Betrayal of Public Trust & Institutional Corruption: Vaccine Safety Ratings & Vaccine Science Falsified

by Vera Sharav

Alliance for Human Research Protection

APPENDIX 9: of L’Affaire Wakefield: Shades of Dreyfus (Dr. Andrew Wakefield: Fraud or Scapegoat?)

[Fully referenced pdf copy of Appendix 9]



The exponential increase in the autism/autism spectrum prevalence rate since 1985 (1 in 2,500) to (1 in 45) in 2916, is evidence of an epidemic, not, as the deniers will have it, “an optical illusion” or “a statistical mirage”:

“today a million and more Americans, almost all under thirty, have been formally diagnosed with autism…Most with an autism diagnosis will never [lead normal lives] or be responsible for their health and welfare. Both the increase and the burden it imposes are widely recognized by thousands of parents and frontline professionals such as nurses and teachers. Yet some of the most prominent and powerful people in medicine, the media, and government deny it.”

[DENIAL: How Refusing to Face the Facts about Our Autism Epidemic Hurts Children, Families, and Our Future, Mark Blaxill & Dan Olmsted 2017]

Are children’s right to a normal life being sacrificed as collateral damage to protect high utilization of vaccines?

The focus of this appendix is 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.

These primary stakeholders gained control by establishing an elaborate web of collaborating institutional partnerships which they fund. The collaborating institutional stakeholders include:

the American Academy of Pediatrics,

the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI, UK),

the World Health Organization (WHO -Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety (GACVS)),

the European Medicines Agency (EMA),

the European Centre for Disease Prevention & Control (ECDPC),

the Brighton Collaboration and the Brighton Collaboration Foundation,

the Cochrane Collaboration,

the Institute of Medicine,

the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS),

the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) which is bankrolled by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and

the World Bank and others.

Numerous additional industry front groups are popping up on social media to spread vaccine propaganda, such as the European Health Parliament (EHP, situated in Brussels, created in 2017). EHP is bankrolled by Johnson and Johnson and is affiliated with Google, Politico. [See Appendix 10]

All of these institutions became de facto stakeholders in promoting vaccination policies while presenting themselves as independent authoritative sources of information about vaccine safety.

Through this elaborate network of collaborative partnerships, industry gained global control of vaccine safety assessments – which are applied as the single standard, used mostly to rule out a causal relationship between vaccination and serious adverse events following vaccination. These centrally controlled assessments are applied indiscriminately in all cases, disregarding individual human susceptibility factors.

One of the intended features of these collaborating partnerships is to camouflage the identity of the funding source for vaccine research and professed independent reviews of vaccine research. Medical journals, as the editor-in-chief of The Lancet, Dr. Richard Horton acknowledged, “devolved into information laundering operations for the pharmaceutical industry.” Indeed, the BMJ (British Medical Journal) entered into undisclosed partnership agreements with both major vaccine manufacturers. In 2008, BMJ and Merck entered into partnership and in 2016, BMJ and GlaxoSmithKline formed a partnership as well. Additionally, vaccine stakeholders control the vast channels of propaganda – including Google, which has formed a partnership with GlaxoSmithKline.

The financial interest of these collaborating partnerships conflicts with the tenets of medical ethics and scientific integrity – such as transparency and independent assessment of the data. The consequences of these ill-suited partnerships are demonstrated by evidence of corrupt vaccine safety assessments; evidence of harm following vaccination is either concealed or defined as non-related; journal publications are corrupted by fraudulent reports, and honest scientific findings are suppressed. The entire web of vaccine stakeholder- collaborations is geared toward issuing uniform vaccine safety pronouncements that promote vaccination policies crafted to ensure high vaccination rates, translating to ever higher profit margins.

Much of the evidence is documented in thousands of internal CDC documents (some were obtained in 2011);[1] additional CDC internal documents were obtained in July 2017.[2] The evidence is also documented in transcripts of closed-door meetings, such as the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) at Simpsonwood (2000); the Institute of Medicine Committee on Immunization Safety Review (2001); and the UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI, 1990). These documents were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Evidence was also gathered in the course of a criminal investigation of Dr. Poul Thorsen[3] by the U.S. Inspector General, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

BACKGROUND :

What Did CDC Officials Know About Thimerosal; When Did They Know It, & What Did They Do About It?

In 1974, the FDA convened a panel of experts to conduct a comprehensive review of the safety and effectiveness of over-the-counter medicines. One facet of the review was OTC drugs that contained mercury whose function was to kill bacteria to prevent infection. In 1980, the Advisory Review Panel submitted its report to the FDA, having reviewed 18 products containing mercury. It found the products either unsafe or ineffective. The report cited several studies demonstrating human hypersensitivity to thimerosal:

“mercury compounds as a class are of dubious value for anti-microbial use. Mercury inhibits the growth of bacteria, but does not act swiftly to kill them.” “The Panel concludes that thimerosal is not safe for OTC topical use because of its potential for cell damage if applied to broken skin, and its allergy potential. It is not effective as a topical antimicrobial because its bacteriostatic action can be reversed.”[4]

After the determination by the FDA advisory committee, Eli Lilly chose to cease production of Thimerosal-containing products. Despite the evidence, Thimerosal continued to be added to vaccines. In 1990, Professor Hans Wigzell, Rector of the Karolinska Institute, Sweden, and member Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine, wrote “Difficult to Substitute Mercury as a Preservative in Bacterial Vaccines”, in which he recommended that:

“a study [be conducted] to show if there is a difference in general toxicity when uptake of mercury is from the stomach-intestines or after injections…This should be studied in relation to the tremendous large number of subjects vaccinated with preparations containing thimerosal sodium; Our goal is to develop, as soon as possible, vaccines completely free of mercury.”[5]

In 1991, Dr. Maurice Hilleman, an internationally renowned Merck vaccinologist, wrote a memo to the president of Merck’s vaccine division stating:

“6-month-old children who received their shots on schedule would get a mercury dose up to 87 times higher than guidelines for the maximum daily consumption of mercury from fish. When viewed in this way, the mercury load appears rather large. The key issue is whether thimerosal, in the amount given with the vaccine, does or does not constitute a safety hazard. However, perception of hazard may be equally important.”[6]

The FDA delayed issuing its final rule on thimerosal until 1998, stating: “safety and effectiveness have not been established for the ingredients (mercury based preservatives)… manufacturers have not submitted the necessary data in response to earlier opportunities.”[7] The rule, however, applied only to OTC products.

In 1991, Dr. Peter Aaby, Director of the Bandim Health Project, a demographic surveillance system (in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa), which is affiliated with the Statens Serum Institute, identified non-specific adverse vaccine effects which go beyond the specific protective effects of the targeted disease. He noted that these non-specific effects can be beneficial or harmful. Dr. Aaby has conducted a series of comparative “natural studies” of vaccinated and unvaccinated children in high-mortality regions in rural Africa, that consistently confirmed that:

“Though a vaccine protects children against the target disease it may simultaneously increase susceptibility to unrelated infections.”[8]

The First Large-Scale Scientifically Sound CDC Epidemiological Study

The 1999 CDC study sought to determine the relative risk for infants following exposure to thimerosal-containing childhood vaccines was conducted by Dr. Thomas Verstraeten and three CDC colleagues who examined the evidence documented in CDC’s Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) . They analyzed the medical records of 400,000 infants born between 1991 and 1997 that were maintained by four HMOs and assessed the risk of autism for the children at different ages.

This was a scientifically solid study; it provided scientific documentation that: exposure to thimerosal during the first month of life increased the relative risk of autism by 7.6 i.e., 760%.

The VSD data revealed additional risks as well: 1.8 increased relative risk for a neurodevelopmental disorder; 2.1 relative risk for speech disorder; and 5-fold increased relative risk for a nonorganic sleep disorder. The evidence documents that infants exposed to vaccines laced with thimerosal during the first month of life are at alarmingly high increased the relative risk of serious harm.

In December 1999, Dr. Verstraeten sent an email to his co-authors and CDC colleagues, Dr. Robert Davis and Dr. Frank DeStefano; the subject line was “it just won’t go away”. The email attachments included four tables with relative risk data and the Abstract of their study findings, that he was submitting for a presentation, at the high level (by invitation only) meeting, convened by CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service, at Simpsonwood Retreat Center in Georgia (2000).[9]

The title of their study: “ Increased Risk Of Developmental Neurologic Impairment After High Exposure To Thimerosal-Containing Vaccine In First Month Of Life. ”

The meeting was chaired by Richard Johnston, M.D., an immunologist and pediatrician (University of Colorado) who stated:

“The data on its toxicity (shows) it can cause neurologic and renal toxicity, including death. We learned [sic] a number of important things about aluminum, and I think they also are important in our considerations today.” “Aluminum salts are important in the formulating process of vaccines, both in antigen stabilization and absorption of endotoxin. Aluminum and mercury are often simultaneously administered to infants, both at the same site and at different sites.” “However [sic] there is absolutely no data, including animal data, about the potential for synergy, additively or antagonism, all of which can occur in binary metal mixtures that relate and allow us to draw any conclusions from the simultaneous exposure to these two salts in vaccines…” [p. 19-20]

Dr. Verstraeten began his presentation by stating: “what I will present to you is the study that nobody thought we should do.” The study categorized the cumulative effect of thimerosal-containing vaccines administered to infants after one month of life and assessed the subsequent risk of degenerative and developmental neurologic disorders, and renal disorders before the age of six. Dr. Verstraeten stated that ALL of these relative risks were statistically significant.

