Image source. Click to embiggen
- Update Monday August 25, 2014: CDC has issued a statement on the 2004 Destefano paper: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Concerns/Autism/cdc2004pediatrics.html
- Update Wednesday August 27, 2014, 11 am PDT: The Hooker paper has been "removed from the public domain" http://www.translationalneurodegeneration.com/content/3/1/16/abstract
- Update Friday October 3, 2014: Measles-mumps-rubella vaccination timing and autism among young African American boys: a reanalysis of CDC data has been retracted by Translational Neurodegeneration. Download Retraction
"CDC Whistleblower"on autism: for beginners.
Back in 2004, a CDC epidemiology team published a paper, "Age at first measles-mumps-rubella vaccination in children with autism and school-matched control subjects: A population-based study in metropolitan Atlanta." (The paper is also called, "the Destefano paper", after the lead author.)
The paper was a case-control study. The gist of the paper is that vaccination with MMR was similar for the 624 autistic children and the 1824 non-autistic children. The paper was one more piece in the wall that reads: "vaccination does not cause autism."
The authors were: DeStefano F, Bhasin TK, Thompson WW, Yeargin-Allsopp M, Boyle C.
Here is a photograph of Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp, MD. This will become important later; you will see why. (More about Dr. Yeargin-Allsopp; link to her 95 published papers.)
Another author was "Thompson WW", or William W. Thompson, also a CDC researcher.
Thompson WW has been a co-author with Destefano F on nine other papers, dating back to 2000.. The most recent co-authored paper is the 2013 paper, Number of antigens in early childhood vaccines and neuropsychological outcomes at age 7-10 years.
The 2004 paper was the only time Thompson WW was a co-author with Yeargin-Allsopp M.
This brings us to the present. There is a biochemist named Brian Hooker, PhD, who has an autistic son. Dr. Hooker is convinced (in face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary) that thimerosal in the vaccines caused his son's autism. Hooker has filed numerous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suits to compel the CDC to release allegedly damning evidence. There was a long and confusing brouhaha (one, two, three, four, five, six) over the anti-vaccine movement's strategizing, and Hooker's involvement, in the run-up to the November 29 2012 Congressional Autism Hearing, chaired by Rep. Issa (another report on the hearing).
The short version: Hooker is not an unbiased scientist; he's a man with an agenda: to prove that somehow, someway that vaccines cause autism; the CDC knew this as early as 2000; and that people at CDC have concealed data with malicious intent.
On August 8, 2014, Hooker published his latest paper, "Measles-mumps-rubella vaccination timing and autism among young African American boys: A reanalysis of CDC data". This paper re-analyzed the dataset (designed as for a case-control study) used in deStefano paper, using a cohort methodology and a different and less subtle statistical test. This is technical stuff, but it's critical to the validity of Hooker's findings. What Hooker claims to have found: " a 3.36-fold increased risk for autism in African-American males who received MMR vaccination before the age of 36 months"
The anti-vaccine front group, Focus Autism, published a press release on the Hooker paper, including the following claims:
According to Dr. Hooker, the CDC whistleblower informant -- who wishes to remain anonymous -- guided him to evidence that a statistically significant relationship between the age the MMR vaccine was first given and autism incidence in African-American boys was hidden by CDC researchers. After data were gathered on 2,583 children living in Atlanta, Georgia who were born between 1986 and 1993, CDC researchers excluded children that did not have a valid State of Georgia birth certificate -- reducing the sample size being studied by 41%. Hooker explains that by introducing this arbitrary criteria into the analysis, the cohort size was sharply reduced, eliminating the statistical power of the findings and negating the strong MMR-autism link in African American boys.
Dr. Hooker has worked closely with the CDC whistleblower, and he viewed highly sensitive documents related to the study via Congressional request from U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The CDC documents from Congress and discussions that Hooker had with the whistleblower reveal widespread manipulation of scientific data and top-down pressure on CDC scientists to support fraudulent application of government policies on vaccine safety. Based on raw data used in the 2004 DeStefano et al study obtained under FOIA, Dr. Hooker found that the link between MMR vaccination and autism in African-American boys was obscured by the introduction of irrelevant and unnecessary birth certificate criteria -- ostensibly to reduce the size of the study.
Remember that one of the authors of the Destefano paper is an African-American woman. Hooker is labeling her a race traitor.
On August 19, 2014 "Autism Media Channel" published a YouTube video, CDC Whistleblower Confesses to Autism-Vaccine Fraud. This video features one Andrew Jeremy Wakefield, claiming that Hooker was motivated to undertake his research because he was contacted by an unnamed, but remorseful CDC researcher.
On August 22, 2014, Autism Media Channel published a second YouTube video, CDC Whistleblower Revealed. In this video, the identity of the CDC researcher was revealed: William W. Thompson. The Autism Media Channel videos, narrated by Wakefield, are quite inflammatory in tone.
