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Fugitive Scientist Behind Vaccine and Autism Studies Arrested for Stealing $1 Million From CDC

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender |September 16, 2025

Danish scientist Poul Thorsen, who co-authored influential papers in 2002 and 2003, used to argue against the link between vaccines and autism, was arrested in Germany and may be extradited to the U.S. on charges of stealing nearly $1 million in research money, Breitbart News reported.

Thorsen was listed as a fugitive on the U.S. Office of the Inspector General’s most wanted list for over a decade.

He reportedly was arrested in June following an Interpol Red Notice, a request to international law enforcement to locate and provisionally arrest a wanted person. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is working with German authorities to extradite him to the U.S., an unnamed DOJ official told Breitbart.

Thorsen allegedly absconded with over $1 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as part of a scheme to steal grant money awarded to governmental agencies in Denmark for autism research.

A federal grand jury indicted Thorsen in Atlanta in 2011 on 22 counts of wire fraud and money laundering. However, Denmark previously refused to extradite him, so he wasn’t prosecuted, Forbes reported.

‘Number one’ on the HHS most wanted list

Thorsen’s research, allegedly “debunking” the link between autism and the measles-mumps-rubella or MMR vaccine and other thimerosal-containing vaccines, was cited by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) as proof of no link.

His research was also used as evidence in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program’s (VICP) proceedings to deny the injury claims of more than 5,000 families.

Thorsen’s findings have been widely criticized by safe vaccine advocates as seriously flawed and potentially fraudulent.

“Thorsen has been number one on the Health and Human Services (HHS) most wanted list for the past 10 years,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-time critic of Thorsen’s studies, told Breitbart following reports of Thorsen’s arrest.

HHS did not respond to The Defender’s request to confirm whether Thorsen had been detained.

Author James Grundvig told The Defender that Thorsen’s arrest has the potential to expose a long history of misconduct within the CDC.

Grundvig wrote “Master Manipulator: The Explosive True Story of Fraud, Embezzlement, and Government Betrayal at the CDC,” which details the story of Thorsen’s alleged role in a broader CDC manipulation of vaccine safety studies.

“It is not just Thorsen,” Grundvig said. “It won’t be just taking down one guy.” If Thorsen is compelled to testify, “he will be pointing fingers and naming names.”

Children’s Health Defense Chief Scientific Officer Brian Hooker said:

“I really want to emphasize that this crime is much bigger than Thorsen. His collaborators need to be brought to justice as well. They partied on the backs of many autistic children. Frankly, jail time is too good for Thorsen and the many other fraudsters at CDC, IOM and the VICP!”

Thorsen used grant money to buy home, motorcycle, cars

Beginning in the 1990s, Thorsen, who worked as a visiting scientist at the CDC when the agency was soliciting grant applications for research about infant disabilities, advocated for grants on behalf of Danish scientists and institutions.

Between 2000 and 2009, the CDC awarded over $11 million to two Danish government agencies to study the relationship between vaccines and autism, and other infant developmental issues, according to a 2011 press release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia and Grundvig’s book.

In 2002, Thorsen relocated to Denmark to serve as principal investigator on the grant, overseeing the distribution of research money. The research was done by Aarhus University and Odense University Hospital in Denmark.

Between 2004 and 2008, Thorsen allegedly submitted more than a dozen fraudulent invoices on CDC letterhead to the medical facilities conducting the research for costs incurred for work related to the grant.

The facilities transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to fake CDC accounts at the CDC Federal Credit Union in Atlanta. However, the money actually was deposited into Thorsen’s personal accounts.

Thorsen allegedly used the money to purchase a home in Atlanta, a Harley Davidson motorcycle and cars, among other items. Overall, he withdrew more than $1 million, according to reports.

The indictment charged Thorsen with 13 counts of wire fraud and nine counts of money laundering, each carrying potentially long prison sentences and heavy fines. It also sought forfeiture of all property purchased with the fraudulently obtained funds.

Fabricated results seem ‘all but certain’ in research involving Thorsen

Mainstream media writers have mocked the long-term critiques of Thorsen’s work as “conspiracy theories,” and argued that, as a co-author, his contributions to the papers didn’t skew the results.

In a Substack post detailing Thorsen’s history and the studies he co-authored, scientist James Lyons-Weiler, Ph.D., said Thorsen’s influence on the research was concerning and the studies themselves were flawed.

