Latest news with #DavidGeier
Atlantic
23-07-2025
- Health
- Atlantic
RFK Jr.'s Vaccine-Safety Investigator Has Already Disqualified Himself
Mark and David Geier were a father-and-son team of researchers who operated on the fringes of the scientific establishment. They were known for promoting a controversial treatment for autism, and for publishing papers on the purported harms of vaccines that experts dismissed as junk science. In 2004, the CDC accused them of violating research protocols. In 2012, the state of Maryland sanctioned them. And in 2025, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tapped one of them to investigate alleged wrongdoing in a crucial CDC database. For years, Kennedy has claimed that the database, which tracks adverse reactions to immunizations and is known as the Vaccine Safety Datalink, once contained vital information about vaccine safety—and that this information has been withheld from the public, scrubbed from the record, or otherwise manipulated. He wants David Geier to investigate it because he and his late father, a physician, studied it in the early 2000s, after they applied through a CDC program that allows researchers outside the government to access certain data sets. When the Geiers were first allowed into this trove of millions of anonymized health records, they were supposed to be carrying out a safety study of the DTaP vaccine. But the CDC found that they were instead conducting unauthorized analyses to hunt for a link between the vaccine and autism, and risked breaching patients' confidentiality in the process; the agency revoked their access. (At the time, the Geiers disputed the charge that they had endangered anyone's personal information, writing in a 2004 letter to an institutional-review-board administrator that they held the 'utmost regard' for patient confidentiality.) Even after they were ousted, the Geiers used information they'd apparently held on to from that database to publish a series of scientific papers advancing the widely discredited theory that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative once common in childhood vaccines, is linked to autism, among other conditions. Researchers in the field have long criticized the Geiers' methodology as sloppy, and noted that their conclusions are at odds with those of numerous higher-quality studies. Since March, when The Washington Post reported that David Geier had been brought into the Department of Health and Human Services, his and his father's work has come under renewed scrutiny. One scientist found that several of their papers—based on information from the very CDC database that Kennedy has tasked Geier with investigating—contain a statistical error so fundamental that it casts doubt on Geier's abilities and intentions in assessing data. That scientist and another I spoke with couldn't believe that some of Geier's work had ever been published in the first place. David Geier is currently listed as a senior data analyst in HHS's staff directory, though what exactly he's doing for the department is unclear. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Geier is using his new position to continue his search for a link between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism. New York magazine floated the possibility that he will attempt to repeat a study from the early 2000s that anti-vaccine activists cite as proof that inoculations harm developing brains. Kennedy has denied that Geier is running the agency's project to find out what causes autism, and testified that he has instead been hired by a contractor to determine whether information disappeared from the database. (Mark Geier died in March, and David Geier did not respond to interview requests. Reached for comment, an HHS spokesperson pointed to a lengthy X post by Kennedy in which he defends Geier's record and notes his 'extensive background as a research scientist.') Under any other administration, Geier's history would almost certainly have disqualified him from any role at HHS. In the mid-2000s, after Mark Geier had established a profitable sideline of testifying as an expert witness in lawsuits that alleged injury from vaccines, the father and son claimed to have discovered a method of treating autism. What they touted as a miracle drug was Lupron, a testosterone-suppressing medication used in many cases of premature puberty. They ran a laboratory out of the basement of their Maryland home and administered the drug to children based on their unfounded theory, advertising their supposed breakthrough on the autism-conference circuit. In 2012, Mark, a physician, was stripped of his license, and David was sanctioned for practicing medicine without one. (The Geiers sued the Maryland Board of Physicians in 2012 for releasing information about medications Mark Geier had prescribed to family members. They were awarded a total of nearly $5 million for the invasion of their privacy and attorneys' fees, but that judgment was reversed after a different court ruled that Maryland Board of Physicians members were immune from such claims.) The Geiers' work is well known among autism researchers, though not well respected. 