And he noted that:

“mercury at one month of age is not the same as mercury at three months, at 12 months, prenatal mercury, later mercury. There is a whole range of plausible outcomes from mercury.” When asked about the risk of aluminum, he stated: “the results were almost identical to ethylmercury because the amount of aluminum goes along almost exactly with the mercury one.”

Following the presentation, Dr. Roger Bernier (Associate Director for Science NIP) stated:

“We have asked you to keep this information confidential….Consider this embargoed information.”[p. 113]

It is clear from the EIS transcript that the response to Dr. Verstraeten’s research findings differed between pediatricians, who were genuinely concerned about the hazards of both Thimerosal and aluminum, whereas officials of government and non-government organizations (NGOs, that are dependent on government and industry support, such as the World Health Organization), focused on the threat to vaccination policy and the risk of litigation.were intent on burying the data and maintaining secrecy about the findings.

Pediatricians focused on the risks, public health: Dr. William Weil, represented the American Academy of Pediatricians (AAP) stated:

“moving from one month or one day of birth to six months of birth changes enormously the potential for toxicity. There are just a host of neurodevelopmental data that would suggest that we’ve got a serious problem. the potential for aluminum and central nervous system toxicity was established by dialysis data. To think there isn’t some possible problem here is unreal.”[p.24] “Although the data presents a number of uncertainties, there is adequate consistency, biological plausibility, a lack of relationship with phenomenon not expected to be related, and a potential causal role that is as good as any other hypothesized etiology of explanation of the noted associations. In addition, the possibility that the associations could be causal has major significance for public and professional acceptance of Thimerosal containing vaccines. I think that is a critical issue. Finally, lack of further study would be horrendous grist for the anti-vaccination bill. That’s why we need to go on, and urgently I would add.” [pg. 187 & 188] “The number of dose related relationships are linear and statistically significant. You can play with this all you want. They are linear. They are statistically significant.” [p.207]

[Dr. Weil may well have been informed by the following research report: Aluminum Neurotoxicity in Preterm Infants Receiving Intravenous-Feeding Solutions in the NEJM (1997) whose authors concluded: “In preterm infants, prolonged intravenous feeding with solutions containing aluminum is associated with impaired neurologic development.” More on aluminum vaccine adjuvants below]

Dr. Johnson:

“This association leads me to favor a recommendation that infants up to two years old not be immunized with Thimerosal-containing vaccines if suitable alternative preparations are available… I do not want [my] grandson to get a Thimerosal containing vaccine until we know better what is going on.” [p. 198]

Dr. Robert Brent [a Scientific Adviser to an industry front-group] focused entirely on protecting corporations from lawsuits:

“ The medical/legal findings in this study, causal or not, are horrendous and therefore, it is important that the suggested epidemiological, pharmacokinetic, and animal studies be performed. If an allegation was made that a child’s neurobehavioral findings were caused by Thimerosal containing vaccines, you could readily find junk scientist who would support the claim with “a reasonable degree of certainty”. But you will not find a scientist with any integrity who would say the reverse with the data that is available. And that is true. So we are in a bad position from the standpoint of defending any lawsuits if they were initiated and I am concerned.” [pg. 229, emphasis added]

*[Dr. Brent was a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) a food and chemical industry front group which the Center for Science in the Public Interest described as, “Voodoo Science, Twisted Consumerism”[10]]

Dr. John Clements, who represented the WHO at the EIS conference, expressed alarm about the direction of the research, which he viewed as posing a threat to vaccination uptake if the information reaches the public:

“I am really concerned that we have taken off like a boat going down one arm of the mangrove swamp at high speed, when in fact there was not enough discussion really early on about which way the boat should go at all. And I really [don’t] want to risk offending everyone in the room by saying that perhaps this study should not have been done at all, because the outcome of it could have, to some extent, been predicte d.. , we have all reached this point now where we are left hanging, even though I hear the majority of consultants say to the Board that they are not convinced there is a causality direct link between thimerosal and various neurological outcomes. I know how we handle it from here is extremely problematic.” [Emphasis added] “…even if this committee decides that there is no association and that information gets out, the work that has been done and through the freedom of information that will be taken by others and will be used in ways beyond the control of this group. And I am very concerned about that as I suspect it already too late to do anything regardless of any professional body and what they say.” “ My mandate as I sit here in this group is to make sure at the end of the day that 100,000,000 are immunized with DTP, Hepatitis B and if possible Hib, this year, next year and for many years to come, and that will have to be with Thimerosal containing vaccines unless a miracle occurs and an alternative is found quickly and is tried and found to be safe. “ [emphasis added] “I am very concerned that this has gotten this far, and that having got this far, how you present in a concerted voice the information to the ACIP [Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices] in a way they will be able to handle it and not get exposed to the traps which are out there in public relations. My message would be that any other study, and I like the study that has just been described here very much. I think it makes a lot of sense, but it has to be thought through. What are the potential outcomes and how will you handle it? How will it be presented to a public and a media… I wonder how on earth you are going to handle it from here.“ [p. 247—249]

Other comments from those present include:

“We could exclude the lowest exposure children from the database”; “We could remove children that got the highest exposure levels since they represented an unusually high percentage of the [adverse] outcomes”; “We can push and pull this data any way we want to get the results we want;” “We could have predicted the outcomes.”

CDC’s Dr. Bernier reminded everyone:

“consider this embargoed information…and very highly protected information.”

information…and very highly protected information.”

The concerns expressed at this Epidemic Intelligence Service meeting, by Dr. Clements and other public officials and industry representatives who asserted their determination to conceal the thimerosal evidence from the public, has been the policy of CDC and an international network. However, concealing the evidence does not eradicate the evidence. A compendium of 80 peer-reviewed, published studies found evidence of a link between thimerosal and neurological disorders, including autism. A recent Review paper (April 2017) documents that the continued use of thimerosal in underdeveloped countries provides evidence of its harmful impact.[11]

Public Distrust of Government Pronouncements Re: Vaccine Safety Is Validated By Evidence Of Deception & Corrupt Practices

Principal reports authored by scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and CDC-sponsored reports published in the most influential medical journals are shown to be the product of scientific fraud and malfeasance by high-level CDC officials. The internal CDC documents include emails, memoranda, and transcripts of meetings and conference calls, are an irrefutable record revealing how key CDC studies and CDC-commissioned studies[12] were shaped by use of illegitimate methods, including data manipulation, selective inclusion, and deletion of data from the published reports.

To begin with, as a senior CDC scientist, Dr. Tom Verstraeten pointed out in an email that the Danish population studies – that compared Danish vs. US autism prevalence rates – used non-comparable populations.

By 1992, Sweden, Norway & Denmark had eliminated the use of Thimerosal from childhood vaccines, due to safety concerns; Japan followed suit; the U.S. did not.

Danish children were subjected to far fewer vaccines at different schedules, and exposure levels to the mercury preservative, thimerosal, was 75% lower than children in the U.S. These significant disparate differences –by any standard – render the Danish epidemiological studies irrelevant to the US. Verstraeten scoffed at such studies as a comparison of “apples to pears.”

As will be documented below, mainstream academics accepted the published claimed findings of the CDC-sponsored Danish epidemiological studies without further examination. However, astute, skeptical, independent critics – both scientists and others – reviewed those pivotal studies in detail. These critics reported that the scientific integrity of those studies was undermined by statistical manipulation through which the MMR and thimerosal were exonerated as a causal contributor to autism.[13],[14]

Indeed, the Cochrane reviewers confirmed that the scientific integrity of the studies was undermined by: “bias in the selection of controls”; “lack of a properly constructed causal hypothesis”; “extensive under-counting of autism cases in the MMR group”; “unequal length of follow-up”; “missing 14% to 20% of original birth cohort”; “between 11% and 20% of adverse event data was missing”; and in CDC’s 2004 study (Pediatrics, 2004) “more than a third of cases were excluded.” (Cochrane MMR Reviews, 2005; 2012)

Internal CDC correspondence, confirms that relevant findings documenting an increased risk of harm were deliberately omitted from the published and widely cited reports.

When scientists requested the full dataset of CDC’s own epidemiological study for independent analysis, CDC claimed that the data was “missing.”

Psychiatrist Poul Thorsen, MD, who was the principal Danish investigator of the Danish series of studies commissioned by CDC, failed to obtain ethics committee approval for key CDC-sponsored epidemiological studies – as is required under US and Danish law. Newly obtained internal CDC documents provide evidence of collusion and malfeasance by public health officials who attempted to cover-up those violations of legally mandated ethics committee review and approval.

A recently updated report by the World Mercury Project[15] issued August 2017, includes many additional details documented in newly obtained CDC documents. The documents show that CDC officials took no action to evaluate the veracity of the data – even after they were informed in January 2009 about the missing CDC funds managed by the principal investigator.

“when CDC officials including Coleen Boyle, Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp, Joanne Wojcik, and Diana Schendel became aware in 2009, that Poul Thorsen failed to obtain legally required permission for the autism biological and genetic data projects, these CDC employees participated in a cover-up with the Danish grantees.”

CDC suppressed the findings of its large-scale 1999 study documenting a causal relationship between exposure to the vaccines containing Thimerosal (ethylmercury) and autism. The study found that exposure to Thimerosal during the first month of life increased the relative risk of autism 7-fold (7.6).

CDC also suppressed the original findings of another of its own studies that found a 340% (3.6) relative increased risk of autism for African American male babies following MMR vaccination in accordance with the CDC-recommended Childhood Vaccination Schedule.

CDC scientists worked in concert with CDC-commissioned Danish scientists to conceal the significantly reduced cases of autism in Denmark following the removal of Thimerosal in 1992.

