Latest news with #Geier
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
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Civil Rights plaintiff Rita Geier receives honorary doctorate from UT College of Law
Retired attorney Rita Geier, center, accepts an honorary doctorate from Lonnie Brown, Jr., left, dean of the Frank Winston College of Law at the University of Tennessee, and Donde Plowman, chancellor of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. (Photo: Emily Siner for the Tennessee Lookout) When former attorney and civil rights pioneer Rita Geier received an honorary doctorate degree last week from the University of Tennessee, it was an odd sort of full-circle moment: The award recognized, in part, her role in suing the university more than half a century ago. 'Her courageous legal efforts not only transformed Tennessee's educational system, but also paved the way for a better society,' said Donde Plowman, chancellor of UT-Knoxville. 'She has left a lasting mark on our state and our country's history.' Geier was the lead plaintiff in a 1968 class action lawsuit against Tennessee's governor and university systems, which alleged that the state was upholding an unconstitutional segregated system of public higher education. At the time, she was both a law student at Nashville's Vanderbilt University and a part-time history instructor at Tennessee State University, then called Tennessee A&I. The university had been founded to provide higher education for Black students at a time when they weren't allowed into any other public universities. Technically, by the late 1960s, the University of Tennessee and other previously all-white universities had eliminated race-based admissions requirements. But they were still almost entirely white, and Tennessee A&I was still entirely Black. Geier says the disparities were obvious in other ways, too: the dilapidated buildings, the low pay for professors. 'TSU was the stepchild of the state higher education system. There's no denying that,' Geier said. She began clerking for a local white attorney, George Barrett, who was seen as a 'troublemaker' in Tennessee for his willingness to take on 'issues that made people uncomfortable,' Geier said. Together, Barrett and Geier crafted a legal theory that the state had an obligation to integrate its public universities. 'I was learning all about civil rights and the legal remedies that were possible. It didn't take long for us to see that there was a tool that could be used,' Geier said. 'And I was the perfect plaintiff.' Similar lawsuits were already in the works over segregated K-12 education, but the state's obligation in desegregating higher education, where enrollment was voluntary, was largely untested legal ground. In their original complaint, Geier and Barrett argued that Tennessee failed to provide appropriate funding to TSU because of its predominantly Black enrollment. It also argued that the state was 'seeking to perpetuate a policy of racial segregation' by expanding a UT extension in downtown Nashville. In the late 1970s, the lawsuit led to the merger of UT-Nashville with TSU — one of the only examples in the nation's history of a historically Black university acquiring a predominantly white campus. State rep balks at sale of Tennessee State University properties But the state's obligation to desegregate public universities continued to be debated in the courts for the next several decades. The final consent decree, in 2001, involved improving TSU's facilities and increasing scholarship programs for Black students across the state. When the Geier case officially ended in 2006 — capping off 38 years of litigation — a judge declared that 'any remaining vestiges of segregation have been removed from the Tennessee system of public higher education.' But conversations over the state's treatment and funding of TSU are ongoing. In 2021, a state report estimated that Tennessee failed to pay TSU at least $544 million in federally required funding in the decades following the end of segregation. Meanwhile, Geier went on to pursue a legal career in government: She became a regional director for the Legal Services Corporation, general counsel for the Appalachian Regional Commission and associate commissioner for the Social Security Administration. After her retirement, she took a position at UT-Knoxville as an associate to the chancellor and a senior fellow at the Howard Baker Center for Public Policy. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
RFK's pledge to discover the "cause" of autism isn't just a ploy — it's a war on children's health
Robert Kennedy can't be bothered to hide his thorough contempt for science. "By September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic," the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) declared on Thursday, when announcing a supposed "massive testing and research effort." Even a person with only a fifth-grade understanding of science can see the problem: no scientist can promise a definitive "answer" to a complex biological question at the beginning of a study. Nor can anyone confidently declare they'll have that inquiry wrapped up in a few short months, as if they're writing a summer book report instead of conducting a scientific investigation. But it's easy enough to make these declarations when you've pre-determined your conclusion, and the only work left is to generate some fake statistics to back up that preordained "discovery." In the spirit of open-mindedness, I suppose I should pretend we must wait to see whatever nonsense is produced before judging it. In the spirit of common sense, however, there is no point in playing dumb. Kennedy has already indicated what he expects the "findings" to be: that vaccines did it, even though all legitimate science shows the opposite to be true. To