A whistleblower alleges that the CDC withheld Data linking Vaccines to Autism.
The video of recorded phone calls between anti-vaccine advocates Andrew Wakefield and Brian Hooker and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researcher Dr. William Thompson was made public in August 2014. Dr. Thompson the CDC whistleblower says he has proof on the recordings that the CDC changed the study's data-gathering guidelines to remove information that would have demonstrated African American boys had a significantly greater incidence of autism following the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccination. Hooker wrote and published his analysis using the unprocessed data that Dr. Thompson gave him.
Nevertheless, Dr. Thompson has not discussed the matter in public, instead made a statement via his attorney that skirts around the allegations he made to Hooker and Wakefield. Independent examinations of his assertions have revealed no proof that the immunization caused an increase in autism cases among African American boys or any other demographic.
Brain Hooker, a board member of Focus Autism (established to “put an end to the needless harm of children by vaccination and other environmental factors”), was consulted by William Thompson regarding the information omitted from the final study.
The goal of the study was to compare the rates of vaccination against measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) in healthy and autistic children, but no differences were discovered. That implied that there was probably no link between childhood vaccinations and an increased risk of autism.
However, Hooker and Thompson talked about a portion of the 624 autistic children and the 1824 control children who were the subjects of the study. Thompson also acknowledged that among African-American males, the incidence of autism was higher in the immunized group than in the unvaccinated group. However, that information was left out of the publication.
Thompson says he didn't know the conversation was videotaped. His comments are seen in the August 22 YouTube video titled "CDC Whistleblower Revealed."
Did the CDC, as Hooker alleges, conceal the data?
There are a few things to remember regarding the individuals who created the video as well as the methodology used in epidemiological studies such as the one published in Pediatrics. Firstly, Andrew Wakefield, the British researcher who originally sparked the questions regarding vaccines and autism, narrated the film.
His license to practice medicine was revoked by the General Medical Council in the United Kingdom in 2010, and the journal that published his work concluded a year later that the findings were falsified.
Why did African American boys who received the MMR vaccine have a higher risk of autism?
When analyzing the data, Brian Hooker employed a different methodology than the authors from the CDC. To make sure you gather the data appropriately, you must be aware of the kind of study you are doing before starting any data collection. After the data is gathered, using a different process will yield unreliable results. It's like trying to make a pie with ingredients for a cake.
Furthermore, Hooker altered the information to serve his objectives. He expanded the age range since there weren't enough African American boys in that age range in the initial study to make any firm conclusion. This method, which some refer to as "The Texas Sharpshooter Effect," involves someone drawing a target around previous shots to demonstrate his shooting prowess. Rather than letting the evidence lead him to a conclusion, Hooker chose the data points that confirmed his theory.