Ares
20th April 2011, 10:12 AM
Atlanta- Poul Thorsen, the principal coordinator of multiple studies funded by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) used to deny a vaccine/autism link was indicted on April 13th on 13
counts of fraud and 9 counts of money laundering. The charges relate to funding for work he conducted
for the CDC, which claimed to disprove associations between the mercury-based vaccine preservative,
thimerosal, and increased rates of autism.
SafeMinds first voiced concerns in 2003 regarding a series of epidemiology studies out of Denmark and
under the jurisdiction of Thorsen that provided the basis for the Institute of Medicine’s claim that there
was no association between thimerosal and autism. That claim has been responsible for the continued
unsafe use of mercury in influenza vaccines in the United States and infant vaccines around the world.
“The quality of this epidemiological research has always been questionable,” states Sallie Bernard,
SafeMinds president. “Many biological studies support a link between mercury and autism, but these
Danish studies have been used to suppress further research into thimerosal. With clear evidence of Dr.
Thorsen’s lack of ethics, it is imperative to reopen this investigation.”
From August to October of 2003, three articles on the autism-mercury controversy were published in
close succession, all of which used data from a Danish registry for psychiatric research to assess the
relationship between autism trends and the use of thimerosal. SafeMinds accessed the registry at the
time and reported that a large percentage of diagnosed autism cases are lost from the Danish registry
each year and that most of those lost cases were older children. Since the studies were based on finding
fewer older thimerosal-exposed children than younger unexposed children, the validity of their
conclusion exonerating thimerosal in autism was questionable and likely a result of missing records
rather than true lower incidence rates among the exposed group.
In addition, internal emails obtained via FOIA document discussion between the Danish researchers and
Thornsen which acknowledge that the studies did not include the latest data from 2001 where the
incidence and prevalence of autism was declining which would be supportive of a vaccine connection.
The emails also include requests from Thornsen to CDC asking that the agency write letters to the
journal Pediatrics encouraging them to publish the research after it had been rejected by other journals.
A top CDC official complied with the request sending a letter to the editor of the journal supporting the
publication of the study which they called a “strong piece of evidence that thimerosal is not linked to
autism”.
PDF here (http://www.safeminds.org/news/documents/Thorsen%20Indictment%204%2014%202011%20with%20link s.pdf)
http://www.safeminds.org/index.html
Control and Prevention (CDC) used to deny a vaccine/autism link was indicted on April 13th on 13
counts of fraud and 9 counts of money laundering. The charges relate to funding for work he conducted
for the CDC, which claimed to disprove associations between the mercury-based vaccine preservative,
thimerosal, and increased rates of autism.
SafeMinds first voiced concerns in 2003 regarding a series of epidemiology studies out of Denmark and
under the jurisdiction of Thorsen that provided the basis for the Institute of Medicine’s claim that there
was no association between thimerosal and autism. That claim has been responsible for the continued
unsafe use of mercury in influenza vaccines in the United States and infant vaccines around the world.
“The quality of this epidemiological research has always been questionable,” states Sallie Bernard,
SafeMinds president. “Many biological studies support a link between mercury and autism, but these
Danish studies have been used to suppress further research into thimerosal. With clear evidence of Dr.
Thorsen’s lack of ethics, it is imperative to reopen this investigation.”
From August to October of 2003, three articles on the autism-mercury controversy were published in
close succession, all of which used data from a Danish registry for psychiatric research to assess the
relationship between autism trends and the use of thimerosal. SafeMinds accessed the registry at the
time and reported that a large percentage of diagnosed autism cases are lost from the Danish registry
each year and that most of those lost cases were older children. Since the studies were based on finding
fewer older thimerosal-exposed children than younger unexposed children, the validity of their
conclusion exonerating thimerosal in autism was questionable and likely a result of missing records
rather than true lower incidence rates among the exposed group.
In addition, internal emails obtained via FOIA document discussion between the Danish researchers and
Thornsen which acknowledge that the studies did not include the latest data from 2001 where the
incidence and prevalence of autism was declining which would be supportive of a vaccine connection.
The emails also include requests from Thornsen to CDC asking that the agency write letters to the
journal Pediatrics encouraging them to publish the research after it had been rejected by other journals.
A top CDC official complied with the request sending a letter to the editor of the journal supporting the
publication of the study which they called a “strong piece of evidence that thimerosal is not linked to
autism”.
PDF here (http://www.safeminds.org/news/documents/Thorsen%20Indictment%204%2014%202011%20with%20link s.pdf)
http://www.safeminds.org/index.html