Wakefield compared the alleged coverup (to which Dr. Yeargin-Allsopp would have had to been a party) to the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiments, and in a later passage, to
"You see, vile as the crimes of Stalin, Pol Pot and Hitler were, these men were not hypocrites.... These men were not entrusted with the welfare of their victims. Their mottos did not include the words, 'To save lives and protect.' They were not running a mandatory program disguised as caring.
"How many children? How many went to the wall in that decade of silence? How many Presidents, Mr. Obama?"
There are several distinct issues:
- The quality of the Hooker paper on its own merits. That is, what is the quality of Hooker's reanalysis? In other words, is there any there there?
- Let's say Thompson had legitimate concerns about the Destefano paper, especially with respect to an effect of the MMR on African American male toddlers. Is there any other plausible way that Thompson could have addressed his concerns?
- The "whistleblower" aspect. The story behind Hooker's reanalysis of the Destefano dataset is the claim that Thompson contacted Hooker to reveal "secret knowledge" -- that the CDC covered up data -- and that Hooker was the best person for this "whistleblowing" to go on.
- Turning back to the Hooker paper, is there any legitimacy to Hooker's claims that one, some subjects were improperly excluded; and two, unneccessary variables from the birth certificates were used to obscure real risks.
With respect to the first and fourth issues, a really thorough examination of Hooker's paper would require access to the CDC dataset and Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval and funding for such a study.
With respect to the second point. For scientists in a given field such as epidemiology, there would be many channels to get a message out that there was a statistically significant signal that wasn't reported in a paper, such as the claim about the Destefano paper. If you are an author on the paper, you could talk to a lot of people at any conference you go to, or pick up the phone and call a colleague at a different institution. You could say, "Hey, I know this is tough, but I need someone to get the word out on this so I can get a follow up study funded and put this question which really bothers me to rest. Would you please help me out?"
With respect to the third point: we will have to await further revelations.
Posts discussing Hooker's allegations, excluding anti-vaccine sources (I will be updating these silently as new posts appear).
Timeline
August 8, 2014: Hooker paper published online
August 18, 2014: Focus Autism Press Release published online
August 18, 2014: Andrew Wakefield's Autism Media Channel Video Alleging a CDC Whistleblower published online
August 22, 2014: Andrew Wakefield's Autism Media Channel Video Naming William W. Thompson as "The CDC Whistleblower " published online
- August 22, 2014, Orac Knows at Respectful Insolence: Brian Hooker proves Andrew Wakefield wrong about vaccines and autism
Of course, the key finding in Brian Hooker’s paper is that Wakefield was wrong. Indeed, in this video, Wakefield even admits that he was mostly wrong about MMR and autism. Let that sink in again. He admits that he was mostly wrong about MMR and autism. OK, he says we were “partially right,” but the flip side of that is that he must have been mostly wrong.
- August 22, 2014, Reuben Gaines at The Poxes Blog: Andrew Jeremy Wakefield plays video director while African-American Babies die, or something
Hooker is wrong in his assertions because the DeStefano paper did not leave out African-American children on purpose. Children were excluded from the analysis because of very legitimate and scientific reasons. They either were not the right age, did not have autism but some other neurodevelopment disorder, or were born outside of Georgia. Even if they were tossed into the analysis, DeStefano et al used a statistical analysis that took into account things like birth weight and mother’s age when analysing the data. They wanted to make sure that what they were seeing was most likely because of the MMR vaccine and not because of some other factor associated with autism.
- August 23, 2014, Ren at Epidemiological: Directed Acyclic Graphs and the MMR vaccine doesn’t cause autism.
I’m very skeptical that Dr. Hooker’s simplified statistical approach can be better than DeStefano et al’s approach of conditional logistic regression. Conditional logistic regression has the advantage of being able to control for a multitude of confounders and effect modifiers.
- August 24, 2014, Liz Ditz at I Speak of Dreams: L'affaire CDC-MMR: Hooker, Wakefield, and Focus Autism Accuse African-American Senior CDC Researcher of Being A Race Traitor
According to Hooker, Wakefield, and Focus Autism, a respected senior African-American physician-researcher is a race traitor and a mass murderer.
- August 25, 2014, Orac Knows at Respectful Insolence: The central conspiracy theory of the antivaccine movement
I can imagine three main possibilities for what happened. The first possibility from what I know is that Thompson had some sort of disagreement with his co-investigators, made the incredibly stupid—yes, stupid—decision to unburden himself to Brian Hooker, who, he must have known or should have known, is an antivaccine crank associated with Andrew Wakefield, and is now paying the price for that decision... The second possibility is that Thompson wanted to correct something Hooker was doing with the data and somehow let himself be drawn into saying things that could easily be taken out of context. The third, and (I hope) much less likely, possibility is that Thompson’s gone off the deep end and gone antivaccine.
- August 25,2014, David Gorski MD at Science Based Medicine: Did a high ranking whistleblower really reveal that the CDC covered up proof that vaccines cause autism in African-American boys?