The internal documents obtained by Robert Kennedy Jr and the World Mercury Project, provide evidence that high ranking CDC scientists committed massive fraud to protect CDC’s Childhood Vaccination Schedule to ensure high vaccination rates.

The other authoritative sources include the U.S. Grand Jury’s criminal indictment of Dr. Poul Thorsen (2011)[16] on 13 counts of fraud and 9 counts of money laundering. Thorsen was the principal CDC-commissioned psychiatrist in the Danish epidemiological studies. In addition to his failure to obtain ethics approval for studies published by The New England Journal of Medicine (2002), and by the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (2010), Thorsen’s studies are shown to have been manipulated through fraudulent means. What’s more, he was criminally indicted by a US Grand Jury (2011) on 22-counts of fraud – including document forgeries – theft, embezzlement, and money laundeing.

A detailed confidential report (2012) submitted by GlaxoSmithKline to the European Medicines Authority (EMA) documents the hazardous effects following vaccination with GSK’s 6-in-1 Infanrix Hexa vaccine. The report includes concealed sudden infant deaths.[17] [See Appendix 8]

The Challenges That Threatened Vaccine Orthodoxy & The Financial Interest Of Vaccine Stakeholders:

Dr. Wakefield lent validity to growing distrust in government assurances that all childhood vaccines and vaccination schedules are proven safe, by publicly expressing concerns about the safety of the MMR.

CDC scientists documented evidence of more than a 7- fold increased risk of autism for infants exposed to thimerosal. This finding had the potential of blowing the lid off the entire children’s vaccination schedule.

In 1999, the US Public Health Service and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued a joint statement calling for the elimination of Thimerosal from all vaccines in the US.[18]

In 2001, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) review[19] of the evidence, regarding whether vaccines laced with thimerosal posed a risk for children, concluded that the idea that thimerosal caused neurological disorders was “biologically plausible.” The committee made a series of recommendations, but CDC never implemented these recommendations:

“the use of thimerosal-free DTaP, Hib, and hepatitis B vaccines … case-control studies examining the potential link between neurodevelopmental disorders and thimerosal-containing vaccines… further analysis of neurodevelopmental outcomes… research on how children, including those diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders, metabolize and excrete metals, particularly mercury… research to identify a safe, effective, and inexpensive alternative to thimerosal”

CDC responded by stating the agency was “gravely troubled by the recommendation” of the PHS and the AAP, and ignored the IOM recommendations.[20] CDC dithered, and continued to recommend vaccines containing mercury, exposing millions of infants and children in the US to massive doses of thimerosal. CDC officials did so, with the endorsements of the FDA Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and the Immunization Safety Committee of the Institute of Medicine. (See CDC Thimerosal Timeline (1999-2010)

In 2000, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) authorized the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set regulatory policy for the disposal of medications that are known environmental hazards. These are called hazardous pharmaceutical wastes. These include: “pharmaceutical with heavy metals, including the preservative thimerosal.”

An EPA-sponsored biological study (2005)[21] by Dr. Thomas Burbacher and colleagues at the University of Rochester compared the biological (toxicokinetic) effect of consumed methylmercury to the effect of Hg (inorganic mercury) in vaccines containing thimerosal in infant monkeys. The seventeen monkeys assigned to the thimerosal group were vaccinated in accordance with the typical CDC recommended vaccination schedule.

Those 17 infants retained “a much higher proportion of inorganic Hg in the brain (up to 71% vs. 10%) [compared to infants who ingested mercury]:

“A higher percentage of the total Hg in the brain was in the form of inorganic mercury for the thimerosal-exposed infants (34% vs 7%). There was a much higher proportion of inorganic Hg in the brain of thimerosal infants than MeHg infants (up to 71% vs. 10%). Absolute inorganic Hg concentrations in the brains of the thimerosal-exposed infants were approximately twice that of the MeHg infants. Interestingly, the inorganic fraction in the kidneys of the same cohort of infants was also significantly higher following i.m. thimerosal than oral MeHg exposure (0.71±0.04 vs. 0.40±0.03). This suggests that the dealkylation of ethylmercury is much more extensive than that of MeHg.”

More than 165 studies have found Thimerosal to be harmful; 37 scientific published reports found a link between Thimerosal exposure and developmental disorders, including autism.[22]

More than 150 physicians and scientists who have published research demonstrating possible safety issues with vaccines (or ingredients in vaccines) are listed here.

Despite a body of scientific evidence, CDC continues to broadcast its reassuring, but untenable claim:

“There is no evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines, except for minor reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site.” Thimerosal contains ethylmercury, which is cleared from the human body more quickly than methylmercury, and is therefore less likely to cause any harm.” (CDC website)

CDC and its bevy of vaccine stakeholders ignore the scientific evidence and the fact that most of the consumed mercury in fish is excreted.[23] The documented risks of Thimerosal – especially for young children and unborn neonates – who are at increased risk of neurological brain damage/autism – led to the eventual removal of Thimerosal from childhood vaccines – although CDC never conceded that fact.

However, some influenza vaccines contain 250 times the mercury level that EPA uses to classify hazardous pharmaceutical waste.[24] What’s more, since 2002, CDC expanded its recommendation for the flu vaccine. In 2010, CDC recommended the flu shot for very young infants (6 and 7 months old), and an annual flu vaccine for everyone – including children and pregnant women.[25]

The authors of a recently published review, Thimerosal: Clinical, Epidemiologic and Biochemical Studies (2015 )[26] point out, that despite the existence of approved, effective preservatives, Thimerosal continues to be used in some vaccines administered to infants, children, and pregnant women.

As a consequence of CDC recommendations, the cumulative exposure of US children to Thimerosal remains relatively high. In developing countries, the amount of Thimerosal in childhood vaccines has not been reduced and the harmful consequences are documented.[17]

How Vaccine Safety Assessments & the Channels of Information Re: Vaccine Safety Are Tightly Controlled By Stakeholders to Ensure High Utilization of Vaccines

The CDC Verstraeten study findings were concealed from all but a small circle of scientists. CDC officials conspired to overturn the evidence of the thimerosal-autism risk documented by its own scientists.[27]

CDC commissioned an IOM review to exonerate thimerosal and the MMR;

CDC outsourced a series of dubious (incompatible) epidemiological studies that were designed to exonerate thimerosal as a causal link to autism;

CDC initiated multiple international collaborative consortia to control the assessment standards of vaccine safety; to set the agenda for vaccine safety research, and to control the content of information about vaccine safety

Evidence of Institutional Corruption at the Institute of Medicine

A transcript of a January 2001 closed-door meeting of the IOM Immunization Safety Review Committee (obtained in 2011 during Court proceedings)[28] records the discussion centered on the content of a CDC draft report before the IOM committee ever examined the evidence. The chair of the committee, Dr. Marie McCormick, of the Harvard School of Public Health, and IOM scholar, Dr. Kathleen Stratton, the study director, specified to committee members what conclusions they were expected to sign off on – no matter what the evidence shows:

Dr. Kathleen Stratton

“The point of no return, the line we will not cross in public policy is to pull the vaccine, [or] change the schedule. We could say it is time to revisit this, but we would never recommend that level. Even recommending research is recommendations for policy. We wouldn’t say compensate, we wouldn’t say pull the vaccine, we wouldn’t stop the program.” [p74]

The influential IOM committee backed away from its 2001 recommendations and delivered the report that CDC had dictated and stressed that raising questions about the safety of vaccines poses the danger of rejection of vaccines:

“The committee concludes that the body of epidemiological evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism. The committee also concludes that the body of epidemiological evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism… “Using an unsubstantiated hypothesis to question the safety of vaccination and the ethical behavior of those governmental agencies and scientists who advocate for vaccination could lead to widespread rejection of vaccines… ” Immunization Safety Review: Vaccines and Autism (2004)

The “body of evidence” that the IOM review relied on was 5 CDC-funded fatally flawed epidemiological studies; several of these were found to be fraudulent. [i] Another study relied on the UK General Practice Research Database (GPRD) whose reliability is in doubt.[ii]

All of these studies reiterated the uniform, pre-determined conclusion:

“there was no evidence that thimerosal exposure via DTP/DT vaccines causes neurodevelopmental disorders.” The IOM reviewers failed even to consider FDA’s risk assessment: An Assessment of Thimerosal Use in Childhood Vaccines (2001) which cautioned:

“some infants may be exposed to cumulative levels of mercury during the first 6 months of life that exceed EPA recommendations. Exposure of infants to mercury in vaccines can be reduced or eliminated by using products formulated without thimerosal as a preservative.”

Furthermore, the IOM committee refused to review pre-publication drafts of rigorous biological studies.[[31] These included scientists Columbia University (Molecular Psychiatry, 2004); University of Arkansas (NeuroToxicology, 2005); Northeastern University (Molecular Psychiatry, 2004); a U.S. epidemiological study by Johns Hopkins University (Pediatrics, 2005); Harvard University (Neuroscientist, 2005); and the University of Washington (Environmental Health Perspectives, 2005).

The committee rushed to issue its report exonerating Thimerosal. The IOM report lent validity to irrelevant epidemiologic studies, government vaccination policies, and provided the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP) with the rationale against compensation for autism. The conclusions reached by the IOM Committee were pre-determined, as were the studies upon which it relied. The committee delivered the findings that it was commissioned and paid to deliver.

This dishonest review by the IOM panel demonstrates the lack scientific integrity of a report issued by the Institute of Medicine, further validating public distrust of “authoritative” government and quasi-government medical institutions. Nevertheless, the influence of this flawed report extends far and wide.

