In October 2015, researchers David Geier, Janet Kern, Brian Hooker, Lisa Sykes, and Mark Geier published a paper titled A Prospective Longitudinal Assessment of Medical Records for Diagnostic Substitution among Subjects Diagnosed with a Pervasive Developmental Disorder in the United States.
The aim of their study, supported by the Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute, was to investigate whether or not better diagnostic testing was responsible for the ever-increasing numbers of children being diagnosed with persuasive developmental disorder (PDD), autism, cerebral palsy (CP) and mental retardation (MR).
For many years, governments around the world have claimed that better diagnosis of autism is responsible for the rise in the condition. However, many professionals disagree and have stated that the increase directly corresponds to the rise in the number of vaccinations being added to the vaccine schedule.
To discover whether or not better diagnosis could be responsible for the increase, David Geier and his team investigated the theory by using StatsDirect software and examining medical records for subjects within the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD).