CDC whistleblower makes statement regarding cover up of relationship of MMR and autism

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM W. THOMPSON, Ph.D., REGARDING THE 2004 ARTICLE EXAMINING THE POSSIBILITY OF A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MMR VACCINE AND AUTISM

My name is William Thompson. I am a Senior Scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where I have worked since 1998.

I regret that my coauthors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics. The omitted data suggested that African American males who received the MMR vaccine before age 36 months were at increased risk for autism. Decisions were made regarding which findings to report after the data were collected, and I believe that the final study protocol was not followed.

I want to be absolutely clear that I believe vaccines have saved and continue to save countless lives. I would never suggest that any parent avoid vaccinating children of any race. Vaccines prevent serious diseases, and the risks associated with their administration are vastly outweighed by their individual and societal benefits.

My concern has been the decision to omit relevant findings in a particular study for a particular sub group for a particular vaccine. There have always been recognized risks for vaccination and I believe it is the responsibility of the CDC to properly convey the risks associated with receipt of those vaccines.

I have had many discussions with Dr. Brian Hooker over the last 10 months regarding studies the CDC has carried out regarding vaccines and neurodevelopmental outcomes including autism spectrum disorders. I share his beliefthat CDC decision-making and analyses should be transparent. I was not, however, aware that he was recording any of our conversations, nor was I given any choice regarding whether my name would be made public or my voice would be put on the Internet.

I am grateful for the many supportive e-mails that I have received over the last several days. I will not be answering further questions at this time. I am providing information to Congressman William Posey, and of course will continue to cooperate with Congress. I have also offered to assist with reanalysis of the study data or development of further studies. For the time being, however, I am focused on my job and my family.

Reasonable scientists can and do differ in their interpretation of information. I will do everything I can to assist any unbiased and objective scientists inside or outside the CDC to analyze data collected by the CDC or other public organizations for the purpose of understanding whether vaccines are associated with an increased risk of autism. There are still more questions than answers, and I appreciate that so many families are looking for answers from the scientific community.

My colleagues and supervisors at the CDC have been entirely professional since this matter became public. In fact, I received a performance-based award after this story came out. I have experienced no pressure or retaliation and certainly was not escorted from the building, as some have stated.

Dr. Thompson is represented by Frederick M. Morgan,Jr., Morgan Verkamp, LLC, Cincinnati, Ohio, www.morganverkamp.com.

Snowden never established that NSA was spying on innocent civilians, but his accusations as a former employee, certainly provided a lot of facts for the world to take into consideration.

This isn’t just a lawsuit. This is one of many Americans, who also happens to be a CDC employee, going on record as a public official, saying that vaccination safety research is potentially flawed.

The fact that the media has once again blacked out this information that can potentially affect EVERY American makes it sinister. The pattern of media blackouts of major events during the Obama administration is simply creepy.

Consider the fact that a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Seymour Hersh wrote a book that documented Obama’s illegal use of the US military to benefit the Muslim Brotherhood, and that was effectively CENSORED in the US media. http://www.herald.co.zw/syria-the-red-line-and-the-rat-line/

I can give MANY example of Obama’s tyrannical acts being censored by our media. We aren’t free FRiends, and the FEDS can’t be trusted.

Just Saying.

The number of children diagnosed with autism or related disorders has grown at what many call an alarming rate. In the 1970s and 1980s, about one out of every 2,000 children had autism.

Today, the CDC estimates that one in 150 8-year-olds in the U.S. has an autism spectrum disorder,

Certainly you can see a problem with that comparison:

Number	in	of (population)	has
1	2000	every	autism
1	150	8 year olds	autism spectrum disorder

All I need is the image of about five autistic boys in my community whom I’ve watched grow up, compared with the thousands of boys, hundreds of families I knew growing up in a major metro suburb, who had maybe one case of autism, and I am certain everyone else can tell the same story.

I am certain of it.

Yet I was told not good enough, I was supposed to provide:
does not tell us anything about prevalence. In order to do that, they would have to:

* determine and control for the rate of false diagnoses
* account for changes in diagnostic criteria
* account for changes in the definition of the disorders
* account for the prevalence of undiagnosed or misdiagnosed cases, both in the past and the present

But you know, I encounter some narrow minded folks here on FR of late, who do not like to hear what is inconvenient, so my response is always:

What ever.