"What [Hooker] has done, apparently, is found grist for a perfect conspiracy theory to demonize the CDC, play the race card in a truly despicable fashion, and cast fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the CDC vaccination program, knowing that most of the white antivaccine activists who support hate the CDC so much that they won’t notice that even Hooker’s reanalysis doesn’t support their belief that vaccines caused the autism in their children. Meanwhile, there is no evidence, at least none, submitted by the antivaccine propagandists flogging this conspiracy theory, that there really was a CDC conspiracy to hide anything.
- August 25, 2014, ToddW at Harpocrates Speaks, Andrew Wakefield Tortures History
I want to focus on some statements made by one Andrew Wakefield, the British doctor who committed scientific fraud, resulting in the full retraction of his 1998 case series study on MMR and the stripping of his medical license. Wakefield boldly added himself to the list of not only torturing science, but now adds to his accomplishments torturing history and ethics (granted, we already knew he was ethically challenged). You see, in his videos (here and here) about the alleged "whistleblower", William Thompson,Wakefield compared the purported "cover-up" to the Tuskegee syphilis debacle. It's a false comparison used simply to inflame people and claim the race card.
- August 25, 2014, Michael Simpson at Skeptical Raptor, Great CDC Coverup–suppressing evidence that MMR vaccines cause autism? cross-posted at at Daily Kos
It’s clear what’s happening here. Thompson, through sheer ignorance or total incompetence may have had a conversation with Hooker. Given the fact that the antivaccination gang lacks any serious scientific evidence supporting their dogma that vaccines cause autism, they jump on anything, however tenuous, that makes it appear that all of the evidence that refutes their dogma should be thrown in the garbage.
- August 26, 2014, Orac Knows at Respectful Insolence: Hey, where is everybody? The “CDC whistleblower” manufactroversy continues apace
Here it is, Tuesday already, and the antivaccine underground is still on full mental jacket alert over the biggest story the antivaccine movement has seen in a while. Fortunately, it’s a story that’s been largely ignored by the mainstream media, which tells me that maybe, just maybe, the mainstream media has figured out that it shouldn’t give undue credence to cranks.
- August 26 2014, Sullivan (Matt Carey) at LeftBrainRightBrain Autism, Atlanta, MMR: serious questions and also how Brian Hooker and Andrew Wakefield are causing damage to the autism communties
A study relying largely on a small group of subjects (about 20) with the conclusion that more work is needed. Sounds vaguely familiar. And, as we will see, Mr. Hooker has teamed up with Andrew Wakefield to put out a video where they jump past the whole this indicates more research is needed through this is absolute evidence of MMR causing autism directly to the CDC are engaging in a racist experiment sacrificing children to autism. It’s like the events around Mr. Wakefield’s 1997 Lancet paper cranked up to 11.
- August 26 2014,Lisa Lightner at Grounded Parents: the CDC vaccines/autism/coverup theory {spoiler alert-it’s not true!}
a friend, a friend that I consider to be intelligent and reasonable….first posted a link to a CNN article. Correction–it’s iCNN…which is VERY different. ANYONE can post ANYTHING there. You can, really. It’s a crowdsourcing platform. Shame on you CNN for whoring out your name for page views. Because this is what happens–people will post just about anything.....
I wish we knew the causes of autism, I really do. But vaccines ain’t it.
Fear sells, don’t buy it.
- August 26, 2014, Reuben Gaines at The Poxes Blog: How to end a scientist’s career with some fancy editing
As much as the anti-vaccine activists have been demanding that Dr. Thompson come out into the open and make some sort of a statement, no one seems to demand that Andrew Jeremy Wakefield and his team publish the entire recorded conversation between Brian Hooker and Dr. Thompson. All we get are lies and innuendo. We have operatives like Ginger Taylor writing on Twitter that CDC deliberately didn’t look at birth certificates for African-American babies in the DeStefano study.
August 26, 2014: Anti-Vaccine Group The Thinking Mom's Revolution Hosts a #CDCWhistleblower Twitter Party
- August 27, 2014 Karoli Kuns at Crooks and Liars: Rob Schneider's Anti-Vax Crusade Now Enters Alex Jones Territory
There's nothing like a good conspiracy theory to get the creative juices flowing. For actor Rob Schneider, that means getting your dander up over your incorrect belief that the CDC altered data to bury the "fact" that MMR causes autism.
- August 27 2014, Sullivan (Matt Carey) at LeftBrainRightBrain Autism: Discussions of the recent MMR/autism paper (and why the study isn’t what the author wants you to believe it is)
Below are a selected list of discussions about Brian Hooker’s recent paper and the highly irresponsible way he and his team are promoting it. Let me know if you spot one I should add to the list.
- August 27, 2014, Orac Knows at Respectful Insolence: The CDC “whistleblower” manufactroversy: Twitter parties and another “bombshell” e-mail
... just how desperate the antivaccine movement is to have Brian Hooker’s incompetent “reanalysis” of a ten year old vaccine safety study and Andrew Wakefield’s despicable race-baiting video gain traction in the mainstream media. The failure of this conspiracy theory to do so is driving antivaccine activists into ever-greater fits of lunacy online.