He said:

“Although his scientific findings must be evaluated on their own merits, including data sources, design, and replicability, his case may be critical in revealing decision-making and could produce evidence of wrong-doing by Thorsen and others. Defrauding the US Government of research dollars is a crime. (This includes misuse and scientific fraud).

“Results fabrication in the Danish registry results seems all but certain given the clear evidence of those practices in other studies on the topic of vaccines and autism.”

The Danish government, since 1968, has maintained an extensive registry of birth and health records on all of its citizens. This provided a rich database for research on childhood disabilities, Grundvig said.

According to Lyons-Weiler, the Danish registry studies published by Thorsen and others were riddled with methodological flaws, including vulnerability to confounding variables over time, shifting diagnostic categories that distorted the data, misclassification and reporting biases and conflicts of interest.

Lyons-Weiler called for greater transparency in that research, including access to the original datasets, registries, study methods and peer review processes.

He said the studies should be replicated, the policies derived from them should be reexamined, and the public should be provided clarity on which studies Thorsen influenced.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

September 18, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Fact-Checking Peter Marks’ ‘Face the Nation’ Interview on Autism, Vaccines and Measles

By Arthur Weinstein | The Defender | April 17, 2025

Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., hasn’t changed the opinions that put him at odds with U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and led to his recent resignation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Marks appeared April 13 on CBS News’ “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” in a wide-ranging interview covering vaccine safety, autism, the Texas measles cases and Kennedy.

When Marks resigned under pressure on March 28 from his role as director of the FDA department responsible for authorizing vaccines, he called out Kennedy in his resignation letter. “It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” Marks wrote.

While Marks avoided using such inflammatory language on “Face the Nation,” the former FDA vaccines regulator did criticize Kennedy, suggesting he had hired a research executive with insufficient credentials, made personnel cuts that would hurt public health and that the results of a landmark autism study announced by Kennedy had in effect already been predetermined.

“What I think we can expect is the expected: that there will be an association determined between vaccines and autism, because it’s already been determined,” Marks said.

During the interview, Marks made several misleading and/or factually inaccurate statements, which we outline here.

Marks and Brennan falsely attributed children’s deaths to measles

Brennan referred to the death of 8-year-old Daisy Hildebrand on April 3 as “the death of a second unvaccinated child in Texas due to measles,” implying the disease caused both deaths.

Dr. Pierre Kory, who analyzed Daisy’s medical records for CHD.TV, disputed Texas health authorities’ statement that she died from “measles pulmonary failure.” He said records indicate she died from acute respiratory distress “secondary to hospital-acquired pneumonia,” which she likely developed during a previous hospital stay.

Brian Hooker, Ph.D., Children’s Health Defense (CHD) chief scientific officer, also reviewed the records and spoke with both of Daisy’s parents. He noted Daisy’s illness and treatment history were complicated during the weeks before her death.

Daisy’s father, Peter Hildebrand, told CHD.TV this week that measles is “absolutely not” what caused his daughter’s death.

“That last doctor we had, he just kept going on and on about measles this and measles that. He was trying to blame everything on the measles … They were so focused on the measles that they didn’t think about testing for anything else, and that is why my daughter is dead today.”

In March, a 6-year-old child in West Texas died after developing pneumonia while recovering from measles. The two deaths have fueled media coverage of a “deadly measles outbreak” in Texas and New Mexico, even though both deaths were attributable to other causes.

Marks cited questionable measles death rate

Marks talked at length about vaccine safety and efficacy, especially the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine.

“You want to get your child vaccinated against measles so that they don’t have a one-in-a-thousand chance of dying from measles if they contract it,” Marks said.

That oft-cited 1-in-1,000 statistic for measles deaths comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A CDC webpage updated in May 2024 claims “1 to 3 of every 1,000 children infected with measles will die from respiratory and neurologic complications.”

However, other research and media reports — and even the CDC itself — contradict that figure. On its website, the CDC reports that before the first measles vaccine was developed in 1963, “It is estimated 3 to 4 million people in the United States were infected each year,” resulting in 400 to 500 deaths.

Depending on which figures one uses, that results in a death rate of somewhere between 1 in 6,000 and 1 in 10,000 cases.