Dr. Robert Chen, Chief of Vaccine Safety for CDC’s National Immunization Program (NIP) initiated the Brighton Collaboration.[32] It was launched in 2000, by members of the Cochrane Collaboration: Tom Jefferson, Harald Heijbel, Ulrich Heininger, Elisabeth Loupi, with funding obtained from the CDC and the WHO.

In an editorial in the BMJ Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health Online (June 2000), Dr. Jefferson urged the UK government to launch a computerized vaccine exposure and outcome database such as the one the US CDC maintains (i.e., Vaccine Safety Datalink, VSD) in order to rapidly counteract public concern.

“Since the publication of the Wakefield study on 28 February 1998, public concern fueled by extensive media coverage caused a steady decline in MMR coverage in parts of the United Kingdom, with a subsequent risk of a decline in herd immunity and resurgence in morbidity.” “As usual with vaccine “scare stories,” there was a delay between publication of the initial case series and that of population-based causal assessment study. During this time, declining coverage took place.” “The impact on parents of a perceived causal link with a chronic disease that could threaten the life and wellbeing of their children is understandably great. Inevitably, in a proportion of cases the worry and emotion spills over into a threat of legal action against governments, manufacturers or individuals. This has the effect of taking the matter outside the scientific and healthcare arena and into the realm of the judiciary.”[33]

It would appear that Dr. Jefferson was unaware of the Verstraeten

VSD population-based finding of more than a 7-fold increased relative risk of autism caused by exposure to thimerosal.

The causal link that “just won’t go away”, was more than a perception; it was science-based evidence.

The Brighton Collaboration was launched to counteract the Wakefield impact, and to prevent other scientists whose research findings threaten vaccine policy from gaining public traction.

However, Dr. Wakefield’s tentative finding of an association between autism and vaccination with a multi-virus vaccine (MMR), in his pilot case series, was strengthened by CDC’s own study that found a statistically significant risk of harm.

The objective of that singular CDC study was to determine whether the adjuvant thimerosal contained in most childhood vaccines at the time, posed a risk of harm to infants.

CDC researchers found a 7-fold increased risk of autism, a risk which CDC has continued to conceal from the public while proclaiming that no evidence of an autism risk exists.

The Brighton Collaboration Was Established To Lend an Air Of “Authority” To Centrally Controlled Vaccine Safety Assessments, Controlled Research, & “Knowledge Management”

The Brighton Collaboration laid the foundation for gaining control of vaccine-related information by establishing an infrastructure for developing universal vaccine risk assessment standards, prescribing vaccine research strategies and methods, forming expert advisory panels, influencing journal publication selection, generating propaganda campaigns to gain trust. One of its stated missions is to increase public confidence in the safety of vaccines.

“The Brighton Collaboration, together with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s Vaccine Confidence Project, is promoting research on the determinants of trust and distrust in vaccines generally as well as on the drivers of vaccine «scares», [and vaccine hesitancy] the manner in which they develop and spread, and effective strategies to best address vaccine safety concerns.”

This collaborating partnership of vaccine stakeholders re-defined what qualifies as an adverse reaction to a vaccine. When newborn infants suddenly died within days following vaccination, the Brighton Collaboration re-defined sudden infant deaths within 10 days of vaccination, declaring the deaths “unrelated to the vaccine”. [See Appendix 8]

The primary goal of the Brighton Collaboration is to protect high vaccination rates with a stream of positive reports. Thus, grants are awarded only to those whose research proposals are designed to validate the safety of vaccines. A second objective is to prevent research that could document safety hazards that would undermine vaccination policies.

The main objectives of the Brighton Collaboration:40

To raise global awareness of the availability of standardized case definitions and guidelines for data collection, analysis and presentation, and to educate about the benefit of and monitor their global use and to facilitate access,

of the availability of standardized case definitions and guidelines for data collection, analysis and presentation, and to educate about the benefit of and monitor their global use and to facilitate access, To develop single standardized case definitions for specific AEFIs,

for specific AEFIs, To prepare guidelines for data collection, analysis and presentation for global use,

To develop and implement study protocols for evaluation of case definitions and guidelines in clinical trials and surveillance systems. (WHO. Vaccine Safety Basics)

The Brighton Collaboration — and the Brighton Collaboration Foundation (established in 2003) — is an integral part of an elaborate international network of institutions promoting high vaccine utilization.

This “authoritative” consortium exerts extraordinary influence on vaccination policies worldwide and ensures that vaccine safety assessments enhance vaccine utilization goals. Vaccine stakeholders effectively control the science, the research, and the reports that get published in medical and public health journals. The broad range of the Brighton Collaboration’s international projects, initiatives, and tools for vaccine safety assessments reflect the bias of its partners, all of who are stakeholders in the business of vaccines; their interest is in ensuring high utilization of vaccines.

Next to CDC, the most influential institutional entity in global vaccination policies is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (founded in 2000) with its staggering investment portfolio of $40 billion. The Foundation’s grants awards ensure that the Bill and Melinda Gates interests are furthered. The Foundation has given the WHO more than $1.5 billion. [Wikipedia]

The Brighton Foundation’s 2016 Annual Report credits the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for:

“[making] a lot of this possible through projects like the Global Alignment of Immunisation Safety Assessment in Pregnancy ( GAIA)”. “The aim of GAIA is to improve data to strengthen immunisation programs involving pregnant women by harmonizing maternal, foetal, and neonatal health outcome assessments, with a specific focus on low and middle income Countries (LMIC).”

The Gates Foundation’s focus on underdeveloped, poor countries is not viewed by the local population as an example of beneficence, but rather as abominable human exploitation. Professor Patrick Bond, a political economist (University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, SA, who had been in Nelson Mandella’s new South African government), describes Gates’ unseemly business-philanthropic practices and agenda of the Gates Foundation are viewed as ruthless and immoral in an article in CounterPunch (2016).[34] Those tactics have garnered Bill and Melinda Gates $80 billion. The foundation’s pervasive influence in international development is through its aggressive promotion of both vaccines and genetically modified food. The Gates Foundation deploys international consortiums – such as GAVI– to influence public vaccination policy and to spread propaganda. Prof. Bond noted that:

“Gates’ “influence is so pervasive that many actors in international development, which would otherwise critique the policy and practice of the foundation, are unable to speak out independently as a result of its funding and patronage…Privatised health and education are Gates’ speciality. But in India, a Gates-funded trial on the genital cancer-causing disease Human papilloma virus was cancelled by the government because thousands of girls aged 10-14 were victims of ethics violations such as forged consent forms and lack of health insurance; seven died. The case is now in the country’s Supreme Court.” “the most damage done within South Africa was Gates’ promotion of intellectual property (IP) rights. Long-term monopoly patents were granted not only to Gates for his Microsoft software, but for life-saving medicines. IP became a fatal barrier to millions of HIV+ people who, thanks to Big Pharma’s profiteering, were denied AIDS medicines which [resulted] in at least 330,000 avoidable AIDS deaths.”

The following excerpt from a report by Research Unit for Political Economy (RUPE), a registered public trust organization in India provides a hint of the magnitude of moral corruption:[35]

“In the mid-2000s] Africa [sic] experienced an “unprecedented increase in health research involving humans” who were typically “poverty-stricken and poorly educated”; the results were predictably lethal. In 2010 the Gates Foundation funded a Phase III trial of a malaria vaccine developed by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), administering the experimental treatment to thousands of infants across seven African countries. Eager to secure the WHO approval necessary to license the vaccine for global distribution, GSK and BMGF declared the trials a smashing success, and the popular press uncritically reproduced the publicity. Few bothered to look closely at the study’s fine print, which revealed that the trials resulted in 151 deaths and caused “serious adverse effects” (e.g., paralysis, seizures, febrile convulsions) in 1048 of 5949 children aged 5-17 months. Similar stories emerged in the wake of the Gates-funded MenAfriVac campaign in Chad, where unconfirmed reports alleged that 50 of 500 children forcibly vaccinated for meningitis later developed paralysis. Citing additional abuses, a South African newspaper declared: “We are guinea pigs for the drugmakers.” It was in India, however, that the implications of BMGF’s collaboration with Big Pharma first rose to widespread public attention. In 2010 seven adolescent tribal girls in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh died after receiving injections of HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) vaccines as part of a large-scale “demonstrational study” funded by the Gates Foundation and administered by PATH. The vaccines, developed by GSK and Merck, were given to approximately 23,000 girls between 10 and 14 years of age, ostensibly to guard against cervical cancers they might develop in old age. Extrapolating from trial data, Indian physicians later estimated that at least 1,200 girls experienced severe side effects or developed auto-immune disorders as a result of the injections. No follow-up examinations or medical care were offered to the victims.Further investigations revealed pervasive violations of ethical norms: vulnerable village girls were virtually press-ganged into the trials, their parents bullied into signing consent forms they could not read by PATH representatives who made false claims about the safety and efficacy of the drugs. In many cases signatures were simply forged.”

Research Grants Awarded By the WHO Are Funded By CDC

Needless to say, those who control the funding sources set the agenda as well as the parameters of vaccine safety research. Thus, the vaccine research literature is similarly corrupted by conflicts of interests and [as will be demonstrated below] fraudulent, CDC- sponsored studies that were methodically skewed to promote high vaccination rates.

