Fact Check: HHS hired researcher without medical license under RFK Jr., but role in autism study unclear

Yahoo

11-05-2025

Claim:
David Geier, appointed by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead autism-related research, is not a licensed medical doctor.
Rating:
What's True:
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' directory website states that David Geier is currently employed by the department as a "senior data analyst." Geier has never held a medical license and he was charged in Maryland for practicing medicine without one.
What's Undetermined:
It is not officially confirmed, and we were unable to independently verify, whether Geier is leading or playing a significant role in any current federal autism research initiative. His exact responsibilities under Kennedy remain vague, and HHS has not publicly detailed the scope of his role.
In late April and early May 2025, a rumor spread that David Geier, whom U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reportedly chose to work on autism-related research, was not a licensed doctor and had a history of unethical medical practices, including administering dangerous hormone treatments to autistic children.
As Snopes reported in early January 2025, investigating the reasons for the growing prevalence of autism diagnoses was one of the stated goals of President Donald Trump's second administration.
Readers messaged us asking whether Geier, reportedly in charge of the "autism solution" under Kennedy "ever had a medical license" and "chemically castrated autistic children." Similar claims also spread on social media.
"David Geier is neither a doctor nor a scientist; he is a discredited conspiracy theorist and hack researcher who RFK Jr. hired to advance his anti-science, anti-vaccine agenda," one Facebook post on the topic stated.
Similar claims about Geier circulated on X, Bluesky, Facebook, and Reddit. "Vaccine skeptic hired to head federal study of immunizations and autism," one Reddit post on the topic read. Julia Davis, a columnist for The Daily Beast and the creator of the Russian Media Monitor, wrote on X that "the man tapped by RFK Jr to run a clinical trial looking to tie vaccines to autism has been charged with practicing medicine without a license, given autistic children a dangerous drug not approved for use in the US & improperly prescribed puberty blockers."
In short, the claims were a mixture of true and undetermined information.
Geier, who in fact has never held a medical license and was previously charged in Maryland for practicing medicine without one, is now listed as a "senior data analyst" at the Department of Health and Human Services website. In the mid-2000s, he and his father promoted an unapproved treatment for autism that involved administering Lupron, a testosterone-suppressing drug.
While multiple news outlets have reported that Geier may be involved in a federal effort to analyze potential links between vaccines and autism, a longstanding and widely debunked theory, neither HHS nor Kennedy has confirmed the nature or scope of his role. As of this writing, his exact responsibilities remain unclear, and we were unable to independently verify whether he is leading or playing a significant part in the alleged initiative.
We have reached out to Geier and HHS to inquire about his role in the department and will update this article if we receive a response.
Geier is a controversial figure in the debate over autism and vaccines. CNN, for instance, described Geier as a "self-proclaimed autism expert who published a since-retracted paper with his father, Mark Geier, purporting to show links between vaccines and autism." In fact, one of the articles the Geiers co-authored was retracted because, according to the editors of the Science and Engineering Ethics journal, it contained "a number of errors, and mistakes of various types that raise concerns about the validity of the conclusion." Similarly, the BBC described Geier as a "leading vaccine sceptic who was fined by the state of Maryland for practicing medicine without a medical degree or licence and prescribing dangerous treatments to autistic children."
Geier is the son of Mark Geier, a physician whose medical license was revoked in multiple states for misconduct. According to Children's Health Defense, Kennedy's nonprofit anti-vaccine group, Mark Geier died in late March 2025.
Unlike his father, David Geier never obtained a medical license. In 2011, the Maryland State Board of Physicians charged him with practicing medicine without a license. "David Geier has never obtained a license to practice medicine nor has he held a license to practice any health occupation," the board wrote. "In 2002, he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He has not attended any medical school."
According to an unreported opinion from the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland, an administrative law judge initially recommended dismissing the charges. However, in July 2012, the board rejected this recommendation, concluding that Geier "who is not a physician, had diagnosed a patient, determined which blood tests to order for the patient, and ordered those blood tests," and as a penalty for practicing medicine without a license imposed a $10,000 fine.
Geier appealed the board's decision, but the Circuit Court for Montgomery County upheld the ruling in April 2014. Subsequently, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals affirmed the lower court's decision, maintaining the board's findings and the fine.
According to Science magazine, in the mid-2000s, the Geiers promoted a discredited theory suggesting that autism was caused by a harmful interaction between mercury (specifically thimerosal, a preservative formerly used in vaccines) and testosterone. They claimed that lowering testosterone could improve autism symptoms, and developed an unapproved treatment plan involving daily injections of Lupron, a drug used to treat "symptoms of prostate cancer, early-onset puberty and other hormone-related conditions." In children, Lupron is approved only for treating rare cases of precocious puberty.
The board found "that Dr. Geier treated patients with Lupron, a medication that was not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") for use on children in the absence of precocious puberty, and that Dr. Geier did not perform an adequate examination to determine if the patients had precocious puberty."
On April 10, 2025, Kennedy said during a broadcasted cabinet meeting chaired by Trump, "We've launched a massive testing and research effort that's going to involve hundreds of scientists from around the world. By September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and we'll be able to eliminate those exposures."
However, it is not officially confirmed, and we were unable to independently verify, whether Geier is leading or playing a significant role in any current federal autism research initiative. His exact responsibilities under Kennedy remain vague, and HHS has not publicly detailed the scope of his role.
According to the HHS directory website (archived), the HHS hired Geier as a senior data analyst in the Office of Secretary for the Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources.
(HHS Employee Directory via Wayback Machine)
As of this writing, the listing did not provide any details about the nature or scope of Geier's responsibilities.
Several news outlets, however, reported Geier would "lead" or "oversee" a study on the causes of autism. We have not independently verified these reports.
The Washington Post first reported on Geier's hiring on March 25, 2025. The outlet said the HHS hired Geier "to conduct the analysis, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation." In a brief phone interview with the Post the same day, Geier said "he had no comment about whether he has a role in the study, how he was hired, and whether he holds the same views about vaccines and autism as described in his previous research."
"I don't have any comment to say," he told the Post, "Talk to the secretary. He's the person that's in charge." The Post noted it was not clear "how or why Geier, who is not a physician and has an undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland at Baltimore County, was chosen."
According to the Post, an unnamed federal health official identified Geier as the person who "would be the one analyzing the [vaccine safety] data." Similarly, the New York Times reported Geier "joined his department to work on a study examining the long-debunked theory," vaguely crediting "people familiar with the matter." Additionally, the NBC article on the matter cited "two sources familiar with the plan" that "learned about the matter during recent meetings at the CDC but were not authorized to speak about it publicly."
All in all, no official sources have provided clear details about the scope or nature of Geier's role at the HHS. While he is listed as a senior data analyst in the department's directory, neither HHS nor Kennedy has publicly confirmed whether Geier is, or will be, directly involved in the federal study examining potential links between vaccines and autism.
In mid-April 2025, we investigated whether Kennedy said autistic children "will never pay taxes. They'll never hold a job. They'll never play baseball. They'll never write a poem. They'll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted," and unpacked rumors about the National Institutes of Health's alleged plans to launch a "disease registry" to track Americans with autism.
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