- August 27, 2014, Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy, Slate: No, There Still Is No Connection Between Vaccines and Autism
There's a conspiracy theory going around that the CDC covered up a link between autism and vaccines. From what I can tell, this conspiracy theory is on the same level as the one that NASA faked the Moon landings. And you know how I feel about that.
- August 27, 2014, ToddW at Harpocrates Speaks, Anti-vaccine Activists Throw Twitter Tantrum
... the hashtag #CDCwhistleblower to do what really amounted to the social media equivalent of a temper tantrum, whining about how the mainstream media is not reporting on the study. It was really a sad display, as they simply all copied and pasted from the same list of talking points, not even adding their own interpretation.
August 27, 2014, in the morning: The Journal Translational Neurodegeneration removes Hooker's paper from the public domain
- August 27 2014, Sullivan (Matt Carey) at LeftBrainRightBrain Autism:The Brian Hooker article “…has been removed from the public domain because of serious concerns about the validity of its conclusions”
- August 27, 2014, Adam Marcus at Retraction Watch: Journal takes down autism-vaccine paper pending investigation
An article purporting to find that black children are at substantially increased risk for autism after early exposure to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine has been shelved, amid claims that a CDC whistleblower has accused health officials of suppressing information about the link.
- August 27, 2014, Reuben Gaines at The Poxes Blog: Even the bottom-feeding journals seem to have some sense
’m still left wondering how this paper got through peer review, or who did the peer review. They seem to not have bothered with checking the biostatistics or with looking back at the DeStefano paper.
August 27, 2014, at approximately 2:30 pm, PDT, attorneys for William W. Thompson, the CDC employee, publish Thompson's statement
- August 27, 2014: Ren at Epidemiological Dr. Brian S. Hooker gets the Andrew Wakefield treatment.
My problem with Dr. Thompson’s statement is that the data were not omitted willy-nilly. There was a protocol that was established, and it excluded from the analysis children of different ethnicities, not just African Americans. In that exclusion, a vaccine-autism signal that was confounded by different factors was lost. It wasn’t lost out of bias but out of properly adjusting for different factors.
- August 27, 2014, Debra Goldschmidt, CNN, Journal questions validity of autism and vaccine study
Dr. Frank DeStefano, lead author of the 2004 study, said he and his colleagues stand by their findings. DeStefano said all the study authors, including Thompson, agreed on the analysis and interpretation before the study was submitted for publication 10 years ago. However, he said he plans to review his notes and will decide whether to run another analysis on the data.
- August 28, 2014, Sullivan at LeftbrainRightBrain Andrew Wakefield betrays another “whistleblower” with Brian Hooker helping
Apparently Mr. Hooker is unaware that the secrecy of confession is absolute. Priests, real ones, not self appointed ones like Mr. Hooker, have been known to go to jail rather than divulge what they’ve been told in confession. Real priests don’t record confessions so they can betray another.
- August 28, 2014, Reuben Gaines at The Poxes Blog, Autism is not death, unless you want it to be
While the black ribbon can mean different things to different people, it’s main use is for grieving or remembering the fallen, the dead. The way that these people have used it is to try to bring attention to their cause by equating autism with a death or a loss.
- August 28, 2014, ToddW at Harpocrates Speaks: CDC Whistleblower William Thompson Breaks Silence
Thompson's statement certainly casts Wakefield/Hooker in a not all that surprising light. At the very least, it calls into question their claims and behavior. But it does not exonerate Thompson, either. Despite his claims that he supports vaccination and that he would not suggest parents avoid immunizing their children, Thompson's actions were incredibly irresponsible.
- August 28, 2014, Orac at Respectful Insolence A bad day for antivaccinationists: A possible retraction, and the “CDC whistleblower” issues a statement
Betrayals within betrayals. This can’t all be laid on Wakefield. Thompson was played. Big time.
- August 28,2014, Mike Siegel at Mike's Meandering Mind: Mathematical Malpractice Watch: Torturing the Data
You can’t pick and choose little bits of data to support your theory. You have to be able to account for all of it. And you have to be aware of how often spurious results pop up even in the most objective and well-designed studies, especially when you parse the data finer and finer.
- August 28, 2014, Ari Brown MD at Parents Vaccines. Autism. Are We Done With This Yet?
What makes good science? Independent researchers study the same hypothesis and draw the same conclusions. The study in question came out in 2004, and was certainly not the only or definitive study done on the safety of the MMR vaccine. Believe me, the MMR vaccine has been studied repeatedly by researchers all over the world since the Modern Vaccine War began in 1998. Good science shows there is no association between the MMR vaccine and autism. Period.
- August 28, 2014, Alice Park at Time.com: Whistleblower Claims CDC Covered Up Data Showing Vaccine-Autism Link">
...any time scientists take the original population of participants in a study, however large, and drill down to analyze trends in a subgroup – in this case the African-American boys – the power of the associations they find dwindles.
- August 28, 2014, Liz Klimas at The Blaze: Researcher Says CDC ‘Chose to Cover Up’ Data Linking Autism With Vaccines…but There’s More to the Story
However, the CDC and other researchers in the field defend the initial presentation of the data and even call into question the analysis conducted in Hooker’s study.