The same year that the IOM issued its dubious thimerosal report, a review of aluminum-containing DTP vaccines was published in The Lancet (2004). [36] The review was commissioned by the WHO; the principal author was Dr. Tom Jefferson. The reviewers acknowledged the following serious scientific flaws in the studies they reviewed:

“poor reporting led to substantial loss of data, which was only partly obviated by statistical manipulation of the confidence intervals around the estimates of effect for one outcome”; “Overall, the methodological quality of included studies was low. Few reports gave details of the randomization process, allocation concealment, reason for withdrawals, or strategies to deal with them in analysis. Inconsistencies in reporting, lack of clarity on numerators and denominators, variability of outcome definitions, and lack of outcome definitions to much loss of data.”

Despite the serious invalidating the studies reviewed and the absence of scientifically valid evidence to support “reassuring” conclusions about the safety of vaccine adjuvants — specifically thimerosal and aluminum — Dr. Jefferson and his Cochrane colleagues delivered a conclusion crafted to protect government vaccination policies and industry profits (of course) – just as the politicized IOM panel had done.

It is disheartening that a scientist of Dr. Jefferson’s stature recommended that no further research on the possible hazards of aluminum in vaccines should be undertaken:

“We found no evidence that aluminum salts in vaccines cause any serious or long-lasting adverse events. Despite a lack of good-quality evidence we do not recommend that any further research on this topic is undertaken.” “No obvious candidates to replace aluminum are available, so withdrawal for safety reasons would severely affect the immunogenicity and protective effect of some currently licensed vaccines and threaten immunization progammes worldwide.” [Highlight added]

This is a government/ industry position; one that regards safety as an impediment, rather than a primary objective. This attitude explains why independent vaccine research that is designed to examine whether there are vaccine safety hazards, is effectively blocked by interconnected institutional vaccine stakeholders who control mainstream vaccine “science” and channels of information. This has resulted in a lack of adequate data on the toxicology of vaccine ingredients.

“There is [sic] a concerning scarcity of data on toxicology and pharmacokinetics of these compounds. In spite of this, the notion that aluminum in vaccines is safe appears to be widely accepted. Experimental research, however, clearly shows that aluminum adjuvants have a potential to induce serious immunological disorders in humans. In particular, aluminum in adjuvant form carries a risk for autoimmunity, long-term brain inflammation and associated neurological complications and may thus have profound and widespread adverse health consequences.”[37] (Dr. Lucija Tomljenovic and Dr. Christopher Shaw (University of British Columbia)

Several recent examples [discussed below] show how independent studies demonstrating evidence of harm following vaccination are rejected for publication in influential (“high impact”) journals with wide readerships. In the case of research confirming aluminum’s toxicity in vaccines, editors used underhanded tactics to delay, withhold, retract, and attempt to suppress such articles – even when co-authored by an internationally recognized authority.

[A PubMed search “aluminum toxicity vaccines” retrieved 153 citations. Another search: “autoimmune/inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants” resulted in 66 citations. Appendix 11 of L’Affaire Wakefield is a partial bibliography that includes at least 6 scientific research reports that found aluminum to cause brain damage. It will be posted shortly]

The Brighton Collaboration Science Board of advisers are closely tied to vaccine manufacturers: for example, Dr. Daniel Salmon serves on Merck Vaccine Policy Advisory Board and is a strong advocate of compulsory vaccination. He is the lead author of Vaccine Refusal, Mandatory Immunization, and the Risks of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases, (NEJM, 2009).

Dr. Heidi Larson, of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Protection Research Unit in Immunisation at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) where she heads the Vaccine Confidence Project.

Dr. Larson is a member of the Vaccine Confidence Project (CSIS)[36] and Merck’s Vaccine Strategic Advisory Board; she is a consultant on vaccine confidence to GSK, and receives research funds from Wyeth and Berna; lecture fees from Sanofi and payments for testimony to the Department of Justice regarding several vaccine compensation cases. Dr. Larson serves on data and safety monitoring committees associated with Novartis and Merck.

She co-authored a Merck-commissioned report (2015)[37] for the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC. The report provides insight into the prevailing culture of industry-supported vaccine promoters who are absolutely determined to drive home their vaccine agenda at any cost. Reports of severe, chronic, generalized pain suffered by girls and young women are pouring into regulatory agencies,[38] but those regulatory agencies –e.g, CDC, EMA, JCVI, Brighton Collaboration, GAVCS, WHO – resolutely deny that a serious problem exists. In Japan, there were more than 2,000 HPV-vaccine adverse event reports of which 358 vaccine injuries were judged to be serious by 2014.

Independent research findings that report evidence of vaccine safety hazards are prevented from reaching the public. Such reports are suppressed, denigrated, and retracted for either unstated or spurious reasons;66 the scientists are pilloried.44 The recent case of an orchestrated assault allegedly led by the Chairman of the WHO – Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety against pathologist Sin Hang Lee, MD is an example.

Japan Has Become Ground Zero Where The HPV Vaccine Debacle Is Unfolding In Public View

In Japan, young women and girls suffering from severe chronic generalized pain following vaccination with Merck’s Gardasil® or GSK’s Cervarix®, are speaking out and have organized. The issues are being debated at public hearings at which scientific presentations have been made by independent medical experts who validated the women’s suffering, with documented evidence of the severe nature of the pain related to the HPV vaccine. The opposing view was presented by scientists aligned with the vaccine establishment disregarded the scientific plausibility of the evidence, and declared the pain was a “psychosomatic reaction.”[39]

Such public debates do not take place where vaccine stakeholders are in full control of vaccine safety information.

Following a public hearing (February 2014) at which scientific evidence was presented by independent scientists[40] the Japanese government, not only rescinded its recommendation that girls receive the HPV vaccine, Japan established guidelines and special clinics for evaluating and treating illnesses caused by the vaccine. It is a scenario that Merck, GSK, and vaccine stakeholders globally are extremely anxious to suppress.

The Merck-commissioned, CSIS report co-authored by Dr. Larson, paints a picture of an all-out war over media coverage – not over the high rate of serious adverse reactions. The authors resort to the usual tactic of discrediting vaccine-injured individuals; they dismissed the serious health effects suffered by girls and young women following vaccination, as trivial. The CSIS report presents the entire issue as an epidemic fueled by Internet rumors and “vaccine hesitators.”

“Over the last year, controversy within the Japanese medical and political arenas over the HPV vaccine has touched the public at large. Through social media and highly publicized events, anti-vaccine groups have gained control of the narrative surrounding the HPV vaccine.”

Global Collaborators in Action: Trash Honest Scientists to Suppress Inconvenient Evidence

The following case demonstrates how the global network of government/academic and industry stakeholders suppresses information about genuine scientific findings and when needed is engaged in corrupt practices to thwart the airing of information about vaccine safety issues. This case involves inconvenient scientific laboratory findings in post-mortem tissue samples, showing that the HPV vaccine was contaminated with foreign HPV DNA fragments. The case also involves evidence (contained in internal correspondence) of deceptive practices by officials of “authoritative” international public health institutions.

In January 2016, pathologist Dr. Sin Hang Lee, MD, Director of Milford Medical Laboratory sent an open letter of complaint to the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Margaret Chan, in which he challenges the integrity of the GACVS Statement on the Continued Safety of HPV Vaccination (issued March 2014), and charges professional misconduct on the part of the following individuals (and suggests that others may have also been actively involved) in a scheme to deliberately mislead the Japanese Expert Inquiry on human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine safety before, during and after the February 2014 public hearing in Tokyo”:

Dr. Lee challenged the integrity of the GACVS Statement on the Continued Safety of HPV Vaccination written by Dr. Pless, accusing him of deliberately misrepresenting his scientific findings in order to mislead non-scientific readers and those who set vaccination policies. Dr. Pless is accused of deliberately conflating two unrelated articles, dealing with two different chemicals, written by different authors “apparently to create a target to attack.” Furthermore, Dr. Lee notes that the GACVS Statement relied on an unpublished 12-year old “Technical Report” written by an unofficial, unnamed “group of participants” (according to CDC’s disclaimer).

These are the facts:

In 2011, Dr. Lee found that every one of the 13 Gardasil samples that he examined contained HPV L1 gene DNA fragments. He also found that the HPV DNA fragments were not only bound to Merck’s proprietary aluminum adjuvant but also adopted a non-B conformation, thereby creating a new chemical compound of unknown toxicity. This non-B conformation, Dr. Lee believes, is responsible for the array of autoimmune illnesses experienced by children and young women following vaccination with Gardasil.

In 2012, Dr. Lee testified at a coroner’s inquest of the death of a New Zealand teenager, 6 months after receiving 3 Gardasil vaccine injections. He then published his case report in the open access journal, Advances in Bioscience and Biotechnology (2012).Dr. Lee was a presenter at the Tokyo hearing (2014) at which he disputed those who claimed the young women weren’t really suffering severe pain; they were having “psychosomatic reactions.” He stated:

“I do not believe psychosomatic reactions can cause sudden unexpected death in sleep, or inflammatory lesions in the brain as demonstrated by the MRI images and the brain biopsy histopathology with perivascular lymphocytes and macrophages and demyelination.”

Following the public hearing, GAVC issued a statement (March 12, 2014) aimed at discrediting Dr. Lee’s research by conflating his research with the research of other scientists who presented at the Tokyo hearing. This case should have been prominently reported in the medical journals and by the mass media, and the allegation should have been investigated. Mainstream publications have been silent; the case was reported only in alternative news outlets.[41]

HPV vaccine Controversy Erupts in the Streets of Columbia

In March 2015, hundreds of parents marched in streets of Bogota demanding treatment for their daughters who suffer from serious medical conditions following the second dose of Gardasil.