A 1994 study by the Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine) that reviewed pre-vaccine era data in industrialized countries also found the death rate for measles to be just over 1 per 10,000 cases.

Marks understated MMR vaccine risks

Marks said that unvaccinated children are at serious risk from measles, and he endorsed vaccine safety. He said:

“There’s no reason to put your child at that risk, because the vaccine does not cause death, it does not cause encephalitis and it does not cause autism. So a vaccine that is safe, yes, occasionally kids get fevers. If you don’t keep the fevers down, about 15 in 100,000 will get a convulsion that happens once it goes away. … So, very safe vaccine that is going to potentially protect your child and save its life.”

That statement ignores evidence of the risks associated with the measles vaccine. Between 2000 and 2024, nine measles-related deaths were reported to the CDC. During the same period, 141 deaths following MMR or MMRV vaccination in the U.S. were reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). That suggests the MMR vaccine can be deadlier than measles.

The MMR vaccine is also associated with serious health risks. The package insert for Merck’s MMRII states, “M-M-R II vaccine has not been evaluated for carcinogenic or mutagenic potential or impairment of fertility.”

Marks mischaracterized status and credentials of experienced vaccine researcher

Brennan mentioned a recent report by The Washington Post that researcher David Geier has been hired to lead Kennedy’s autism study. Geier’s appointment has not been confirmed. Yet the media questioned his credentials.

Marks repeated the Post’s mischaracterization of Geier’s credentials.

“He’s to the best of my knowledge, he’s not had any training after college in any of the sciences that we value here,” Marks said.

Geier is an expert on thimerosal — a mercury-based preservative used as an adjuvant in vaccines — and on the connections between toxic exposures and autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders.

The researcher is also the lead or second author of hundreds of peer-reviewed articles on vaccine safety.

Marks muddled research on environment versus genetics autism debate

As Brennan asked Marks about Kennedy’s autism study, she touched on the HHS secretary’s belief that environmental factors, not genetics, have sparked the rise of the condition.

Kennedy again voiced that opinion on Wednesday during a news conference, saying, “Genes do not cause epidemics.”

“Is there scientific evidence ruling out genetics as a cause of ASD?” Brennan asked Marks, referring to autism spectrum disorder.

”There’s no scientific evidence ruling out genetics. In fact, there’s data that have been published that say that genetics may contribute to autism. There are obviously data … that suggest that perhaps environmental factors may, but one has to be incredibly careful … about making associations between environmental factors and autism.”

The converse of Marks’ statement is also true; there’s no scientific evidence ruling out environmental factors. Kennedy said Wednesday that while some people may be genetically more susceptible to autism, it takes an environmental exposure to trigger the condition.

“This epidemic denial has become a feature in the mainstream media, and it’s based on an industry canard,” Kennedy said. “Obviously, there are people who don’t want us to look at environmental exposures.”

Brennan also pointed out to Marks that Kennedy appeared on Fox News Wednesday, “and dismissed 14 studies that have shown no link between autism and vaccines.”

A scientific review published Jan. 10 on Preprints.org found the CDC’s “vaccines do not cause autism” stance is based on limited evidence that insufficiently supports that broad claim.

Hooker, one of the co-authors of the review, told The Defender about the limited research on the topic.

“The truth is that CDC has never studied the connection between vaccines and autism except for one vaccine, MMR, and one vaccine component, thimerosal,” Hooker said.

Kennedy’s stance on the environment versus genetics debate has been clear, and he reiterated it Wednesday: He questioned why the National Institutes of Health spends 10 to 20 times more researching genetic causes instead of possible environmental triggers.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

April 17, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Media Panic Over Measles Distracts From Real Threats to Kids’ Health and Safety

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | February 27, 2025

Measles outbreaks in Texas and New Mexico, with one new case reported in Kentucky and two in New Jersey, are fueling media stories that the U.S. is poised for an epidemic.

On Wednesday, Texas health authorities announced the death of a child who tested positive for measles, setting off a spate of media reports blaming the measles outbreaks on declining vaccination rates.

However, some doctors warn the situation isn’t as dire as the headlines suggest.

Dr. Lawrence Palevsky, a pediatrician, said it is a tragedy anytime a child dies. But he also said there isn’t “enough information to know whether the child had an underlying medical condition, whether the child had measles and what diagnostic criteria were being used to make the diagnosis of measles.”