- August 29, 2014, Reuben Gaines at The Poxes Blog: Working in the Quote Mine
Of course, the moms are not the only ones lying by omission about this whole thing. Plenty of anti-vaccine people online have been flooding comments sections of blogs with falsehoods. They say that data were omitted when they weren’t. Others said that Dr. Thompson was escorted off the CDC campus when was not. And, of course, the loonier of the loons are blaming everything from the Illuminati to the Reptilians for this.
The worst of the worst, however, keep using racially-charged language over this, and they keep stoking something that I’m sure not even they want to see catch on fire.
- August 29, 2014, Orac at Respectful Insolence: The CDC whistleblower William W. Thompson: Final (for now) roundup and epilogue
I conclude as I began, by asking “What now?” It’s obvious that the antivaccine contingent will flog this story for all it’s worth as long as they can, but fortunately the mainstream press doesn’t appear to be getting the message. It’s also clear that Hooker will continue to crank out incompetently performed epidemiological papers that torture the data until they confess a relationship between vaccines and autism
- August 31, 2014, Amanda Z. Naprawa at The Vaccine Advocate: Whistleblowers and Story Tellers
Ok. So we have a study by several epidemiologists in 2004 that concludes MMR does not cause autism. Then we have a 2014 study (under investigation by the journal that published it) by a biochemical engineer that reviews the same data and finds a connection for African-American boys. And this reanalysis is undertaken by a guy who has an agenda. I’m no epidemiologist, but I know that researcher bias is a big fat red flag when looking at the reliability and validity of a study. And moreover, his study had a different design than the original one which can, naturally, lead to different results. So based on this, we have to question his findings. But what is important to note, is that even Hooker can’t find a relationship between vaccines and autism in most children. Just black boys. And even for them: there’s no relationship between getting the vaccine and autism. Just between the ages of 24 and 36 months.
- August 31, 2014, Dov Michaeli at The Doctor Weighs In: Liars, Damn Liars, and Statistics: The Autism-Vaccine Fraud
What’s wrong with this paper? Statistics, for starters. Post-hoc subgroup analysis is fraught with risks too numerous to detail here. Suffice it to say that confounding factors fall into the “known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns” categories. Multiple logistic regression analysis can can ferret some, but not all, such problems. It is puzzling then that Hooker chose to use extremely simplified contingency statistics (chi square) that are far more prone to false positives, since they’re less capable of isolating out confounding factors than the multiple logistic regression.
- August 31, 2014, Sullivan at LeftBrainRightBrain: Comment on: Expression of Concern: Measles-mumps-rubella vaccination timing and autism among young African American boys: a reanalysis of CDC data
In this case, it isn’t that Mr. Hooker’s decisions are poor (they are), it’s that his choices show that he has a rather strong ideological stance on vaccines and the CDC. One which the editors of his recent article likely wish Mr. Hooker had disclosed when he submitted his paper.
- September 1, 2014, Russell Saunders at the Daily Beast: Anti-Vaxxers Have a New Hero
In short, not only did experts outside of the CDC verify the original study, but Dr. Hooker’s new paper likely reaches the findings it does because he uses the wrong kind of analysis for the data set....So not only were whatever qualms Dr. Thompson had insufficient to have him remove his name from the original study, they were neither enough to make him speak out publicly in the decade since nor have him willingly attach his name to any effort to debunk it. Not a lot of air tooting that whistle, no matter what the video would lead viewers to believe.
- September 1, 2014, Orac at Respectful Insolence: The CDC whistleblower William W. Thompson: One last word
I was unexpectedly contacted by Rick Morgan, William Thompson’s lawyer... he stated that he understood that I thought Thompson either had a beef with his co-investigators or had gone off the deep end. However, he wanted to “plant a seed” that maybe—just maybe—there might be another explanation, that this had been torturing Thompson all these years and he just had to do something because he couldn’t take it any more.
And maybe that is true. I have no way of knowing. I do know that, whatever his motivation, Thompson had done horrible damage and almost certainly endangered African American children to suffer from measles who might not have contracted it otherwise.
- September 1, 2014, Sullivan at LeftBrainRightBrain: If this is what keeps a CDC researcher up at night, how would they ever keep a huge conspiracy going?
Think about that. A single result, one which many people agreed didn’t need to be discussed, was held back and this CDC researcher struggled with that decision for a decade. But he and his colleagues are just going along with what is supposedly the biggest cover-up in history?
- September 1, 2014, David Gorski at Science-Based Medicine: The CDC Whistleblower Saga: Updates, Backlash, and (I hope) a Wrap-up
Now imagine if there had been a real conspiracy to suppress compelling evidence indicating that vaccines cause autism. In that case, there wouldn’t just be a single man torturing himself over decisions made, as Thompson, if we believe Morgan, apparently has. It would be men and women at every level of the CDC. If the CDC couldn’t “keep Thompson quiet” over this, if Thompson was willing to risk destroying his career over a small subgroup analysis with almost certainly spurious results that weren’t followed-up on when he thought they should be, imagine what would happen if real data demonstrating a strong link between vaccines and autism had been covered up. There would be Bill Thompsons crawling out of the woodwork everywhere, beginning not long after the cover-up began.
