminate, and increasingly aggressive vaccination policies.” Part One focuses on how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the vaccine industry control vaccine safety assessments, control the science of vaccines and control the scientific and mass channels of information about vaccines. In Part Two Ms. Sharav interprets the complex web of internal CDC documents, revealing how key CDC studies and CDC-commissioned studies were shaped by use of illegitimate methods. Part Three takes a closer look at the Brighton Collaboration and the extraordinary influence these stakeholders have in the business of vaccines and their power to control the science and research and manipulate reports to further their own interests. Focusing on the HPV vaccine, in Part Four Ms. Sharav explores how a global network of government/academic and industry stakeholders can suppress information about genuine scientific findings and, when needed, engage in corrupt practices to thwart the airing of information about vaccine safety issues. CDC’s childhood vaccination policy rests on the denial of safety hazards posed by vaccines and CDC officials are intent on shielding the policy and vaccination schedule at any cost. Part Five examines documentation and internal correspondence that reveals how CDC used its influence and subsequently rejected scientific studies that contradicted the sacrosanct vaccine safety mantra.
More about the author: Vera Sharav is a Holocaust survivor and a fierce critic of the medical establishment. This article was originally published at
www.ahrp.org. Stat news recently published an article about her and her work.
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