make sure no real science accidentally happens, he has put a non-scientist/non-doctor in charge of this non-study: David Geier, a man who has been fined for practicing medicine without a license. Worse, his "treatments" of children are better described as pointless torture. Kennedy's attack on science is despicable. But what may be even worse is his full-blown assault on the health and well-being of American children. His fixation on playing games with the bodies of vulnerable kids has a sadistic and eugenicist edge to it. Before confirming him, Senate Republicans should have listened to Caroline Kennedy, when she called her cousin "a predator" who enjoys "a perverse scene of despair and violence." She discussed how he would get a kick out of feeding baby chickens and mice into a blender to feed his hawks. In 2011 and 2012, Geier and his father, Mark Geier, got in legal hot water with Maryland health authorities for running illegal experiments on children that are so weird that I hesitate to recount them here, for fear readers will believe I'm making it up. The two had concocted a nonsense theory, with absolutely no supporting evidence, that autism was caused by mercury in vaccines and precocious puberty. They were so set on this notion that, according to the Maryland State Board of Physicians, they would put young kids on puberty-blocking drugs, often without performing any physical examination at all on the patient. They would also put the children through chelation therapy to remove non-existent mercury from their systems. The children were subject to a battery of blood draws and other tests, but for no purpose. The board found these blood draws had no relationship to the "therapies" prescribed. The elder Geier had his medical license revoked. The younger, who has no medical education and just a bachelor of arts, was fined for practicing medicine without a Geiers abused disabled kids, whom they gained access to by manipulating parental desperation. As Dr. David Gorski noted in a recent blog post about the Geiers, there are legitimate uses of puberty blockers in children, for precocious puberty or to reduce gender dysphoria in trans adolescents, but there was no reason whatsoever for these children to take these drugs. Delaying the onset of puberty in kids seems like it's punitive, as if they believe neurodivergent people don't deserve normal sexual development. Chelation therapy is no joke, either, and can cause serious side effects and kidney damage. The relentless blood draws, which don't seem to have any relationship to the "therapies" prescribed, feel like cruelty for its own sake. Perhaps it's no surprise that Kennedy has a fondness for Geier. Kennedy has a sadistic streak towards children that is not hard to see, for those willing to look. In 2019, Kennedy played a major role in persuading large numbers of Samoan parents to avoid the measles vaccine in their kids, which he glowingly described as a "natural experiment." The result was predictable: measles spread rapidly and children started dying. Kennedy refused to blame the deaths on the measles — heaven forbid anyone decide it's good to prevent a deadly disease — and instead blamed vaccines for the deaths. Kennedy and his anti-vaccine colleagues don't just minimize the dangers of the measles, but often slip into talking about this horrific disease as if it's a good thing to put children through. As I wrote about last week, he celebrated families in Texas who chose infection over vaccination, even though two of them lost daughters to measles. His anti-vaccine group had one set of parents explain why that's a good thing because "she's better off where she is now." He romanticized measles as a "great week" for kids, because they get to skip school and eat chicken soup. On Fox News on Thursday, he insisted about measles, "We need to do better at treating kids who have this disease, and not just saying the only answer is vaccination." You don't need to "treat" a disease you don't get, but clearly, Kennedy prefers kids get measles. The "treatments" he recommends have echoes of the Geiers' ugly treatment of children. He's been telling parents to overdose kids with vitamin A, which can cause liver damage. He's been pushing the steroid budesonide and the antibiotic clarithromycin, both of which can have side effects. None of these treatments work, and they all risk making the situation worse. Kennedy exploits the language of the "wellness" industry, with its misleading emphasis on "natural" health care and "letting" your body heal itself. What's ironic is that's what vaccines do. Vaccines work by stimulating the body's natural immune response, so that it prevents infection using the body's own resources. All these "treatments" Kennedy touts aren't just ineffective, they're not "natural." They're blitzing a child with often overwhelming amounts of medication, which won't work but could make the kid even sicker. Kennedy's claim that his team of non-scientists and quacks will discover the "cause" of autism in a few short months is preposterous on its face. It's worse because scientists already know why autism rates have risen. As public health specialist Dr. Atul Gawande told Pod Save America last week, the main reason is "we have become much more liberal about diagnosing people on the spectrum." There is no concurrent rise, he noted, in the number of cases of severe autism. This is a good thing. It means more kids have more health care access at younger ages, so they grow into happy, functioning adults. But Kennedy doesn't like that answer, so he ignores the facts. This history suggests one reason why. Despite all his protestations to the contrary, Kennedy does not want American kids to be healthier. He instead seems determined to bring back horrific diseases that do nothing but hurt or even kill children.
