The CDC’s History of Research Fraud Regarding Vaccines and Autism
Documents obtained by the Freedom of Information Act indicate that Centers for Disease Control (CDC) officials gave preferential treatment to the Danish grantees (including Dr. Poul Thorsen), and took no apparent action to evaluate the veracity of any of the study data when theft of over $1 million of grant money by Thorsen was made known. In 2009, when CDC officials became aware that Thorsen failed to obtain legally required ethics permissions for the autism bio and genetic data projects, these CDC employees worked with the Danish grantees to hide this fact. Dr. Coleen Boyle, current Director of NCBDDD at CDC, should have shut this grant down immediately upon being informed that ethical clearances were not in place. She should have immediately contacted the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Research Integrity as well as the Office of Inspector General. Funding should have been discontinued. She should have led the charge to have these papers retracted. There should have been, at a minimum, a press release from the CDC to inform the public. Instead, Dr. Boyle along with Dr. Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp, Joanne Wojcik and Dr. Diana Schendel worked with their Danish Grantees to ‘fix it’ and retrospectively apply ethics approvals. How can the CDC be trusted with stewarding vaccine safety for the U.S. if this is an example of how ethics are regarded within their ranks? Unfortunately, this is just one of many instances of research fraud and malfeasance within the CDC. CDC officials in the Immunization Safety Office and the Developmental Disabilities Branch have repeatedly omitted data and manipulated statistical results to deny any relationship between vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism.