Autism-Vaccine Researcher Says He Stole $1M in CDC Grant Funds

Poul Thorsen, MD, PhD, a Danish researcher who co-authored key papers demonstrating no links between childhood vaccines and autism, pleaded guilty today to operating a wire fraud scheme that stole CDC grant money awarded for autism research overseas, the Department of Justice said.

“Thorsen ran a multi-year fraud scheme to cheat the CDC, diverting valuable federal grant money to service his greed and inflated lifestyle,” U.S. Attorney Theodore Hertzberg said in a statement.

“His fraud was especially reprehensible because he stole public funds that had been earmarked for research related to infant disabilities and birth defects,” Hertzberg continued. “After evading justice for more than 14 years, Thorsen will finally be held accountable in a federal prison cell and ordered to pay full restitution to the CDC.”

Thorsen was arraigned in May after being extradited from Germany to stand trial on two counts of wire fraud and nine counts of money laundering.

From 2000 to 2009, the CDC awarded more than $11 million to two Danish government agencies to study links between autism and vaccine exposure, cerebral palsy and infections during pregnancy, and childhood development and fetal alcohol exposure, the Justice Department said.

Thorsen became responsible for administering the CDC research grants and misappropriated funds by submitting fraudulent documents, according to the Justice Department. From February 2004 to June 2008, he reportedly submitted more than a dozen invoices bearing a forged signature of a CDC laboratory section chief for reimbursement of expenses.

Based on these invoices, Aarhus University in Denmark transferred funds to credit union accounts it believed belonged to the CDC. After the transfers, Thorsen reportedly withdrew proceeds for his personal use. In total, he diverted more than $1 million of CDC grant money from Aarhus University and Odense University Hospital, the Justice Department said.

Thorsen was a co-author of a 2002 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) that offered strong evidence based on a cohort of 500,000 Danish children to refute the hypothesis that measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination caused autism.

He also was part of a 2003 ecological study in Denmark published in Pediatrics that did not support a correlation between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism incidence.

In 2010, Aarhus University discovered a “considerable shortfall” that involved U.S. grant funds administered by Thorsen and referred the matter to the police. A news report in The BMJ at the time included an interview with the lead author of the thimerosal study who explained that “no scientific misconduct” had occurred, that Thorsen was not in “a position to manipulate or compromise” data, and that his contribution was “more administrative than scientific.”

Likewise, the 2002 Danish findings about the MMR vaccine published in NEJM are still valid, noted Paul Offit, MD, of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “Thorsen was one of many authors,” Offit told MedPage Today earlier this year. “His legal problems don’t change the data in that study.”

Thorsen’s involvement was minimal, study author Anders Hviid, MSc, DrMedSci, of the Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen, pointed out.

“Poul Thorsen did not have access to the data in the NEJM study and he did not play any part in the study design or statistical analyses,” Hviid told MedPage Today when Thorsen was arraigned. “The data sources used in the NEJM study are nationwide administrative registers.”