'They were seen as not representing the best of autism science,' Craig Newschaffer, a Penn State scientist who has studied how genetics and environmental factors contribute to autism, told me, putting it more gently than others I spoke with. Marie McCormick met the Geiers when she chaired a 2004 review of immunization safety by the Institute of Medicine (now known as the National Academy of Medicine), a nonprofit group that advises the federal government. McCormick, now an emeritus professor at Harvard's School of Public Health, recalled that the Geiers' presentation had 'really made no sense': It was a slideshow of vaccine vials with labels indicating that they contained mercury, but it didn't have much else in the way of evidence. The committee's report identified a host of 'serious methodological flaws' in the Geiers' research, such as a failure to explain how they had sorted their subjects into groups. The Geiers' work from the 2010s likewise has such glaring flaws that the experts I spoke with were baffled as to how the studies had been published at all. Jeffrey Morris, a biostatistics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, recently examined a series of papers on which the Geiers were authors that used data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink. One representative 2017 study purportedly showed that the hepatitis B vaccine was associated with an increased risk of autism. Morris quickly noticed that the paper's approach rendered its findings meaningless. It compared a group of children with autism to a control group of children without the diagnosis, to see how vaccination rates differed between the two. But these groups of children also differed in another crucial way: The children diagnosed with autism were born during the eight-year span from 1991 to 1998, whereas the control group—children not diagnosed with autism—were born in 1991 or 1992. That's more than a minor inconsistency. In 1991, the CDC's vaccine-advisory committee recommended that all infants in the United States receive the hepatitis B vaccine, and so the percentage of vaccinated children rose steadily throughout the decade, from fewer than 10 percent to approximately 90 percent. That meant that babies born later in the '90s (who were overrepresented in the autism group) were very likely to have gotten the shot, whereas those born earlier in the decade (who were overrepresented in the control group) were not. By picking a control group in which relatively few kids would have been vaccinated, and an autistic population in which most were, the Geiers made finding a connection between immunization and autism inevitable. Using this approach, you could blame the vaccine for all manner of maladies. According to Morris, the Geiers did exactly that in at least nine papers, published from 2015 to 2018, that used data from the vaccine-safety database. One of their studies linked hep-B vaccination to childhood obesity. Others showed an association with tic disorders, emotional disturbance, and premature puberty, among other conditions, some of which rose during the '90s and early 2000s at least in part because of new diagnostic criteria and increased awareness. That likely also explains why autism rates began to climb significantly in the '90s. Many flawed scientific papers include a regrettable but understandable oversight, Morris told me, but the Geiers employed 'an absolutely invalid design that biases things so enormously that you could throw out the results of all these papers.' Newschaffer reviewed Morris's critique and told me he doesn't believe that a study with such a serious problem should have been published in the first place. 'I would characterize that as a 'miss' in the peer review,' he said. (I also contacted Dirk Schaumlöffel, the editor in chief of the Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology, which published the Geiers' paper connecting the hep-B vaccine to autism. He took issue with Morris's 'polemical allegations' and defended the paper, noting that it 'does not argue against vaccination, but merely questions the role of thimerosal.' He told me that he would prefer that the matter be debated in the pages of his journal.) If David Geier were merely an independent researcher publishing in lesser-known journals, his errors, although egregious, would be of little more than academic concern. But his influence on Kennedy runs deep. In 2005, Kennedy highlighted the Geiers' research in an essay outlining how he'd come to believe that thimerosal-containing vaccines could cause autism. He wrote about them again that year in 'Deadly Immunity,' an article—eventually retracted by both Salon and Rolling Stone after multiple corrections and intense criticism—that alleged that government health agencies had covered up evidence indicating that thimerosal in vaccines was to blame for the rise in autism rates. In his 2014 book, Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak, Kennedy cites the Geiers dozens of times, portraying them as determined truth-tellers battling uncooperative government agencies—the very ones Kennedy has now been appointed to oversee. Thanks to Kennedy, Geier seemingly is being handed the keys to the same database he's proved himself unfit to study. People who are familiar with Geier's history worry that he'll use his position on the inside not to defend the truth but to resurrect thoroughly debunked claims, twisting the data to support what he and Kennedy have long believed.