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
RFK Jr. Hires a Vaccine 'Skeptic' To Find the Cause of Autism
Vaccine "skeptic" David Geier has reportedly been hired by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as a data analyst to oversee a new study probing the possible links between vaccinations and autism. This project was presaged in an early March HHS statement: "As President Trump said in his Joint Address to Congress, the rate of autism in American children has skyrocketed. CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] will leave no stone unturned in its mission to figure out what exactly is happening. The American people expect high quality research and transparency and that is what CDC is delivering." High-quality research and transparency are not likely outcomes from a project headed by Geier. Geier and his physician father, Mark, have published in a variety of obscure journal articles claiming that vaccines cause autism. Based on those sketchy publications, they began hiring themselves out as "expert witnesses" in hundreds of vaccine-related lawsuits. Mark Geier was stripped of his medical license by the Maryland Board of Physicians over dosing autistic children with his home-brewed treatments. The Geiers asserted that their research had found that tiny amounts of ethyl mercury preservative (thimerosal) in some vaccines was the culprit behind the rise in autism diagnoses. Interestingly, thimerosal has never been used in the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine that has most widely been blamed for causing autism. However, excepting seasonal flu vaccines, thimerosal in the U.S. was removed from any other vaccines in 1999. Amusingly, the Geiers took note of that fact and published an article in 2006 claiming that autism rates were subsequently declining. As it happens, the rate of autism diagnoses has increased since then. Evidently tiny amounts of mercury in vaccines has nothing to do with autism. In any case, the claim that vaccines cause autism has been comprehensively debunked. "The problem with the Geiers' research is that they start with the answers and work backwards," said Dr. Steven Black, director of the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Center in Oakland, California, in 2005. "They are doing voodoo science." By applying his methodology in his new study of the putative relationship between autism and vaccines, Geier will doubtlessly and transparently get the answers that our new secretary of Health and Human Services thinks he already knows. The post RFK Jr. Hires a Vaccine 'Skeptic' To Find the Cause of Autism appeared first on
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Hiltzik: RFK Jr. reportedly puts anti-vaxxer in charge of studying debunked link between vaccines and autism
Given that a hallmark of the Trump administration is the gulf between its appointees' responsibilities and their qualifications for their jobs, it may be hard to pick out the quintessential example of the wrong person in the wrong place. But the Department of Health and Human Services may have a winner. He's David A. Geier, a well-known anti-vaccine activist who has reportedly been assigned the job of reviewing the supposed link between vaccination and autism. In fact, Geier — along with his late father, Mar k— had long been among the promoters of that very claim, despite overwhelming evidence from scientifically validated research that there is no such link. It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies. Former FDA official Peter Marks, referring to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Geier's assignment to review the purported link was first reported by the Washington Post last week. Since then, HHS has not commented on the assignment, either to confirm or deny it. I asked Geier to confirm his assignment, and also to state whether he still believes in the link and if so, what evidence he would cite to establish it. I received no reply from the HHS or Geier. What is known, however, is that Geier is an employee of HHS. In the agency directory he is listed as a "senior data analyst" with an official HHS email address, which I used to reach him. One other thing should be understood: Given his history with healthcare regulatory agencies, there's no way he should be permitted anywhere near healthcare policy-making. More on that in a moment. The reported accession of Geier isn't the only indication of how HHS, the programs of which were until recently celebrated as the gold standard of government science, has become a haven of a repugnant anti-science mythmaking and a threat to public health. Read more: Hiltzik: Trump's assault on science will make Americans dumber and sicker On Friday, Peter Marks, the top vaccine scientist at the Food and Drug Administration, announced his resignation in a scathing letter to the acting FDA commissioner, citing "the unprecedented assault on scientific truth" at the agency. "Undermining confidence in well established vaccines that have met the high standards for quality, safety, and effectiveness that have been in place for decades at FDA is irresponsible, detrimental to public health, and a clear danger to our nation's health, safety, and security," Marks wrote. He stated that he had tried to develop a modus vivendi with Kennedy, but "it has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies." That brings us back to Geier. He and his father, Mark, collaborated for years on articles claiming a connection between vaccines containing a compound called thimerosal as a preservative and a rise in autism diagnoses. No such connection was ever established. Studies by the Geiers that claimed to have found one were widely refuted and their methodology questioned. At least one paper was retracted. Both Geiers ran afoul of medical regulators in Maryland, their home state. The Maryland State Board of Physicians revoked Mark Geier's license to practice medicine in 2012, after finding that he had been treating young patients with Lupron, a drug commonly prescribed for patients with precocious puberty, and with chelation, a procedure aimed at clearing heavy metals from the body. Those treatments corresponded to a pet theory of the Geiers that autism stemmed from the interaction of mercury in thimerosal with testosterone, and therefore that reducing testosterone would address autism. That theory has never been