Do vaccines contribute to autism? Should we vaccinate?

[onawah]

Gavin de Becker’s ‘Forbidden Facts’ Reveals Government Deceit about Brain Damage from Vaccines
1/2/26
By Jeremy Hammond
https://www.jeremyrhammond.com/2026/...rbidden-facts/

(Hyperlinks in the article not embedded here.)


"Gavin de Becker is a world-renowned criminologist and bestselling author of The Gift of Fear. His firm provided security for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. during his presidential campaign (while the Biden administration was refusing to provide RFK Jr. with Secret Service protection).

His most recent book is titled Forbidden Facts: Government Deceit & Suppression About Brain Damage from Childhood Vaccines, which brilliantly exposes the ludicrousness of the official denial that vaccines can cause autism.

With scathing wit and sardonicism, de Becker observes how vaccines are acknowledged to cause brain damage in some children, but if the resulting symptoms are diagnosed as “autism”, suddenly vaccines can no longer possibly be the cause.

De Becker cuts through the constant gaslighting to reveal the forbidden truth that has always been staring us all in the face.

The Government’s Partner in Crime: the IOM
The core focus of the book is to reveal how the cover up has been accomplished. You’ll hear people tell you that the idea that vaccines can cause autism has been “debunked”, but if you ask them who debunked it and how, most can’t answer.

Everyone just “knows” it because it’s what we’re constantly told.

To open the reader’s mind to the possibility that, yes, official cover ups can and do occur, de Becker starts with a discussion of how the Institute of Medicine (IOM) helped the government conceal the harms caused by Agent Orange, which the US military sprayed in Vietnam ostensibly as a defoliant, but which in effect was a chemical weapon prohibited under the 1925 Geneva Protocol.

Besides poisoning Vietnamese civilians, American soldiers suffered from the toxic effects of Agent Orange.

Obviously, the government had a motive to deny that its use of the chemical was a war crime and to deny compensation to veterans, and to assist in maintaining the façade that the evidence was insufficient to conclude that Agent Orange was responsible for veterans’ ailments, it turned to the IOM.

Listing numerous other examples where the IOM has helped to “debunk” health harms, de Becker draws the inescapable conclusion, “IOM helps the Government with crisis management, not science.”

De Becker proceeds to document how the IOM has served just as dutifully on the question of vaccines and autism.

Brain Damage Yes, Autism No?
The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) was established under the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act to effectively shift the financial burden for vaccine injuries away from the pharmaceutical industry and onto the taxpaying consumers.

Under the VICP, the government has officially acknowledged that encephalitis, or brain inflammation, and encephalopathy, or brain damage, can be caused by vaccines.

In numerous instances, compensation has been paid to families of children who suffered brain damage from vaccinations.

Yet when the brain damage manifests as symptoms of autism, we’re told vaccination can’t possibly be the cause.

This cognitive dissonance is highlighted by attorney Mary Holland and coauthors in a paper published in Pace Environmental Law Review in 2011, which notes that “the VICP has been compensating cases of vaccine-induced encephalopathy and residual seizure disorder associated with autism since the inception of the program.”

Holland et al. found “eighty-three cases of autism among those compensated for vaccine-induced brain damage.”

De Becker quotes the conclusion, “Based on this preliminary assessment, there may be no meaningful distinction between the cases of encephalopathy and residual seizure disorder that the VICP compensated over the last twenty years and the cases of ‘autism’ that the VICP has denied.”

Ignoring Genetic Susceptibility
A stark admission of the government’s lack of interest in determining what risk factors place some children at higher risk of vaccine injury manifesting as symptoms of autism came from former Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Bernadine Healy.

In an interview with Sharyl Attkisson for CBS News, Healy admitted that the vaccine-autism hypothesis could not be rejected because studies hadn’t been done to determine whether certain subpopulations of children are at higher risk.

“The reason why they didn’t want to look for those susceptibility groups”, Healy confessed, “was because they’re afraid that if they found them, however big or small they were, that would scare the public away.”

IOM Charged to Produce a Predetermined Answer
In chapters fourteen through sixteen of Forbidden Facts, de Becker quotes extensively from a leaked transcript of a secret meeting of the IOM’s Immunization Safety Review Committee on January 12, 2001 (archived here and here).

The committee chair, Dr. Marie McCormick, stated (p.33) that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which had contracted the IOM (p.72), “wants us to declare, well, these things are pretty safe on a population basis.”

The CDC was “worried about immunization coverage rates”—and any determination that vaccines can cause autism would undermine the policy goal of keeping vaccination rates up (p. 53).