Epoch Times
09-06-2025
- Health
- Epoch Times
RFK Jr. Says Analyst Working to Find Lost Vaccine Safety Data
A researcher hired this year by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is working with other scientists to recover data missing from a vaccine safety system, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on June 7. David Geier, the researcher, is working on recovering Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) data that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said are missing, Kennedy
Wall Street Journal
06-06-2025
- Health
- Wall Street Journal
Vaccine Opponent Hired by RFK Jr. Scours Official Records for Link to Autism
An antivaccine activist recently hired by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has started hunting for proof that federal officials hid evidence that inoculations cause autism, according to people familiar with the matter. David Geier, a longtime vaccine opponent hired this spring as a contractor in the health department's financial office, is seeking Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data that antivaccine activists, including Kennedy, have alleged was buried because it showed a link between vaccines and autism, the people said.
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Fact Check: RFK Jr. said HHS researcher without medical license wasn't hired for autism study
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 with practicing medicine without one. What's False: According to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Geier was not hired to conduct or lead autism research, but rather to review historical vaccine safety data from the CDC's Vaccine Safety Datalink. On May 14, 2025, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, where senators questioned him on a range of issues — including the controversial hiring of David Geier. The hearing came weeks after a viral rumor claimed that Geier, whom Kennedy 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 false information. Geier, who in fact has never held a medical license and was previously charged in Maryland with practicing medicine without one, is now listed as a "senior data analyst" at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) 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, during a May 14, 2025, Senate hearing, Kennedy testified that Geier was not hired to lead autism research, but rather to review historical vaccine safety data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Vaccine Safety Datalink. 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." During a May 14 Senate hearing, when Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., questioned Kennedy about Geier's alleged role of leading autism research at HHS, he testified, "We did not hire David Geier to manage autism research at HHS." He clarified Geier's role was to compare current data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink with what he previously accessed in the 2000s. Below is a transcription of the relevant part of the hearing: KENNEDY: So, do you want to know why we brought David Geier in? HASSAN: Sure. KENNEDY: Because it wasn't to run autism research. In 2002, the CDC runs a Vaccine Safety Datalink which is supposed to be the vaccine information for the biggest HMOs that are supposed to allow CDC to have a surveillance system for vaccine injury. It's a backs-up system. The CDC will not let any physicians in there to look at it, or any scientists, independent scientists. HASSAN: He's neither a scientist nor a physician. KENNEDY: The Congress ordered CDC to open it to the Geiers. So they are the only scientists who have ever been in there. HASSAN: But again, Mr. Geier is not a scientist. […] KENNEDY: David Geier is the only living independent scientist who's seen the VSD inside. There's been a lot of monkey business with the VSD, including allegations of fraud. He was hired by an independent contractor — not as an HHS employee — but by an independent contractor, to look at the documents that we were getting to the VSD to see if they conformed with what he saw between 2002 and 2016. And that's the only reason that he was brought in, to see if there was […] . There is so much information that has disappeared from that