Posts discussing Hooker's allegations from anti-vaccine sources and those believing Hooker's allegations (I will be updating these silently as new posts appear).
Timeline
August 8, 2014: Hooker paper published online
August 18, 2014: Focus Autism Press Release published online
August 18, 2014: Andrew Wakefield's Autism Media Channel Video Alleging a CDC Whistleblower published online
- August 18, 2014, Jake Crosby at Autism Investigated: CDC Whistleblower Reveals Yet More Research Fraud
- August 19, 2014 Age of Autism at Age of Autism: Whistleblower Says CDC Knew in 2003 of Higher Autism Rate Among African-American Boys Receiving MMR Shot Earlier Than 36 Months
- August 20, 2014, Mike Adams at Natural News: Vaccine bombshell: CDC whistleblower reveals cover-up linking MMR vaccines to autism in African-Americans
- August 20, 2014, Age of Autism at Age of Autism: Senior Government Scientist Breaks 13 Years' Silence on CDC's Vaccine-autism Fraud
- August 20, 2014 Jon Rappoport at Jon Rappoport's Blog Breaking: Breaking: MMR vaccine, autism, CDC coverup
- August 21, 2014 Jon Rappoport at Jon Rappoport's Blog: Vaccine-autism connection: US Congressman stonewalled by the CDC
- August 21, 2014 Jon Rappoport at Jon Rappoport's Blog: Advice for the secret CDC vaccine whistleblower
- August 21, 2014: Mike Adams at Natural News: CDC refuses to turn over documents to Congress: Evidence linking MMR vaccines to autism intentionally withheld from investigators
- August 22, 2014, Ethan Huff at Natural News, CDC whistleblower confesses to publishing fraudulent data to obfuscate link between vaccines and autism
- August 22, 2014, metamars at My Firedog Lake: CDC refuses to turn over documents to Congress showing MMR vaccines caused autism in black children (note: metamars' blog post, not an official Firedoglake post)
August 22, 2014: Andrew Wakefield's Autism Media Channel Video Naming William W. Thompson as "The CDC Whistleblower " published online
- August 22, 2014 Jon Rappoport at Jon Rappoport's Blog: CDC whistleblower revealed: William Thompson
- August 22, 2014 Jon Rappoport at Jon Rappoport's Blog: What CDC whistleblower William Thompson needs to do now
- August 22, 2014 Jon Rappaport at Jon Rappaport's Blog Breaking: CDC whistleblower Thompson in grave danger now
- August 22, 2014, at TMR at Thinking Moms' Revolution: CDC Whistleblower William Thompson Blows the Lid on Malfeasance and Fraud at the CDC
- August 22, 2014, Jake Crosby at Autism Investigated, Andrew Wakefield Betrays CDC Whistleblower
- August 23, 2014, Inquisitr CDC Whistleblower’s Claims Cause Uproar In Autism Community
- August 24, 2014 Jon Rappoport at Jon Rappoport's Blog CNN iReport on CDC whistleblower spreads like wildfire, then censored
- August 24, 2014, Jon Rappaport at Jon Rappaport's Blog Rob Schneider says he has smoking gun on CDC vaccine-autism fraud (For beginners: Rob Schneider is an actor who has in the last few years become an anti-vaccine activist. Why he would have access to sensitive information is an open question.)
- August 24, 2014, Sally Colletti, Examiner: Autism and The CDC: Now What?
- August 25, 2014, Kent Heckenlively, Age of Autism: A Break in the Wall - William W. Thompson
- August 25, 2014, Ethan Huff at Natural News: CDC whistleblower exposes massive autism cover-up perpetrated by government agency
- August 25, 2014, Mike Adams at Natural News: CDC whistleblower's secret letter to Gerberding released by Natural News as mainstream media desperately censors explosive story
- August 25, 2014, Mike Adams at Natural News CNN caught red handed covering up CDC medical genocide of African-American babies (much handwaving over open-source reports at iCNN being changed or deleted.)
- August 25, 2014, Zorro at Thinking Moms' Revolution: Stop Calling Us Crazy: Autism, MMR, and Institutional Gaslighting
- August 25, 2014, Megan Heimer at Living Whole CDC Whistleblower Comes Out and They All Play Dead
- August 25, 2014, Age of Autism at Age of Autism: Rob Schneider Demands Answers on CDC MMR Fraud
- August 25, 2014, Jon Rappoport at Jon Rappoport's Blog CDC vaccine-autism fraud: what victory looks like
- August 25, 2014, Jon Rappoport at Activist Post: CDC whistleblower, watch out; here come the mothers
- August 25, 2014, Kelly Brogan at Kelly Brogan MD CDC: You’re Fired. Autism Coverup Exposed.