The marchers demanded that government health officials should:

Provide adequate treatment for the 800 girls known who are affected to date Suspend the use of HPV vaccines in Colombia until such time as the safety issues are resolved Conduct adequate studies to determine the exact cause(s) of the serious adverse effects following the HPV vaccine; The parents challenged the Colombian National Institute of Health (INS) for its statement dismissing the connection between the vaccine and these diseases, which they, like the other collaborating institutions, attributed to psychosomatic hysteria.

The young girls and their parents, however, have the world’s foremost expert on autoimmune disorders on their side. Dr. Yehuda Shoenfeld shocked the audience of the III Colombian Symposium on Autoimmunity by stating he would not recommend HPV vaccines for his own daughter . When asked about the mass psychosomatic theory used to explain the newly emerged medical conditions shortly after HPV vaccinations, Dr. Shoenfeld replied:

“Although it is known that there are sometimes panic reactions, especially among women, it is very unlikely that the symptoms presented after receiving the vaccine are due to psychological reasons, especially if one takes into account that it is happening in different parts of the world with the same signs and symptoms. When we administered HPV vaccines to mice, they had the same symptoms as girls affected. I don’t believe the mice bewitched each other. As with any drug prescribed to a patient, we must consider whether certain vaccines are needed. If the negative effects outweigh the benefits, the vaccine should not be prescribed.”

Dr. Shoenfeld further stated that in Colombia hundreds of children are suffering from autoimmune disorders that emerged directly after HPV vaccination:

“If there is a case, or an avalanche of cases, this must be investigated in the proper way. To say it is something psychological or viral is not enough. You need scientists from different disciplines to analyze it. We believe aluminum is a toxic substance for the brain. It accumulates, continues this for weeks and months. It’s like a Trojan Horse for the brain. Aluminum is a neurotoxin. Experimental research shows clearly that aluminum adjuvants have a potential for inducing serious immunological disorders in humans. In particular, aluminum adjuvants carry a risk for autoimmunity, inflammation of the brain and neurological long-term complications and therefore can have profound and widespread consequences for health.”

In July 2016, a victims’ group filed a multi-plaintiff lawsuit in the district courts of Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, and Fukuoka against the Japanese government and the two pharmaceutical companies that had produced these vaccines. Furthermore, in December of the same year, additional victims joined the multi-plaintiff lawsuit, bringing the total number of plaintiffs to 119 (Indian Journal of Medical Ethics, 2017).

Journal Editors With Financial Conflicts of Interest Have Enormous Power

Two studies confirm that: Most Editors of Top Medical Journals Receive Industry Payments (Retraction Watch, Nov. 2017) The following case is an example of how tightly controlled publication channels have utterly corrupted science. The case demonstrates the great difficulty encountered by independent scientists who have not sold their integrity to the highest bidder.

The study, Behavioral Abnormalities In Young Female Mice Following Administration Of Aluminum Adjuvants And The Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccine Gardasil, was conducted in Israel. The senior author, Professor Yehuda Schoenfeld is an internationally recognized authority, who is considered to be the pillar in the field of autoimmunity. The study was published in the journal Vaccine in January 2016. It was summarily withdrawn a month later following orders by the Editor-in-Chief, Gregory Poland.[42]

Dr. Poland’s direct conflicts of interest [44] include those disclosed on the Mayo Clinic website: “Dr. Poland is the chairman of a safety evaluation committee for investigational vaccine trials being conducted by Merck Research Laboratories. Dr. Poland offers consultative advice on new vaccine development to Merck & Co., Inc.” [Dr. Robert Chen is an Associate Editor of Vaccine]

Before the publication withdrawal by the editor of Vaccine, the article had languished for 8 months at the Journal of Human Immunology and was then rejected by that journal’s Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Michael Racke. According to the American Academy of Neurology:

“Dr. Racke has received personal compensation for activities with EMD Serone, Novartis, Roche Diagnostics Corporation, Genentech, and Amarantus as a consultant.”

[EMD Serono, Inc. is a subsidiary of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.]

How is it that this incestuous relationship did not raise loud cries of foul play? Those rejections by editors who had deep vested financial interest in protecting vaccination rates, whose own financial interest was intertwined with vaccine manufacturers, elicited no protest from the scientific academic community. Instead, these rejections were followed by vicious attacks against several of the scientists, by industry’s cyber hit-squads who are hired to attack independent scientists whose honest research contradicts vaccine orthodoxy/ That is viewed as a heresy inasmuch as it poses a financial threat.[46]

The debate about the safety of the HPV vaccine was the subject of a documentary on TV2 Denmark, aired in March 2015. The Danish Health and Medicines Authorities requested the European Medicines Agency to assess the whether a causal link exists between HPV-vaccines and Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) and/ or Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS).

The EMA published its report absolving the vaccine and denigrating the clinical findings by Louise Brinth, MD, PhD, and colleagues at the Frederiksberg Hospital whose retrospective case series of 39 patients, was published in the International Journal of Vaccines and Vaccination (2015)

Dr. Peter Gøtzsche, Director of the Nordic Cochrane Center, and author of Deadly Medicines and Organized Crime: How Big Pharma Has Corrupted Healthcare, took a leading role in the battle for truth about the HPV vaccine. In May 2016, Dr, Gøtzsche, and colleagues, sent a scathing letter of complaint to the European Medicines Agency (EMA), challenging that institution’s very legitimacy.

The letter cites EMA’s failure to comply with the EU Treaty and Charter mandating “openness [to] enable citizens to participate“; its failure to “live up to the professional and scientific standards…when evaluating the science and the data related to the safety of the HPV vaccines.” And the letter cites the wide disparity between EMA’s secret, internal (256 p) HPV safety report and the official, misleading EMA report that disparages and misrepresents clinical evidence documenting serious health hazards following the HPV vaccination:

“The EMA’s official 40-page report is misleading, as it gives the citizens the impression that there is nothing to worry about in relation to vaccine safety and that the experts consulted by the EMA agreed on this. However, the EMA’s internal report reveals that several experts had the opinion that the vaccine might not be safe and called for further research, but there was nothing about this in the official report.” “The official EMA report gives the impression of a unanimous rejection of the suspected harms. However, only seven months earlier, the EMA had resolved that “’ causal relationship between the dizziness and fatigue syndrome, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) and Gardasil [one of the HPV vaccines] can neither be confirmed nor denied.’”

The letter cites EMA’s opaque, secretive modus operandi; the mandated, life-long confidentiality agreements signed by EMA panelists and scientific experts; the EMA’s failure to evaluate the safety of vaccines in accordance with scientifically legitimate procedures; failure to identify the experts selected by the EMA; EMA’s reliance on vaccine manufacturers’ safety assessment of their own products, disregarding their “huge financial interests“; and the letter cites undisclosed financial conflicts of interest of EMA administrators and the conflicts of interest of panelists upon whom the EMA relies for safety assessments.

Dr. Gøtzsche affirms that: “All available material about suspected harms of a public health intervention directed towards healthy children should be accessible to anyone.”

It should be of concern to Dr. Gøtzsche and others who uphold the right of the public to honest safety assessments of medical interventions that CDC internal documents reveal that CDC officials purposely concealed data about suspected serious harms following the administration of multi-virus vaccines to infants in accordance with CDC childhood vaccination schedules.

A Corrupt Culture is Revealed in Internal CDC Email Correspondence

The internal correspondence between CDC officials and the authors of the Danish epidemiological studies reveal a culture of corruption. CDC officials are intent on shielding vaccines and the childhood vaccination schedule at any cost — including outsourcing dubious epidemiological studies that have no relevance to the vaccination exposure of U.S. children. These documents confirm that CDC and its commissioned scientists resorted to all manner of subterfuge and deception, in their concerted effort to subvert bona fides safety assessments.

Dr. Edward Yazbak,[46] a pediatrician, referred to CDC’s epidemiological studies “just a distraction. They hope to bury evidence of the dangers of vaccines. At the same time, they have waged a misinformation campaign in making claims that skyrocketing Autism/ASD rates are due to better diagnostics.”

An email exchange (2001) between Dr. Verstraeten, Dr. Chen and Dr. Elizabeth Miller (a consultant epidemiologist to the WHO. She previously headed the UK Immunisation Department for 15 years) discussed the national differences in infants’ exposure to thimerosal. They all acknowledged that the U.S. vaccination schedule exposes American infants to much higher doses of thimerosal than babies in Europe, including the U.K. They further acknowledged that Danish babies’ exposure to thimerosal does not come close to the exposure of U.S. babies – Danish babies received 75% less thimerosal than U. S. babies. That difference in exposure to mercury-laced vaccines renders the Danish studies non-comparable to U.S. children, and, therefore of no value toward ascertaining the risk posed by thimerosal-laced vaccines.

CDC officials disregarded the incompatibility of Danish vs. U.S. infants’ exposure to 75% higher doses of thimerosal; despite the incongruity, they chose Denmark as a population study comparator.

CDC officials selected a Danish network of scientists who were either employed by the Danish vaccine manufacturer, Statens Serum Institut (SSI), or worked at institutions closely connected to SSI, such as the Danish Epidemiology Science Center, and Aarhus University. The details of how the studies’ results were premeditated are revealed in internal CDC email correspondence.

The Danish studies were crafted to deliver “proof of innocence” to offset Dr. Verstraeten’s evidence documenting a disturbing Thimerosal-autism risk, and they were crafted to refute Dr. Wakefield’s suggestion of an autism-MMR connection.

