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F. Kennedy Jr.

Chairman, Waterkeeper Alliance; Professor, Pace University

Central Figure in CDC Vaccine Cover-Up Absconds With $2M

A central figure behind the Center for Disease Control's (CDC) claims disputing

the link between vaccines and autism and other neurological disorders has

disappeared after officials discovered massive fraud involving the theft of

millions in taxpayer dollars. Danish police are investigating Dr. Poul Thorsen,

who has vanished along with almost $2 million that he had supposedly spent on

research.

Thorsen was a leading member of a Danish research group that wrote several key

studies supporting CDC's claims that the MMR vaccine and mercury-laden vaccines

were safe for children. Thorsen's 2003 Danish study reported a 20-fold increase

in autism in Denmark after that country banned mercury based preservatives in

its vaccines. His study concluded that mercury could therefore not be the

culprit behind the autism epidemic.

His study has long been criticized as fraudulent since it failed to disclose

that the increase was an artifact of new mandates requiring, for the first time,

that autism cases be reported on the national registry. This new law and the

opening of a clinic dedicated to autism treatment in Copenhagen accounted for

the sudden rise in reported cases rather than, as Thorsen seemed to suggest, the

removal of mercury from vaccines. Despite this obvious chicanery, CDC has long

touted the study as the principal proof that mercury-laced vaccines are safe for

infants and young children. Mainstream media, particularly the New York Times,

has relied on this study as the basis for its public assurances that it is safe

to inject young children with mercury -- a potent neurotoxin -- at

concentrations hundreds of times over the U.S. safety limits.

Thorsen, who was a psychiatrist and not a research scientist or toxicologist,

parlayed that study into a long-term relationship with CDC. He built a research

empire called the North Atlantic Epidemiology Alliances (NANEA) that advertised

its close association with the CDC autism team, a relationship that had the

agency paying Thorsen and his research staff millions of dollars to churn out

research papers, many of them assuring the public on the issue of vaccine

safety.

The discovery of Thorsen's fraud came as the result of an investigation by

Aarhus University and CDC which discovered that Thorsen had falsified documents

and, in violation of university rules, was accepting salaries from both the

Danish university and Emory University in Atlanta -- near CDC headquarters --

where he led research efforts to defend the role of vaccines in causing autism

and other brain disorders. Thorsen's center has received $14.6 million from CDC

since 2002.

Thorsen's partner Kreesten Madsen recently came under fierce criticism after

damning e-mails surfaced showing Madsen in cahoots with CDC officials intent on

fraudulently cherry picking facts to prove vaccine safety.

Leading independent scientists have accused CDC of concealing the clear link

between the dramatic increases in mercury-laced child vaccinations beginning in

1989 and the epidemic of autism, neurological disorders and other illnesses

affecting every generation of American children since. Questions about

Thorsens's scientific integrity may finally force CDC to rethink the vaccine

protocols since most of the other key pro vaccine studies cited by CDC rely on

the findings of Thorsen's research group. These include oft referenced research

articles published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, the

American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the

New England Journal of Medicine and others. The validity of all these studies is

now in question.

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