database. The only way we could find out what information disappeared was because he was the one guy who saw it. Kennedy said Geier was hired "by an independent contractor — not as an HHS employee." However, according to the HHS directory website (archived), as of this writing Geier was listed as a senior data analyst in the HHS' Office of Secretary for the Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources. The exact circumstances of his hiring remain unclear. (HHS Employee Directory via Wayback Machine) The listing did not provide further details about the nature or scope of Geier's responsibilities. Between April and early May 2025, several news outlets 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, in mid-May 2025, Kennedy denied the claims that HHS hired Geier to lead a federal study examining potential links between vaccines and autism, saying he was brought on only to review vaccine safety data from the CDC's Vaccine Safety Datalink, not to conduct or lead an autism-related study. 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. "'Rare in His Brilliance': Tribute to Dr. Mark Geier — Advocate for Vaccine Safety and Autistic Children." Children's Health Defense, 27 Mar. 2025, Accessed 8 May 2025. AFP News Agency. "RFK Jr Says Study Will Reveal Cause of Autism 'Epidemic' in September | AFP." YouTube, 10 Apr. 2025, Accessed 8 May 2025. Chicago Tribune. "Autism Doctor Loses License in Illinois, Missouri." Chicago Tribune, 5 Nov. 2012, Accessed 8 May 2025. Deng, Grace. "What to Know about Reports RFK Jr. Is Launching Registry to Track Americans with Autism." Snopes, 22 Apr. 2025, Edwards, Erika, and Brandy Zadrozny. "HHS Taps Anti-Vaccine Activist to Look at Debunked Links between Autism and Vaccines, Sources Say." NBC News, 26 Mar. 2025, "Four Vaccine Myths and Where They Came From." Geier, Max G. "Book Review: Etulain,Lincoln and Oregon Country Politics in the Civil War Era, by Max G. Geier Lincoln and Oregon Country Politics in the Civil War Era . By Richard W. Etulain . ( Corvallis , Oregon State University Press , 2013 . Xii + 210 Pp. $19.95 Paper)." Pacific Historical Review, vol. 83, no. 4, Nov. 2014, pp. 698–99, Accessed 6 Nov. 2019. "HHS Employee Directory." 2025, Accessed 8 May 2025. Jewett, Christina, et al. "RFK Jr. Turns to a Discredited Vaccine Researcher for Autism Study." The New York Times, 27 Mar. 2025, "Julia Davis - the Daily Beast." The Daily Beast, 2025, Accessed 8 May 2025. Kern, Janet K., et al. "RETRACTED ARTICLE: Systematic Assessment of Research on Autism Spectrum Disorder and Mercury Reveals Conflicts of Interest and the Need for Transparency in Autism Research." Science and Engineering Ethics, vol. 23, no. 6, Oct. 2015, pp. 1689–90, Accessed 11 June 2021. ---. "Systematic Assessment of Research on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Mercury Reveals Conflicts of Interest and the Need for Transparency in Autism Research." Science and Engineering Ethics, vol. 23, no. 6, Nov. 2017, pp. 1691–718, Accessed 11 June 2021. King, Jordan. "RFK Jr Autism Study Led by Man Who Injected Children with Anti-Puberty Drug." Newsweek, 17 Apr. 2025, kreidler, Marc. "Maryland Medical Board Suspends Dr. Mark Geier's License | Quackwatch." 8 May 2011, Accessed 8 May 2025. "Lupron (Leuprolide): Uses & Side Effects." Cleveland Clinic, "MARYLAND BOARD of PHYSICIANS v. GEIER (2015) | FindLaw." Findlaw, 2015, Accessed 8 May 2025. Rascouët-Paz, Anna. "Yes, RFK Jr. Said Autistic Children Will Never Pay Taxes, Hold a Job, Play Baseball or Write a Poem." Snopes, 18 Apr. 2025, Schreiber, Melody. "Autistic People and Experts Voice Alarm at RFK's 'Terrible' Approach to Condition." The Guardian, The Guardian, 24 Apr. 2025, Stolberg, Sheryl Gay, et al. "Kennedy Instructs Anti-Vaccine Group to Remove Fake C.D.C. Page." The New York Times, 23 Mar. 2025, Sun, Lena H., and Fenit Nirappil. "Vaccine Skeptic Hired to Head Federal Study of Immunizations and Autism." The Washington Post, 25 Mar. 2025, Tirrell, Meg, et al. "RFK Jr. Claims New Research Effort Will Find Cause of 'Autism Epidemic' by September." CNN, 10 Apr. 2025, Accessed 8 May 2025. Wendling, Mike. "RFK Jr Pledges to Find the Cause of Autism 'by September.'" BBC, 11 Apr. 2025, X (Formerly Twitter), 2025, Accessed 8 May 2025.