CDC disregarded Dr. Verstraeten’s scientific reservations about comparing “apples to pears”

Dr. Verstraeten expressed concern about scientific dishonesty in an email (dated July 14, 2000) addressed to Harvard professor, Dr. Philippe Grandjean, an expert in heavy metals toxicity, (copies addressed to Chen, DeStefano, and four other CDC scientists) he stated:

“many experts looking at this thimerosal issue, do not seem bothered to compare apples to pears… I do not wish to be the advocate of the anti-vaccine lobby and sound like being convinced that thimerosal is or was harmful, but at least I feel we should use sound scientific argumentation and not let our standards be dictated by our desire to disprove an unpleasant theory.”

CDC officials sought to obtain reports that would provide the appearance of scientific evidence that thimerosal, the mercury-based vaccine additive is safe, the MMR is safe, and that vaccines do not cause autism.

Dr. Diane Simpson, the CDC official tasked with obtaining proof to offset Dr. Verstraeten’s demonstrated thimerosal-autism risk,[46] traveled to Denmark in 2001 where she met with a network of Danish scientists. CDC provided tens of millions of dollars in grants to a Danish team at the University of Aarhus in Denmark; the management of the grants was entrusted to psychiatrist Poul Thorsen, who had been a CDC “visiting scientist” in 1990.

At Thorsen’s recommendation, Simpson recruited Dr. Kreesten Madsen, a doctoral candidate, who was listed as the lead author on several pivotal Danish studies. However, the principal scientist who co-authored those studies was, in fact, Thorsen.

Beyond the continued influence of fraudulent CDC and CDC-sponsored Danish epidemiological studies, Thorsen was a participant in a consequential Working Group of the American Psychiatric Association, which led to the controversial re-defining of the criteria for an autism diagnosis in the DSM-5. Thorsen influenced psychiatry’s diagnostic “bible”; the new criteria reduced the autism prevalence substantially.

In another email addressed to Dr. Chen (2001). Dr. Verstraeten expressed serious doubts about the reliability of the UK General Practice Research Database (GPRD)[48] which numerous authors[49] have continued to rely on, to support the claim that there is “no evidence of a causal association between thimerosal and autism.”

“I think two issues are important in assessing the potential strength of the GPRD study:.1. Maximum exposure and 2. Unbiased controls. I’m not sure if the GPRD is that reliable that you can be sure that low exposure is really low exposure and not underascertainment in the database . I hate to say this, but given these concerns, it may not be worth doing this after all. On the other hand, maybe the[WHO] grant can be given to Herald in Sweden to do a follow-up of the DTaP trial.” (June 26, 2001)

Dr. Verstraeten’s criticism of GPRD alarmed Dr. Elizabeth Miller who expressed concern (in an email to Chen): “Do I have to give my GPRD grant money from WHO back”?

The CDC VSD study (1999) led by Dr. Verstraeten, underwent a series protocol manipulations and statistical tricks aimed at eliminating the 7.6 relative increased risk of autism from exposure to thimerosal.

During a four year “evolution”, the study’s original conclusion – an increased risk factor of 7.6 – a risk that Dr. Verstraetn had indicated in 1999 – “it just won’t go away” – was systematically reduced at each phase in a series of 5 protocol modifications – even after his departure from CDC for GSK in June 2001. In phase 2, infants’ exposure to Thimerosal was compared at 3 months rather than 1 month – when infants are their most vulnerable; the original 400,000 records from the 4 HMOs, were reduced to 124,170 records from 2 HMOs, with the addition of records from the Harvard Pilgrim HMO – which used different diagnostic codes than the other two – (and whose records’ accuracy was in doubt).

These changes reduced the relative risk to 2.48. In phase 3, the age criteria for the children included was changed from (0 to 6 years) to (0 to 3). A cut off at age 3 eliminated a significant number of children who were subsequently diagnosed, but not counted in the published study.

Dr. Coleen Boyle acknowledged “gross underreporting” in an internal email to Dr. Frank DeStefano (April 2000):

“For me the big issue is the missed cases — and how this relates to exposure. Clearly there is gross underreporting… Considering that the average age of diagnosis of autism in the VSD database was 44 to 49 months it is easy to see that almost half of the children in the database were too young to be diagnosed.”

This dubious cut-off resulted in reducing the relative risk 1.69. A manuscript was submitted for publication but was rejected by the journal Epidemiology. Two more “modifications” wiped the risk out of existence. The study was then submitted for publication to the journal Pediatrics (2003).[50] The study’s illegitimate, manipulated findings exonerating Thimerosal were widely publicized.

In October 2003, Congressman Dave Weldon, MD raised serious concerns in a letter to CDC Director, Julie Gerberding, citing specific issues undermining the scientific integrity of the CDC Pediatric study, and CDC’s undue influence on the IOM report:

“A review of these documents leaves me very concerned that rather than seeking to understand whether or not some children were exposed to harmful levels of mercury in childhood vaccines in the 1990s there may have been a selective use of the data to make the associations in the earliest study disappear. Furthermore, the lead author of the article, Dr. Thomas Verstraeten worked for the CDC until he left over two years ago to work in Belgium for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) a vaccine manufacturer facing liability over TCVs [thimerosal containing vaccines]. In violation of their own standards of conduct, Pediatrics failed to disclose that [serious conflict of interest]. “In reviewing the study there are data points where children with higher exposures to the neuortoxin mercury had fewer developmental disorders. This demonstrates to me how excessive manipulation of data can lead to absurd results.”

Internal email correspondence reveals a culture at CDC that is intent on shielding vaccines and the childhood vaccination schedule at any cost . That culture was the subject of a follow-up letter by Congressman Weldon to CDC Director, Dr. Julie Gerberding: “Something is Rotten, But Not Just In Denmark” Rep. Dave Weldon, MD, 2004(January 2004):

“For too long, those who run our national vaccination program have viewed those who have adverse reactions, including those with severe adverse reactions, as the cost of doing business… It appears to me not only as a Member of Congress but also as a physician that some officials within the CDC’s NIP may be more interested in a public relations campaign than getting to the truth about thimerosal.”[51]

Public distrust in government vaccine safety pronouncements is validated in documented evidence showing that CDC-sponsored published reports are the product of scientific fraud, in violation of legally mandated, ethical requirements, and malfeasance by high-level CDC officials.

In 2011, Poul Thorsen was indicted by a federal grand jury on 22 criminal counts of forgery, money laundering, embezzlement, among others, whereupon he fled the country to Denmark and remains a fugitive from justice.

In 2012, Thorsen was added to the IG’s “Most Wanted” list of criminals.

At the very least, Thorsen’s documented criminal actions clearly call into question the validity of those CDC-sponsored Danish epidemiological reports whose inordinate influence continues to permeate the vaccine literature and vaccination policies. Yet, the academic community, and the medical journals – with the exception of Nature Online – have maintained a deafening silence – even as the evidence of fraud and criminality by the principal scientist of the Danish studies was laid bare.

What was also laid bare in internal correspondence is that CDC officials colluded with Thorsen’s Danish team in deception and fraud in the preparation of autism research studies for publication.

In January 2011, BMJ Editor-in-chief, Dr. Fiona Godlee, reignited and intensified the campaign against Andrew Wakefield, by launching an unprecedented assault that declared his research to be a “fraudulent”, and Dr. Wakefield guilty of “elaborate fraud.”

Was the timing of BMJ assault against Dr. Wakefield a coincidence?

The BMJ assault was launched at the very moment that conclusive evidence of far-reaching, elaborate scientific fraud was uncovered in CDC internal documents. These documents also provided the US Inspector General with evidence of elaborate criminal actions committed by Poul Thorsen, MD, PhD (dubbed “Master Manipulator” in a book by James Grundvig, 2016). Thorsen was the principal investigator of the pivotal CDC-commissioned Danish studies that that declared that neither thimerosal nor the MMR posed a risk of autism. [52]

CDC relies on those studies to dismiss evidence of serious risks posed the MMR and by thimerosal for young children.

The BMJ assault led by the editor-in-chief was launched just as the Thorsen criminal investigation was being finalized, and submitted to a Grand Jury which resulted in a 22-count criminal indictment against Thorsen, in April 2011.

Whereas Poul Thorsen’s extensive fraud and malfeasance were substantiated by evidence; Dr. Godlee’s charge of fraud against Andrew Wakefield was made without a shred of evidence.

Internal correspondence document that the CDC commissioned Danish studies were designed and manipulated to provide the pre-determined exoneration of Thimerosal as a causative trigger for autism. The authors delivered the “evidence” that CDC sought (and paid millions to obtain) in its effort to quell public suspicions that an autism epidemic has been triggered by (a) vaccines laced with mercury (thimerosal) and/or (b) the combined measles/mump/ rubella (MMR) vaccine.

The foundation for CDC’s public assurances that “conclusive” evidence shows that vaccines, with or without mercury are safe, relies on invalid, fraudulent studies.

The six Danish studies are :

Madsen KM, Hviid A, Vestergaard M, Schendel D, Wohlfahrt J, Thorsen P , Olsen J, Melbye M, New England Journal of Medicine, 2002;

, Olsen J, Melbye M, New England Journal of Medicine, 2002; Hviid A, Stellfeld M, Wohlfahrt J, JAMA 2003;

Madsen KM, Lauritsen, MB, Pedersen CB, Thorsen P, Plesner AM, Andersen PH and Mortensen PB, Pediatrics, 2003;

Plesner AM, Andersen PH and Mortensen PB, Pediatrics, 2003; Stehr-Green P, Tull P, Stellfeld M, Mortenson PB, Simpson D. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2003;

Larsson HJ, Eaton WW, Madsen KM, Vestergaard M, Olesen AV, Agerbo E, Schendel D, Thorsen P , Mortensen PB. American Journal of Epidemiology, 2005;

, Mortensen PB. American Journal of Epidemiology, 2005; Lauritsen MB, Jørgensen M, Madsen KM, Lemcke S, Toft S, Grove J, Schendel DE, Thorsen P. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 2010

The authors of the “the definitive Madsen MMR Study” sent a letter to the editor-in-chief of The New England Journal of Medicine (2002) [53] to persuade him to accept their study for publication. They emphasized the political value of their study and claimed their study refuted Wakefield and provided strong support for the MMR vaccine program:

“It has been suggested that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine may cause autism.