scientifically validated. The mercury scare related to thimerosal, moreover, was something of a red herring. Thimerosal degrades into ethylmercury, which was judged not to be a danger at the level that would come from a vaccine. No study ever established a link between thimerosal and autism. Read more: Hiltzik: Opposing vaccine mandates, Trump exposes kids to disease To address public concerns, thimerosal was removed from childhood vaccines in 2001, In any case, as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted, thimerosal was never present in the measles/mumps/rubella vaccine that was most commonly blamed for autism. Nor was it ever used in vaccines against chicken pox, polio or pneumonia. After Maryland's revocation of his license, Mark Geier's medical license was also suspended or revoked by California, Indiana, Virginia, Texas, Missouri, Washington, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Florida and Kentucky. Geier died March 20, according to an obituary published by Children's Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. As for David Geier, the Maryland medical authorities charged him in 2011 with practicing medicine without a license. He never had held a medical license or attended a medical school, according to the state board. But he met and consulted with an autistic patient and the patient's mother, who apparently was under the impression that he was a doctor. According to the board, David Geier advised that the patient undergo 22 blood tests; the mother balked when lab technicians told her the blood work would require "an insane amount of blood." The medical board fined Geier $10,000. RFK Jr.'s relationship with the Geiers dates back at least to 2005, when he cited their vaccine studies in a discredited article he wrote titled "Deadly Immunity," an anti-vax screed published by both and Rolling Stone. Both publications eventually retracted the article. In the piece, Kennedy asserted that "the Geiers have completed six studies that demonstrate a powerful correlation between thimerosal and neurological damage in children." The correlation proved to be untrue. The Geier record in itself would invalidate any "finding" from HHS claiming evidence of a vaccine-autism link. The absence of any such link is as close to settled science as one could hope for, given the volume of evidence against it. That in itself makes the HHS venture a waste of time and money, as well as a danger to public health. Anyway, why would a secretary of Health and Human Services want to put on his payroll someone found to have practiced medicine without a license? These recent personnel moves at HHS raise the question of whether Kennedy gaslighted Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician, when he pledged to Cassidy that he and Cassidy would have what Cassidy described to his colleagues as "an unprecedentedly close collaborative working relationship if [RFK Jr.] is confirmed." In explaining his vote to confirm Kennedy on Feb. 4, Cassidy said further, "We will meet or speak multiple times a month. ... Mr. Kennedy has asked for my input into hiring decisions at HHS, beyond Senate-confirmed positions." I asked Cassidy's office if Cassidy actually had input into the changes and, if not, if he felt rooked by Kennedy. I haven't received a reply. Read more: Hiltzik: After smearing Anthony Fauci, House Republicans proceed to defame a prominent vaccine scientist A couple of crucial points about the supposed connection between vaccinations and autism. As I reported in 2014, its original source was an article published in 1998 in the British medical journal the Lancet by a group led by physician Andrew Wakefield. The study involved 12 children. The paper has been retracted by the Lancet, 10 of its 12 authors have disavowed its findings, and Wakefield was stripped of his medical license in the U.K. The British Medical Journal in 2011 documented how Wakefield systematically falsified the data about his subjects to fabricate an association between the vaccine and autism. The goal? To help a group that hoped to profit by suing the vaccine makers. The paper was 'fatally flawed both scientifically and ethically,' the BMJ stated. Despite these revelations, the Wakefield study has caused no end of problems for public health. It led to a long-term decline in measles vaccinations in Britain and necessitated years of costly studies to analyze and, ultimately, refute its claims. Nevertheless, it remains the father of the vaccine-autism claims. One further driver of the supposed vaccine-autism connection is that autism is far more frequently diagnosed today than in the past. Trump himself has cited this supposedly inexplicable trend. In a Feb. 18 executive order, he asserted that "autism spectrum disorder now affects 1 in 36 children in the United States — a staggering increase from rates of 1 to 4 out of 10,000 children identified with the condition during the 1980s." The truth is that there is no mystery about the rise in autism diagnoses; it's the result of a reconsideration of the very nature of autism. As Holden Thorp, the editor in chief of Science, wrote recently, "The rise in diagnoses is the result of greater awareness, better identification (especially among women and girls) and a broader definition that now includes a range of neurodevelopmental conditions under the umbrella of autism spectrum disorder." Thorp didn't come to this conclusion casually. He was diagnosed with autism — at the age of 53, seven years ago. The diagnosis prompted him to think about how thinking about autism has changed over the decades, including how the diagnosis no longer carries the stigma that it did during his childhood in the 1960s. In part that's because of greater recognition of the diversity of autism itself — "neurodiversity," as it's often termed. During his childhood, he wrote, "autism was mostly diagnosed among children who had huge difficulties in daily functioning and needed extensive support. I wasn't flagged for evaluation or diagnosis, but that might be different today." It is becoming plain that Kennedy is turning HHS from a beacon of science-based medicine and public health into a hive of conspiracy theorists and, as Marks wrote, peddlers of "misinformation and lies." Get the latest from Michael HiltzikCommentary on economics and more from a Pulitzer Prize me up. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