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Fact Check: HHS hired researcher without medical license under RFK Jr., but role in autism study unclear
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. "'Rare in His Brilliance': Tribute to Dr. Mark Geier — Advocate for Vaccine Safety and Autistic Children." Children's Health Defense, 27 Mar. 2025, Accessed 8 May 2025. AFP News Agency. "RFK Jr Says Study Will Reveal Cause of Autism 'Epidemic' in September | AFP." YouTube, 10 Apr. 2025, Accessed 8 May 2025. Chicago Tribune. "Autism Doctor Loses License in Illinois, Missouri." Chicago Tribune, 5 Nov. 2012, Accessed 8 May 2025. Deng, Grace. "What to Know about Reports RFK Jr. Is Launching Registry to Track Americans with Autism." Snopes, 22 Apr. 2025, Edwards, Erika, and Brandy Zadrozny. "HHS Taps Anti-Vaccine Activist to Look at Debunked Links between Autism and Vaccines, Sources Say." NBC News, 26 Mar. 2025, "Four Vaccine Myths and Where They Came From." Geier, Max G. "Book Review: Etulain,Lincoln and Oregon Country Politics in the Civil War Era, by Max G. Geier Lincoln and Oregon Country Politics in the Civil War Era . By Richard W. Etulain . ( Corvallis , Oregon State University Press , 2013 . Xii + 210 Pp. $19.95 Paper)." Pacific Historical Review, vol. 83, no. 4, Nov. 2014, pp. 698–99, Accessed 6 Nov. 2019. "HHS Employee Directory." 2025, Accessed 8 May 2025. Jewett, Christina, et al. "RFK Jr. Turns to a Discredited Vaccine Researcher for Autism Study." The New York Times, 27 Mar. 2025, "Julia Davis - the Daily Beast." The Daily Beast, 2025, Accessed 8 May 2025. Kern, Janet K., et al. "RETRACTED ARTICLE: Systematic Assessment of Research on Autism Spectrum Disorder and Mercury Reveals Conflicts of Interest and the Need for Transparency in Autism Research." Science and Engineering Ethics, vol. 23, no. 6, Oct. 2015, pp. 1689–90, Accessed 11 June 2021. ---. "Systematic Assessment of Research on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Mercury Reveals Conflicts of Interest and the Need for Transparency in Autism Research." Science and Engineering Ethics, vol. 23, no. 6, Nov. 2017, pp. 1691–718, Accessed 11 June 2021. King, Jordan. "RFK Jr Autism Study Led by Man Who Injected Children with Anti-Puberty Drug." Newsweek, 17 Apr. 2025, kreidler, Marc. "Maryland Medical Board Suspends Dr. Mark Geier's License | Quackwatch." 8 May 2011, Accessed 8 May 2025. "Lupron (Leuprolide): Uses & Side Effects." Cleveland Clinic, "MARYLAND BOARD of PHYSICIANS v. GEIER (2015) | FindLaw." Findlaw, 2015, Accessed 8 May 2025. Rascouët-Paz, Anna. "Yes, RFK Jr. Said Autistic Children Will Never Pay Taxes, Hold a Job, Play Baseball or Write a Poem." Snopes, 18 Apr. 2025, Schreiber, Melody. "Autistic People and Experts Voice Alarm at RFK's 'Terrible' Approach to Condition." The Guardian, The Guardian, 24 Apr. 2025, Stolberg, Sheryl Gay, et al. "Kennedy Instructs Anti-Vaccine Group to Remove Fake C.D.C. Page." The New York Times, 23 Mar. 2025, Sun, Lena H., and Fenit Nirappil. "Vaccine Skeptic Hired to Head Federal Study of Immunizations and Autism." The Washington Post, 25 Mar. 2025, Tirrell, Meg, et al. "RFK Jr. Claims New Research Effort Will Find Cause of 'Autism Epidemic' by September." CNN, 10 Apr. 2025, Accessed 8 May 2025. Wendling, Mike. "RFK Jr Pledges to Find the Cause of Autism 'by September.'" BBC, 11 Apr. 2025, X (Formerly Twitter), 2025, Accessed 8 May 2025.
