CDC whistleblower: what happens next?

Is William Thompson, the CDC whistleblower, a man caught in the middle…or are his supporters caught in the middle waiting for a decisive moment that will never come?

Thompson, on August 27th, published a confession through his Cincinnati lawyer, Rick Morgan. Thompson admitted that he and his co-authors committed fraud, in a 2004 study that looked into a possible connection between the MMR vaccine and autism.

According to Thompson, he and his co-authors omitted vital data and broke the accepted study protocol, thereby giving the vaccine a free pass and falsely claiming it had no connection to autism—when it did.

This explosive revelation should have shaken the world. It should have been a page-one story. It should have caused a huge detonation in the medical-research community. It should have prompted a deep investigation into CDC practices and vaccine-industry fraud. It should have caused the journal that published the study, Pediatrics, to retract it and undertake a wide-ranging probe.

By design and by repression, none of these things happened.

Thompson, aside from his published statement, gave no sign that he would really push the issue further. He stated that he would not speak to reporters. He said he would gladly work with researchers, both inside and outside the CDC, on resolving serious questions about vaccines.

As far as I know, Thompson has done nothing in this regard since August 27th.

He has apparently sent thousands of pages of documents to Florida Congressman Bill Posey. I’ve made several efforts to discover the nature of those documents; the Congressman’s office has not gotten back to me with an answer.

It’s assumed that Posey wants to mount a Congressional hearing. If so, I see no committees he serves on that would hold such a hearing. He would have to reach out to other Representatives and urge them to cooperate.

Posey isn’t a Congressman with major clout. Therefore, there’s no guarantee he’d be successful.

He is running for reelection. I’d expect no serious action on his part until at least the second week of November.

I’d welcome a Congressional hearing, mainly because many online reporters would cover it. But would a hearing prompt a deep and honest investigation by the Dept. of Justice or the Dept. of Health and Human Services? Of course not. These agencies lie for a living.

Thompson himself, testifying at a Congressional hearing? How far would he go? In his published August 27th statement, he protected the actions of his CDC colleagues (he still works at the CDC!) by saying that reasonable scientists can agree and disagree on matters of science.

That suggests Thompson wouldn’t make a forceful witness. He wouldn’t come right out and accuse his co-authors and higher-ups at the CDC of fraud. He’d wobble.

And then those co-authors would take the stand and “respectfully disagree” with Thompson and claim they carried out the 2004 study in a proper manner.

Result: he-said, he-said, with the press favoring Thompson’s colleagues.

Thompson presents himself as a man with two faces. In his recorded telephone calls with Brian Hooker and Andrew Wakefield, he seems to be quite remorseful about his commission of fraud. He deeply regrets the harm he caused—for the past 10 years parents have been subjecting their children to the MMR vaccine, not suspecting the vaccine can cause autism.

But in his August 27th written statement, Thompson claims (truthfully or not) that he had no knowledge those phone calls were being recorded; and he had not given permission for the recording.

Indeed, two or three days before Thompson’s written confession was released, he was outed, when a YouTube of one of the phone calls announced his name.

Add up these factors. Thompson is not what you would call an enthusiastic or passionate whistleblower.

Of course, the man is operating under enormous pressure. The CDC would like to send him on a one-way trip to the moon. The potential exposure, for the CDC, is very dangerous. For less serious breaches, whistleblowers have been killed.

There is another ambiguous cloud here. Reportedly, Thompson has sent many pages of revealing documents to several people outside the CDC. It now appears that at least some of those documents were actually obtained through FIOA requests made to the CDC, or they were released by the CDC with a non-disclosure requirement.

They didn’t come from Thompson himself.

Therefore, how many explosive secrets do they actually contain?

Brian Hooker used CDC documents to assemble his own review of the 2004 study, and he found omitted data. Entering them into his findings, Hooker concluded that, indeed, the 2004 study should have concluded there was an MMR-vaccine connection to autism.

Hooker’s review was published in a journal, Translational Neurodegeneration. A month ago, the journal suddenly retracted the review.

A little over a month ago, I was told that a class-action suit against the CDC was underway. The plaintiffs were parents of autistic children who had received the MMR vaccine.

After brief contact, nothing more came to me from this group. I don’t know what the status of the pending suit is.

No doubt, the CDC is preparing for the possibility of a lawsuit. Their strategy would involve doing everything in their power (which is considerable) to squash it before it can move past a preliminary hearing.

Thompson’s lawyer, Rick Morgan, is surely making his own preparations. If it comes to a suit, how would his client testify? Would the CDC pressure Thompson into making weak and useless statements?

If a lawsuit managed to proceed to a deposition phase, many uncomfortable questions could be posed to all the authors of the 2004 study, including Thompson, and other CDC employees, including former Director, Dr. Julie Gerberding, who is now the president of Merck Vaccines.

Merck manufactures the MMR vaccine.

That’s right, yes. She was there, heading the CDC, when the 2004 study exonerating the MMR vaccine was cooked and twisted.

Among the deposition questions:

Describe the first CDC conversation that took place among the 2004 study authors, concerning which data to include and which to omit. Who was present? When was it? Where did it take place? Who else was aware of this conversation?

When was the next conversation?

Who at the CDC exerted pressure to omit vital data?

What specifically did they say?

From such questions, which press for blow-by-blow detail, a whole narrative could emerge. Or a whole concert of agreed-upon lies—and at least some of them could crumble under more probing requests for information.

That is why the CDC would bring to bear its money, resources, and connections to have the suit thrown out from the beginning.

The Thompson Affair is now a grassroots story. Its continued existence depends on online coverage, and the willingness of various autism groups to press forward with it.

Nothing else can be relied on.

Thompson can’t be relied on. On the one hand, he wants to expiate his guilt by coming clean all the way. On the other hand, he wants to protect himself and his family.

For any active, serious, no-nonsense autism group out there: if you want to organize and schedule a conference call for your members, I’d be glad to come on and make a presentation for you.

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at NoMoreFakeNews.com.