Palevsky said it remains unknown “what treatment the child received in the hospital that may or may not have had anything to do with the deterioration of this child’s health. More information is needed.”

Outlets like Vox, The Washington Post, and The New York Times warned that the outbreaks herald a coming “public health crisis” that will be made worse by the fact that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has raised questions about the safety and efficacy of vaccines on the childhood vaccination schedule, is now secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Some accused Kennedy of downplaying the news after he said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is watching what is happening and that measles outbreaks happen every year.

Should we panic over measles outbreaks?

Leana Wen, writing in the Post, said people aren’t alarmed enough about measles because they don’t see the illness often enough. She warned it is a dangerous disease with high hospitalization rates and serious long-term health consequences that may include immune system destruction and death.

However, according to a 2018 publication by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) measles is a respiratory disease characterized by a fever, a head cold, pink eye and a rash of small red and sometimes itchy bumps that can cover the body.

Complications from measles such as an ear infection, diarrhea, croup, or bronchopneumonia, can occur — and bronchopneumonia can be quite serious — but they are rare in developed countries like the U.S, the AAP said.

It is “self-limiting,” meaning that it goes away on its own. By 1962 — prior to the introduction of the first measles vaccine a year later — the CDC described measles as a disease with low mortality.

By that time, the death rate had declined 98% since the beginning of the century due to improvements in public health. It carried a hospitalization rate of 11.5 per 1,000 cases and a mortality rate of 0.2 per 1,000 cases. Parents and medical practitioners considered measles an inevitable stage of a child’s development.

“We have a forgotten history of measles,” Children’s Health Defense (CHD) Senior Scientist Karl Jablonowski told The Defender. “The 1950s Vital Statistics report states, ‘measles are poorly reported because a large proportion of the cases are never seen by a physician.’ This, at a time when 600,000 annual reports of measles was normal.”

Despite Wednesday’s tragic reported death of a child in Texas, deaths from measles in the U.S. are extremely rare. Typically, people who die from measles have some other serious underlying condition.

Dr. Liz Mumper, a pediatrician, said it is “very uncommon” for a child to die from a measles infection in developed countries such as the U.S. that have access to clean water and good sanitation systems.

Although the CDC reports that the U.S. death rate from measles is 1 to 3 deaths out of every 1,000 reported cases, prior to the reported death on Wednesday in Texas, the last U.S. measles death was in a young immunocompromised woman in 2016. The last time a child died of measles in the U.S. was in 2003.

Hospitalization rates for measles are high, but that’s partly because people are often hospitalized to keep them isolated to stop transmission of the contagious illness, according to the CDC.

Treatment in hospitals typically involves keeping people hydrated and lowering their fevers.

“Effective treatments include vitamin A in high doses and attention to hydration status,” Mumper said. “Many natural methods to help the body fight viruses, like extra vitamin D and vitamin C, are effective but not widely recommended by mainstream medicine.”

Is the measles vaccine effective?

Most media reports blame the recent outbreak on unvaccinated people — mostly children — and claim the only way to resolve the crisis is to get the vaccination rate up to the professed target of 95% through mass vaccination campaigns.

This approach implies that without the measles vaccine, measles complications and deaths would be rampant.

CBS News suggested that if people can’t find their vaccination records or are worried about exposure, they should get a booster — because they are “safe and effective,” implying there’s no risk.

However, Mumper said it can’t generally be assumed that outbreaks are caused by unvaccinated people — cyclical outbreaks still occur even in populations, such as college students, with nearly 100% vaccination. The vaccine’s protection is not complete and wanes over time.

Measles vaccines come with a long list of serious side effects

The measles vaccine, like all vaccines, can cause serious side effects in some people, according to the author of “The Measles Book.”

Today, there are two measles vaccines available in the U.S. — Merck’s MMRII and GSK’s Priorix. Neither were safety-tested against a true placebo, according to pediatrician Dr. Paul Thomas, co-author of “Vax Facts: What to Consider Before Vaccinating at All Ages & Stages of Life.”

MMRII was tested against the vaccine components without the virus — which included the adjuvant — and Priorix was tested against the MMRII.

Merck’s label for MMRII, the most commonly given measles vaccine, reports that clinical trials and post-marketing studies identified a wide range of adverse reactions affecting almost every system in the body.