Kathleen Stratton, who led the IOM’s 2004 review on thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism, said (p. 74), “The point of no return, the line we will not cross in public policy is pull the vaccine, change the schedule.”

Further into the meeting, Dr. McCormick said regarding autism that “we are not ever going to come down that it is a true side effect” (p. 97).

The predetermined conclusion was stated by Dr. Johnston (p. 127), “Then take the inadequate to accept or reject. That is a statement. That is our statement about causality. We don’t have good data that allows us to clearly say whether it is causal or not. . . . Basically, that is what they want us to do. I think we have got to do that in some way.”

Questioning Childhood Vaccines
De Becker’s book does not only address the official disinformation that studies have proven that “vaccines do not cause autism”. It also challenges popular beliefs about childhood vaccines in general, emphasizing the need for an individualized risk-benefit analysis for each vaccine and each child.

While the public messaging is that if you don’t get your child vaccinated, they are going to get the disease, the reality is that parents must weigh the very low risk of their child even being exposed to many of these pathogens, and the low risk from most of these disease if they do become infected, with the potential harms from the vaccine.

The book includes a chapter explaining how pharmaceutical companies, whose financial interests have been protected by the CDC and IOM, have repeatedly been fined for criminal offenses, including Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Merck, and Eli Lilly.

Normally, I’d use an affiliate link so if you buy the book I can generate some revenue to support my journalism, but Amazon has excluded Forbidden Facts from its Associates program. See, the facts it contains really are forbidden.

Order Forbidden Facts from Skyhorse Publishing.

Skyhorse, incidentally, is the publisher of my book The War on Informed Consent, which you can purchase directly from me on this site. It features a Foreword by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Order The War on Informed Consent from me.

Gavin de Becker on Joe Rogan
Watch Gavin de Becker discuss the topics covered in Forbidden Facts and much more with Joe Rogan:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=u04t4fkBIeM

During their discussion of HIV and AIDS, and how the Fauci-touted treatment AZT was killing patients, de Becker mentions a documentary called House of Numbers, which I found here:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=BwgmzbnckII

I haven’t watched it yet so can’t comment, but I figured since I’d located it, I might as well share it, too.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. discusses the AZT fiasco in detail in his book The Real Anthony Fauci, which I also highly recommend.

Order The Real Anthony Fauci.

Now you know. Others don’t. Share the knowledge. "

[onawah]

CDC Has KNOWN Vaccines Cause Autism Since 1999 Or Earlier Says Whistleblower Dr. Brian Hooker
The Jimmy Dore Show
1.78M subscribers
Feb 9, 2026

"In this segment Jimmy interviews Dr. Brian Hooker, who recounts allegations from a CDC whistleblower about suppressed research linking vaccines to autism, particularly focusing on internal CDC conduct and study design changes. Dr. Hooker discusses his role in publishing similar findings, argues that financial incentives and institutional culture discourage doctors and media from questioning vaccine policy, and criticizes figures like Bill Nye for dismissing vaccine-autism concerns.

The conversation also highlights the creation of a new HHS autism committee under RFK Jr., which Hooker suggests could represent a potential turning point for reexamining environmental and medical contributors to autism. Overall, the discussion centers on mistrust of public health institutions, calls for accountability, and hopes that renewed federal review will revisit questions long considered settled by mainstream authorities."

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=EpBgsI3yWLA

[onawah]

Former CDC Autism Scientist Extradited to U.S. on Fraud, Money Laundering Charges
by Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.
May 11, 2026
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/d...tm_id=20260511

(Podcast at the link. Hyperlinks in the article not embedded here.)



"Poul Thorsen, a Danish native who worked for the CDC beginning in the late 1990s, was indicted in 2011 for the alleged misuse of over $1 million in CDC grant money that was earmarked for autism and public health research. Thorsen is accused of redirecting the funds for his personal use. He is also known for his role in authoring studies finding no link between vaccines and autism. Critics allege the studies, still widely cited today, were flawed.

A former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) scientist who played a key role in research that denied any link between vaccination and autism was extradited to the U.S. last week to face charges of wire fraud and money laundering stemming from a 2011 indictment.

Poul Thorsen, 65, a Danish native, began working for the CDC in the late 1990s. In 2011, a federal grand jury indicted him for the alleged misuse of over $1 million in CDC grant money that was earmarked for autism and public health research. Thorsen is accused of redirecting the funds for his personal use.

Despite the indictment — and the existence of an extradition treaty between the U.S. and Denmark — Thorsen continued to live and work in Denmark. However, he was arrested in Germany last year on an INTERPOL warrant.