I have a life

You people who don’t like facts really waste my time.

I have seen kids, five sons of neighbors and friends, screaming and smashing other kids’ heads. These kids cannot talk at five years old, have never spoken a word, just grunting. I know kids 19 years old who cannot have, have not had, a conversation.

There simply was not that prevalence when I was growing up.

any progressive without a sense of logic can say that is emotion, They hate facts.

I have backed up all of my statements with data.

If you don’t know a bunch more kids with autism than in the 1960s and ‘70s, then you have no community or social life.

My only point is that there is something they’re not telling us, just as they are not telling us about the abortion breast cancer link and the birth control pill and breast cancer rate.

Do you have any idea how many decades it took them to tell us about the cigarette lung cancer link?

They know it. I knew women who were adults in the 1930s who said in the 1970s there is a lot they’re not telling us about cigarettes.

Anyway, for you timewasters, some research data, which no doubt will solve nothing, bring no satisfaction, and will bring more timewasters out of the woodwork to a thread which was over about four hours ago:

From the CDC:
CDC: U.S. kids with autism up 78% in past decade

By Miriam Falco, CNN

updated 1:16 PM EDT, Thu March 29, 2012

CDC: Number of autistic kids increasing
...
(CNN) — The number of children with autism in the United States continues to rise, according to a new report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The latest data estimate that 1 in 88 American children has some form of autism spectrum disorder. That’s a 78% increase compared to a decade ago, according to the report.

Since 2000, the CDC has based its autism estimates on surveillance reports from its Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network. Every two years, researchers count how many 8-year-olds have autism in about a dozen communities across the nation. (The number of sites ranges from six to 14 over the years, depending on the available funding in a given year.)

In 2000 and 2002, the autism estimate was about 1 in 150 children. Two years later 1 in 125 8-year-olds had autism. In 2006, the number was 1 in 110, and the newest data — from 2008 — suggests 1 in 88 children have autism.

Read the CDC report (PDF)

U.S. kids and autism
Overall: 1 in 88 U.S. kids have autism; up 78% from 2002

Total: Estimated 1,000,000 children with autism

Boys: 1 in 54; up 82% from 2002

Girls: 1 in 252; up 63% from 2002

Non-Hispanic white children: 1 in 83; up 70% from 2002

Non-Hispanic black children: 1 in 98; up 91% from 2002

Hispanic children: 1 in 127; up 110% from 2002

Symptoms typically apparent before age 3

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Boys with autism continue to outnumber girls 5-to-1, according to the CDC report. It estimates that 1 in 54 boys in the United States have autism.

...

He said the numbers show there is an epidemic of autism in the United States.

...

Roy Sanders and Charlie Bailey sensed something was wrong with their son Frankie Sanders when he was 9 months old.
...

Frankie’s pediatrician thought his parents were seeing developmental delays that weren’t really there. But Frankie wasn’t talking, Sanders says. “He didn’t have speech; he didn’t have any communication skills at all. He didn’t point. He would flap quite a bit. He would stare at fans; he would stare at lights; he would become frantic if he didn’t have a Thomas the [Tank] Engine because he was obsessed with Thomas the [Tank] Engine.”

I have backed up my anecdotal evidence with factual studies.

I have used my anecdotal evidence as a case in point, the fact is that I know many more boys with ADS now than ever. It is a fact.

And I have backed it up with no less than the NIH study.

If you care to prove that I am wrong in noticing a trend which is backed up by scientific study, go ahead.

But this is not a court of law, so there is nothing wrong with stating an observation as fact.

What would be wrong would be if I were lying.

Anyone here is free do decide whether I am making it up or not.

I’m not under oath.

You are picking apart a point and you are wasting time and effort.

The point is that there are many more kids with autism. If the NIH says it’s from 3 in 10,000 to 30 in 10,000, and if they are not lying, then we will all notice it.

And if you haven’t noticed it, then you need to get out and get a life, go talk to people, see what parents are going through, contribute, and quit bugging me with pettiness

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