- August 25, 2014, Patrick "Tim" Bolen at the Bolen Report The CDC Whistleblower... The Story Mainstream Media Doesn't Want To Run...
- August 25, 2014, David Brownstein at Dr. Brownstein's Holistic Medicine Blog: Toxic Vaccines and Autism: A CDC Coverup
- August 26, 2014, JB Handley at Age of Autism: Knock-out Blow Needed: Dr. Thompson Must Speak Out on MMR African American Autism Connection.
- August 26, 2014, John Stone at Age of Autism:CDC Frauds: Connections Between the DeStefano Paper and the Thorsen Affair.
- August 26, 2014, Celia Farber, Epoch Times: Whistleblower Reveals CDC Knowingly Put Children at Risk of Autism, Media Remains Silent (Video)
- August 26, 2014, Jon Rappoport at Jon Rappoport's Blog CDC whistleblower is just the tip of the iceberg
- August 26, 2014 Mike Adams at Natural News EXCLUSIVE: Bombshell email from CDC whistleblower reveals criminality of vaccine cover-up as far back as 2002
- August 26, 2014, Age of Autism at Age of Autism: CDC Whistleblower on Thimerosal in Pregnant Women (note: video interview with Brian Hooker, not William W. Thompson)
August 26, 2014, in the evening: Anti-vaccine Activists at The Thinking Moms' Revolution Host a #CDCWhistleblower Twitter Party
- August 27, 2014, "Bobby Dee" at Gianelloni Family: Erased by a Birth Certificate
- August 27, 2014, John Stone, Age of Autism: The CDC: the Detective Agency Which Could Never Find Anything<
- August 27, 2014, Anne Dachel, Age of Autism: CDC Whistleblower Story: Danke to Franchi
- August 27, 2014, Marcella Piper-Terry, CDC Whistleblower and Probability of Post-MMR Autism Diagnosis
- August 27, 2014, Marcella Piper-Terry at Thinking Mom's Revolution How Many African-American Boys Have Autism as a Result of the CDC’s Lies?
- August 27, 2014, Ethan Huff at Natural News: Congressman Posey discusses autism, vaccines and lack of CDC transparency in interview with Dr. Brian Hooker
- August 27, 2014 Mike Adams at Natural News: Media conspiracy to bury CDC whistleblower story protects vaccine makers at the expense of human life
- August 27, 2014, Beth Clay at BethClay.com: When You Know You Are Being Lied To…My Initial Thoughts on the CDC Whistleblower News
- August 27, 2014, Jon Rappoport at Jon Rappoport's Blog Update: CDC whistleblower in touch with members of Congress
August 27, 2014, in the morning: The Journal Translational Neurodegeneration removes Hooker's paper from the public domain
- August 27, 2014 Mike Adams at Natural News: Scientific journal censors Brian Hooker's analysis of CDC vaccine data; the Church of Science orders 'burning of books'
- August 27, 2014, Sayer Ji at GreenMedInfo: CDC Autism/Vaccine Coverup Extends to Media and Journals
- August 27, 2014, Age of Autism at Age of Autism: Translational Neurodegeneration Removes Vaccination Timing Article
August 27, 2014, at approximately 2:30 pm, PDT, attorneys for William W. Thompson, the CDC employee, publish Thompson's statement
- August 27, 2014, Age of Autism at Age of Autism: Statement from William Thompson, RE Pediatrics MMR African American Males Data
- August 27, 2014 Mike Adams at Natural News: BREAKING: CDC whistleblower confesses to MMR vaccine research fraud in historic public statement
- August 27, 2014, Jake Crosby at Autism Investigated: Whistleblower Confirms Wakefield Outed Him Without Permission
- August 27, 2014, Sayer Ji at GreenMedInfo: CNN Publishes Story Denying Vaccine-Autism Link
- August 27, 2014, The Event Chronicle at The Event Chronicle: CDC whistleblower confesses to MMR vaccine research fraud in historic public statement
- August 28, 2014 Celia Farber, Epoch Times Vaccinegate: CDC Whistleblower Admits Claims of Data Fixing Were True, Complains at Being Recorded and Outed
- August 28, 2014, Dan Olmstead at Age of Autism: Our Story So Far: Both MMR & Mercury-Laced Vaccines Cause Autism
- August 28, 2014, "Bobby Dee" guest posting at Living Whole: The CDC Whistleblower Press Release: Interpreted
- August 28, 2014, Sharyl Attkisson at Sharyl Attkisson CDC Responds to Allegation it Omitted Vaccine-Autism Study Link
- August 29, 2012, Anne Dachel at Age of Autism: Dr. Andrew Wakefield Discusses CDC Vaccine Fraud"
- August 29, 2014, Autism Action Network at Age of Autism: Action Alert: Ask Dr. Thompson to Remove Name from Pediatrics Study
- August 29, 2014, Valerie Foley at Information about autism: Can We Talk? Reprinted at Thinking Mom's Revolution as MMR, Autism and Fudged CDC ‘Science’ – Can We Talk?