On May 8, U.S. Air Marshals escorted him from Germany to Atlanta, where he was arraigned.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which listed Thorsen on its most wanted list in 2012, posted a video of his extradition.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Thorsen faces two counts of wire fraud and nine counts of money laundering. He is being held without bail until trial.

In 2011, studies Thorsen co-authored were used to dismiss cases filed by the parents of autistic, vaccine-injured children that were part of the Omnibus Autism Proceedings pending before the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP).

A 2016 book, “Master Manipulator: The Explosive True Story of Fraud, Embezzlement, and Government Betrayal at the CDC,” focused on the Thorsen case, describing him as “a world-class villain whose manipulation of health data gave CDC and big pharma what they wanted: a report clearing thimerosal of any possible role in the autism crisis.”

Mary Holland, CEO of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), said Thorsen “was central to the CDC and Pharma lies that ‘vaccines do not cause autism.’”

Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer for CHD, said Thorsen’s work “set autism research back more than 20 years.”

“Previous administrations did not appear interested in pursuing Thorsen,” according to the MAHA Report. As a result, Thorsen was “living openly, apparently without concern of being captured in Denmark.”

HHS and DOJ did not respond to The Defender’s requests for comment.

Thorsen co-authored ‘flawed’ papers still used to disprove vaccine-autism link

When he first joined the CDC as a visiting scientist, Thorsen’s research focused on birth defects and developmental disabilities. However, by the early 2000s, he shifted his focus to autism research.

According to the DOJ, two Danish government agencies received over $11 million between 2000 and 2009 for a series of studies, including research on the vaccine-autism link.

Thorsen returned to Denmark in 2002 and “became responsible for administering the research money awarded by the CDC.” However, the DOJ and HHS allege that Thorsen embezzled some of this money, some of which was used to buy a home in Atlanta, two cars and a motorcycle.

Despite the alleged fraudulent activity, Thorsen left a strong imprint on autism research — and on subsequent narratives that autism isn’t linked to vaccines.

According to a 2017 report by the World Mercury Project — predecessor to CHD — “Thorsen’s influence on US vaccine projects and policies is extensive.”

“The studies he led had a strong influence on the review and outcomes of the Institute of Medicine (now known as the National Academy of Medicine) … when they looked at thimerosal in vaccines,” the report states.

One of those studies — the “Madsen study,” published in 2002 in The New England Journal of Medicine and co-authored by Thorsen — was a population-based study of the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. The study concluded that there is “strong evidence against the hypothesis that MMR vaccination causes autism.”

However, according to the 2017 report, the Madsen study was “flawed from the outset” because the researchers reviewed clinical records of only 40 of the 316 children who had autism in the study’s cohort. A peer-reviewed analysis last year cast further doubt on the study’s conclusions.

In 2003, Madsen and Thorsen were among the co-authors of a study published in Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. That study did “not support a correlation between thimerosal-containing vaccines and the incidence of autism.”

Hooker accused the authors of both studies of hiding data, making simple arithmetic errors designed not to find a correlation and cherry-picking information “to form the CDC’s narrative.”

Both studies relied on Danish population data. According to the 2017 report, the studies bypassed ethical reviews required for this category of research:

“Thorsen’s Madsen MMR-Autism study was conducted and published without a review and approval from the ethics committee (the Danish version of the IRB [Institutional Review Board]). It also shows that Thorsen failed to obtain annual human subject protection reviews, as required under US federal law.”

When the CDC discovered Thorsen hadn’t obtained the required ethics approvals, the agency didn’t report the errors, and the studies weren’t retracted. Instead, CDC officials engaged in a cover-up, the 2017 report states

Thorsen used Danish data to draw conclusions about U.S. vaccine schedule

The use of Danish medical data to draw conclusions about the U.S. childhood vaccination schedule and its potential link to the autism epidemic among U.S. children raises questions, according to U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

In an op-ed Kennedy wrote last year for TrialSite News, he noted that the CDC’s childhood vaccine schedule is “considerably more aggressive than Denmark’s,” which makes direct comparisons questionable.

Kennedy cited more recent Danish studies that have continued to deny any link between vaccines and autism. Some were produced by researchers at the North Atlantic Neuro-Epidemiology Alliance (NANEA) — a Danish research institute that Thorsen led and to which he channeled significant CDC funding.

“The purpose of NANEA’s research was to take health data from Denmark — not America — to conduct studies to determine whether vaccines were behind the rise in autism in the U.S.,” according to the MAHA Report.