Examples include atypical measles and measles-type rashes, pancreatitis, thrombocytopenia, myalgia, respiratory illnesses like pneumonia, skin disorders, encephalitis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, convulsions or seizures, syncope and many other possible reactions.

The possible side effects for Priorix are similar. During the drug’s trials, there were high rates of serious adverse events and emergency room visits. New onset of chronic diseases occurred in both groups.

“To any sane mind, that means both the MMRII used as placebo and the new Priorix are dangerous,” according to Thomas.

A series of studies by the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) conducted in the 1990s to 2000s found similar adverse effects associated with the MMR vaccines.

Since the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) was established in 1990, there have been 115,849 adverse events associated with the measles vaccine reported, including 572 deaths.

All reports in VAERS are not necessarily verified and vary in completeness. However, underreporting is a known and serious disadvantage of the VAERS system. Researchers have found that the number of injuries reported to VAERS is less than 1%.

In addition to VAERS reports, many thousands of parents who saw their children regress into autism after taking the MMR vaccine have filed claims in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP).

Even though research shows a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, the VICP denied those claims en masse — and that denial is used to justify the now-common claim that there is no link between vaccines and autism.

An ongoing lawsuit alleges that the U.S. Department of Justice committed fraud to cover up the potential link between vaccines and autism. The case is pending in federal court.

The vaccine ‘propaganda playbook’

Measles outbreaks in the U.S. happen every year, but only some of them make headlines.

Stories circulate periodically about measles outbreaks, blaming them on low vaccination rates. Often, these outbreaks and the news reports sensationalizing them are followed by changes in vaccine laws to eliminate vaccine exemptions.

“The Measles Book” calls this fearmongering used to drive policy changes a “highly effective ‘propaganda playbook.’”

“We’ve seen this playbook in California in 2015 and in New York in 2019,” CHD CEO Mary Holland said. “We know that Hawaii’s legislature currently has bills to repeal its religious exemption.”

Holland added:

“The measles repeal playbook is well-worn and has been effective in the past, not because of a real threat to children’s health, but rather in large part due to media hype from corporate funding and government fearmongering.”

In 2015, allegedly prompted by a measles outbreak at Disneyland — blamed on unvaccinated children and low vaccination rates — California passed a controversial bill, Senate Bill No. 277 (SB 277), which eliminated the “personal belief exemption” for mandatory vaccination.

The passage of SB 277 in 2015 made California the first state in nearly 35 years to eliminate nonmedical vaccine exemptions.

In 2019, following a measles outbreak in 2018-19 in Brooklyn and Rockland Counties in New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed legislation ending nonmedical exemptions from school vaccination requirements for children.

What’s really killing children today? It’s not measles.

Measles is not — and has never been — a leading cause of death, according to Jablonowski.

The most common cause of death in non-infant children in 2023 was assault by firearm (2.2 per 100,000), motor-vehicle accident (1.3 per 100,000), self-harm by hanging, strangulation and suffocation (0.9 per 100,000), suicide by firearm (0.7 per 100,000), accidental overdose (0.7 per 100,000), drowning (0.5 per 100,000).

Over the past decade, children have also faced increasing rates of anxiety and depression, stress, asthma, autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or ADHD, obesity, and other chronic diseases, many of which can be linked to toxic exposures from pesticides, plastics, vaccines and other pharmaceutical products, water fluoridation, and electromagnetic radiation.

“Any childhood disease is scary, and measles can lead to complications like pneumonia,” Jablonowski said. “However, diseases like anxiety and depression, which are a serious threat to children’s health, do not have a Mayo clinic ‘self care’ section that begins with ‘take it easy,’” Jablonowski said.

“Any death of a child is tragic,” Holland said. “We grieve for this child and the child’s family. “That said, measles is not a grave threat to America’s children.”

Holland added:

“There are well-established protocols to treat it and healthy children can resolve a measles infection easily. This was the norm until 1963 when a single measles vaccine came into use. The notion that somehow measles is a scourge among well-nourished children with sanitation is diverging on the absurd.

“The real threats to America’s children are chronic health conditions: allergies, asthma, autism, ADHD, bipolar, and on, and on and on. The media would do well to start focusing its attention on the real risks to America’s children.”

Related stories in The Defender

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

February 28, 2025 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | 1 Comment