- August 29, 2014, Autism Action Network at Age of Autism: Action Alert: Ask Dr. Thompson to Go Public on CDC Vaccine Fraud
- August 29, 2014, David Brownstein at Dr. Brownstein's Holistic Medicine Blog: Toxic Vaccines and Autism: A CDC Coverup Part 2
- August 30, 2014, Aaron Dykes and Melissa Melton at TruthStreamMedia.com FRAUD! CDC Scientist ADMITS They Omitted Data Linking MMR Vaccines to Autism
- August 30, 2014, Dan Olmstead at Age of Autism: Age of Autism Weekly Wrap: Take Me To Your Protocol
- August 31, 2014, Sherrie Bain at Examiner.com: MMR Vaccine/Autism Revelation: Another “Tuskegee Experiment”?
- August 31, 2014, Neil Johnston at i2P: MMR Vaccine Found to Cause Autism in African-American Children
- September 1, 2014, David Brownstein at Dr. Brownstein's Holistic Medicine Blog: The CDC Lies, Mainstream Media Stays Quiet and Our Children Suffer
- September 1, 2014, Kent Heckenlively at Age of Autism Havin' Trouble with CDC Whistleblower, William Thompson
Other links
- Full text of Hooper's paper: Transl Neurodegener. 2014 Aug 8;3:16. doi: 10.1186/2047-9158-3-16. eCollection 2014. Measles-mumps-rubella vaccination timing and autism among young african american boys: a reanalysis of CDC data. Hooker BS.
- Full text of the Focus Autism press release http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/study-focus-autism-foundation-finds-cdc-whistleblower-reveals-widespread-manipulation-1939179.htm
- The 1989 revisions of the US Standard Certificates of Live Birth and Death and the US Standard Report of Fetal Death.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1349110/
- Example of Vital Statistics Data collected on Georgia Home Births, http://www.celebratedouglascounty.com/view/global/viewdownload/&docid=3577&file=/Home_Birth_Package.pdf
- CDC Position statement on 2004 Destefano paper http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Concerns/Autism/cdc2004pediatrics.html
- Snopes.com: Claim: The CDC has intentionally suppressed reports of vaccine-related cases of autism from reaching the public. PROBABLY FALSE
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Concerns/Autism/cdc2004pediatrics.html
CDC Statement Regarding 2004 Pediatrics Article, "Age at First Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccination in Children With Autism and School-matched Control Subjects: A Population-Based Study in Metropolitan Atlanta"
CDC shares with parents and others great concern about the number of children with autism spectrum disorder.
CDC is committed to continuing to provide essential data on autism, search for factors that put children at risk for autism and look for possible causes. While doing so, we work to develop resources that help identify children with autism as early as possible so they can benefit from intervention services.
CDC’s study about age at first Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccination and autism, published in Pediatrics in 2004, included boys and girls from different ethnic groups, including black children. The manuscript presented the results on two sets of children:
1. All children who were initially recruited for the study, and
2. the subset of children who had a Georgia birth certificate.
Access to the information on the birth certificates allowed researchers to assess more complete information on race as well as other important characteristics, including possible risk factors for autism such as the child’s birth weight, mother’s age, and education. This information was not available for the children without birth certificates; hence CDC study did not present data by race on black, white, or other race children from the whole study sample. It presented the results on black and white/other race children from the group with birth certificates.
The study looked at different age groups: children vaccinated by 18 months, 24 months, and 36 months. The findings revealed that vaccination between 24 and 36 months was slightly more common among children with autism, and that association was strongest among children 3-5 years of age. The authors reported this finding was most likely a result of immunization requirements for preschool special education program attendance in children with autism.
The data CDC collected for this study continue to be available for analysis by others. CDC welcomes analysis by others that can be submitted for peer-review and publication. For more information on how to access this public-use dataset please go to the this webpage.
Additional studies and a more recent rigorous review by the Institute of Medicine have found that MMR vaccine does not increase the risk of autism.
Vaccines protect the health of children in the United States so well that most parents today have never seen first-hand the devastating consequences of diseases now stopped by vaccines.
However, our 2014 measles count is the highest number since measles was declared eliminated in 2000. We do not want to lose any opportunity to protect all of our children when we have the means to do so.
Posted by: LIz Ditz | Monday, August 25, 2014 at 12:35 PM
A comment made on Facebook which admirably summarizes what we know so far:
Did Thompson actually confess to wrongdoing?
There's no evidence of a coverup, and there's scant evidence that Thompson expressed remorse.
Posted by: LIz Ditz | Tuesday, August 26, 2014 at 08:40 AM
It should also be noted that the Hooker paper has now been retracted http://www.translationalneurodegeneration.com/content/3/1/16/abstract
Posted by: Motek42 | Wednesday, August 27, 2014 at 01:02 PM
FYI there is now also an article in french, written with the help of Mireille Schnitzer, Biostatistics PhD :
http://lesceptique.ca/2014/09/11/autisme-et-vaccin-une-autre-nouvelle-exageree
Posted by: LouV | Friday, September 12, 2014 at 01:39 AM