‘Vaccine industry would have collapsed’ if Thorsen’s research not published

According to the 2017 report, the Madsen-Thorsen papers were used to reject over 5,000 claims filed as part of the Omnibus Autism Proceedings.

“These claims, if settled in the claimants’ favor, would have resulted in payouts totaling an estimated $10 billion,” the 2017 report states.

Researcher James Grundvig is the author of “Master Manipulator” and the parent of a child with autism who was vaccine-injured. Grundvig, who filed one of the claims that the VICP rejected, said the rejection motivated him to investigate Thorsen and the CDC, and to write his book.

Grundvig’s investigation revealed that Thorsen was useful for the CDC, as his findings fit the narrative that vaccines don’t cause autism.

“They knew inside the CDC what was causing the autism epidemic back then, and they needed to go basically spend $25 to $30 million over the next five years, which was a lot of money 25 years ago, to cover up all of the fraud and cover up a signal between autism and vaccines,” Grundvig alleged.

He said that “the whole vaccine industry would’ve collapsed at that time” if Thorsen’s research hadn’t been published.

Dr. Dave Weldon, a physician and Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives between 1995 and 2009 — and who President Donald Trump nominated to lead the CDC in late 2024 before retracting his nomination — called Thorsen’s “dubious research” his “greatest crime.”

Weldon said:

“His greatest crime is not the money he stole but his dubious research, which was used by CDC to dismiss the legal case brought by hundreds of families with obviously vaccine-injured children.

“This was a total corruption of congressional intent when the vaccine compensation program was created, and justice is long overdue. We need full accountability and full transparency.”

Facing decades in jail, will Thorsen come clean about autism studies?

Following his 2011 indictment, Thorsen lived and worked in Denmark, including for Lillebælt Hospital and for the University of Southern Denmark, according to the 2017 report.

Grundvig said it is likely that Denmark avoided extraditing Thorsen as part of an effort to cover up broader research-related fraud.

“If Denmark and its medical community is trapped into this incredible fraud and lie that basically allowed the autism epidemic to happen, it is going to look really bad on them. So, there was no way Denmark was ever going to extradite Thorsen,” Grundvig said.

Thorsen’s extradition also has political dimensions. According to Danish newspaper Politiken, Thorsen “risks becoming a Danish casualty of the political pressure the Trump administration has increasingly exerted on the American justice system.” Thorsen’s lawyers told German authorities he would not receive a fair trial in the U.S.

The Danish Justice Ministry, Interior Ministry, Danish Police, the Danish Embassy in Washington, D.C., Lillebælt Hospital and the University of Southern Denmark did not respond to The Defender’s requests for comment. The Danish Foreign Ministry and Danish Prime Minister’s Office referred The Defender to the Justice Ministry.

The 2017 report noted that it was not the CDC that uncovered the fraud Thorsen was allegedly involved in, but his former employer, Denmark’s Aarhus University.

The report also noted that U.S. public officials “failed to distance themselves from Thorsen in any manner.” One CDC official, Diana Schendel, maintained an inappropriate romantic relationship with Thorsen and later accepted a position at Aarhus University to lead autism research there. She remains employed there today.

Hooker said that “both the U.S. and Denmark had much to lose” by extraditing Thorsen. “HHS has been captured by Big Pharma for many years. Only under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership could this monumental task be undertaken,” Hooker said.

Grundvig said Thorsen, who now faces decades behind bars, may seek to reveal information about fraudulent research in exchange for a lighter sentence. He said this information may implicate U.S. public health officials and researchers.

“If he faces 20, 25 years, he’s going to die in an American prison,” Grundvig said. “Does he want that? Probably not. So, you would have to logically think he’s going to sing like a canary and tell everything.”

Holland said, “Facing indefinite incarceration in the U.S., I hope he will tell the truth about what he did, who his co-conspirators were and their whole criminal scheme.” "

Related articles in The Defender

Criminal Conduct – Poul Thorsen
Fugitive Scientist Behind Vaccine and Autism Studies Arrested for Stealing $1 Million From CDC
Study Claiming No Link Between Aluminum in Vaccines and Autism Riddled with Flaws, Critics Say
‘Numbers Literally Don’t Add Up’: New Peer-Reviewed Analysis Casts Doubt on 2002 Study Claiming No Link Between MMR Vaccine and Autism
Calls Grow for Journal to Retract Danish Study After Corrected Data Show Link Between Aluminum in Vaccines and Autism
‘Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism’ Claim Built on ‘House of Cards,’ Authors of New Review Say
1 in 31 Kids Had Autism in 2022 — Up From 1 in 36 in 2020


Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and host of "The Defender In-Depth" on CHD.TV.