If true, this could jeopardize the MMR vaccine program in children. The debate was initiated by research in Britain [Wakefield] provided suggestive evidence of an association between the MMR vaccine and autism… In addition, Uhlmann recently published a study where they found measles in the gut in patients with developmental disorders but not I controls. So far, no study has had sufficient power to address the topic.. Our study gave no support for an association between MMR vaccination and autism or autism-like conditions.” [Emphasis added]

Evidently, the editor, Dr. Jeffrey Drazen, was persuaded and the article was published in the NEJM (2002). Dr. S. Suissa, an epidemiologist at McGill University, questioned the statistical analysis in this large population-based epidemiological study. However, his letter to the editor was not published. In 2004, Gary Goldman, PhD and F. Edward Yazbak, MD submitted their detailed scientific critique of the same study; their critique was not published in the NEJM; it was published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

The emails document how the Danish studies were manipulated to exonerate the MMR vaccine and thimerosal in vaccines. They misclassified children, masked the association of autism, and deleted portions of the data. This constitutes fraud.

CDC insiders who colluded in deception and fraud include :

Dr. Coleen Boyle, Director of National Center for Birth Defects & Developmental Disabilities [Boyle was the lead investigator of the Congressional investigation of Agent Orange in 1984-1987. She and her team reported, “no association” between the defoliant dioxin and the inventory of cancers and autoimmune diseases that sickened tens of thousands of US troops. Her exoneration of Agent Orange deprived those veterans of getting compensated].

Dr. Marshalyn-Yeargin-Allsopp, Head of Developmental Disabilities Branch; Dr. Joanne Wojcik, Procurement and Grants Office, CDC; Epidemiologist, Dr. Diana Schendel, was the senior CDC scientist directly involved in the Danish project. She was Thorsen’s longtime girlfriend who co-authored more than three dozen studies with Thorsen, including the “definitive” NEJM (2002) study. In 2009, she was officially reprimanded for the conflict that her intimate relationship posed. In 2014, she moved to Denmark, taking a position in the epidemiology department at Aarhus University.

Internal correspondence provides a record showing that the authors knew that the results that they reported in the Pediatrics (2003) were contradicted by the data from the Danish Psychiatric registry. The actual data confirmed that following the removal of thimerosal in 1992, the “incidence and prevalence” rate of autism in Denmark decreased .[54]

The study, “Thimerosal and the Occurrence of Autism ” was published in the journal Pediatrics, (2003).The first named author was Madsen; however, the principal investigator was psychiatrist Poul Thorsen and a team of six co-authors at Aarhus University. The study was presented as an analysis of the Danish Psychiatric Registry from 1971 – 2000. The ostensible, stated purpose of the study was to determine whether the removal of Thimerosal from children’s vaccines in Denmark (in 1992) decreased the incidence of autism.

The report they submitted for publication claimed that the prevalence of in autism in Denmark increased after thimerosal was removed from childhood vaccines in 1992. Figure 1 in the published report in Pediatrics shows a 20-fold increase in autism. The authors stated:

“From 1991 until 2000 the incidence (of autism) increased and continued to rise after the removal of thimerosal from vaccines, including increases among children born after the discontinuance of thimerosal …The discontinuation of thimerosal-containing vaccines in Denmark in 1992 was followed by an increase in the incidence of autism. Our ecological data do not support a correlation between thimerosal-containing vaccines and the incidence of autism.”

Despite the implausibility of such a correlation, no one within the medical establishment questioned or critically examine this study or any of the Danish epidemiological studies. The first detailed critique of the Madsen / Thorsen Pediatric study (2003) was by Mark Blaxill; it was posted on Safe Minds, September 2003.5 Blaxill, who is a business analyst, not a medical scientist, identified inconsistencies with the previous study (NEJM, 2002) by the same Danish authors who used the same Danish dataset.

Blaxill’s analysis showed that the claimed findings in the Pediatrics report were invalidated by their biased methodology. Blaxill identified the scientifically illegitimate methods the authors used to arrive at their predetermined CDC-commissioned “findings” exonerating vaccines and thimerosal. He did so – even without the benefit of the incriminating internal CDC documents that provide evidence of fraud.

Inconsistent inclusion criteria : prior to 1993, only inpatient autism cases were reported in the Danish registry; representing only 10% of autism cases. Following the removal of Thimerosal from childhood vaccines in 1992, patients from a large Copenhagen outpatient clinic were added. But the authors excluded these cases from the report. In 1995, a new Danish registry was introduced to include all outpatients. These existing, previously unregistered patients were counted by the investigators as new—thereby artificially increasing the number of reported autism cases significantly.

: prior to 1993, only inpatient autism cases were reported in the Danish registry; representing only 10% of autism cases. Following the removal of Thimerosal from childhood vaccines in 1992, patients from a large Copenhagen outpatient clinic were added. But the authors excluded these cases from the report. In 1995, a new Danish registry was introduced to include all outpatients. These existing, previously unregistered patients were counted by the investigators as new—thereby artificially increasing the number of reported autism cases significantly. Inconsistent diagnostic criteria: In 1994, Denmark changed the diagnostic criteria for autism from “psychosis proto-infantilis” to the more commonly used “childhood autism” to determine a diagnosis. The diagnostic criteria require autism to be identified before a child is three years old. But the authors misrepresented newly registered outpatient cases – many of who were children between the ages of 7 and 9 as “newly diagnosed.”

In 1994, Denmark changed the diagnostic criteria for autism from “psychosis proto-infantilis” to the more commonly used “childhood autism” to determine a diagnosis. The diagnostic criteria require autism to be identified before a child is three years old. But the authors misrepresented newly registered outpatient cases – many of who were children between the ages of 7 and 9 as “newly diagnosed.” Deletion of data : the authors also deleted the entire year 2001 data for seven-year-old children from the final published report. This constitutes flagrant research fraud. Blaxill also invalidated the Danish mercury vaccine exposure experience as not a proper comparator:

“The context for the early mercury exposures was completely different in Denmark when compared to any other country, and particularly compared to the U.S. and U.K., where autism rates are being watched most closely. The Danish report describes a different world of vaccine exposures and ignores exposures that are present today that were not present in Denmark in the 1970s. Autism onset has been reliably associated with exposure to viruses. In the cases where increasing thimerosal exposures have accompanied autism increases, numerous additional confounders were present that were not present in Denmark. Between 1970-92, the only childhood vaccine given in Denmark until 5months of age was the monovalent pertussis vaccine. In the United States in the 1990s, children were exposed to multiple doses of diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio, hepatitis B and haemophilus influenza B (Hib) vaccines before five months of age. In the United Kingdom, injections before age 5 months included multiple doses of meningitis C, polio, diphtheria, tetanus, Hib, and pertussis vaccines. Increasing autism rates there were accompanied by earlier thimerosal exposures due to schedule changes, new exposures to MMR and Hib vaccines, and stringent on-time compliance procedures. Denmark did not administer thimerosal-containing Rho D immunoglobulin during pregnancy.”5

This is the pivotal study that CDC has relied on as “scientific evidence” of the innocence of thimerosal.

The only in-depth critical analyses of the Madsen/ Thorsen Danish studies have been by vaccine safety advocacy groups,[55] independent scientists,[56]and alternative news sources:[57]

But these valid critiques analyzing the methodology of the Danish studies did not make it into “high impact” journals where the Danish studies were published. The independent analyses were ignored by the medical establishment and by the media as well.

By burying the criticism, this study not only “enjoyed a prolonged period of acceptance: It influenced the outcome of the IOM Immunization Safety Review Committee of February 9, 2004, and helped sabotage the MMR litigation in the United Kingdom.”49

In 2014, a review a group of independent scientists examined the six studies that CDC continues to cite as evidence in support of its claim, that there is “no relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism rates in children”, was published in Biomed Research International.[57]. Dr. Brian Hooker and colleagues identified more than 165 published studies that refute CDC’s claim.

Of these 165 studies, 16 studies specifically examined the effects of Thimerosal on infants/children. Among the adverse effects, the studies documented following exposure to Thimerosal, include one death, 4 allergic reactions, 5 malformations, 6 autoimmune reactions, 8 developmental delay, 9 neurodevelopmental disorders, including tics, speech delay, language delay, ADHD, and autism.

CDC’s childhood vaccination policy rests on the denial of the existence of evidence documenting safety hazards posed by vaccines in the CDC Vaccination Schedule. CDC uses its influence with the gatekeepers of “high impact” medical journals, who reject scientific studies that contradict the sacrosanct vaccine safety mantra. Although a body of scientific studies documenting serious vaccine-related ill effects, has accumulated in the scientific literature, CDC and those “high impact” journal editors invoke their authority to declare: “there is no evidence of a risk from thimerosal or MMR”.

“A Foolish Faith In Authority Is The Worst Enemy Of The Truth”– Albert Einstein

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.[59]

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 correspondence1 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.53 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.” [60]He is quoted in Newsweek (2008) stating that the millions he made from the rotavirus v