A steady figure in the anti -vaccine movement that helped to formulate Health Minister Robert F. Kennedy Jr. His thinking in a possible connection to autism has joined his department to work in a study that examines long -term theory, according to people who are familiar with the subject.
The new analyst, David Geier, has published many articles in the medical literature that is trying to bind mercury to autism vaccines. In 2012, state -owned authorities in Maryland found that he was practicing medicine without permission with his father, Mark Geier, who was a doctor at the time.
Maryland authorities have also suspended Mark Geier’s medical license on claims that it threatened children with autism and exploited their parents, according to state records.
Federal judges rejected their investigation into autism and vaccines as too unreliable to stand in court.
David Geier’s new government role has been surprised by public health experts, who had already expressed concerns about Mr Kennedy’s decisions about canceling a long -term vaccine vaccination and reducing the grants.
In addition, David Geier’s involvement in government research increases their fears that the confidence of the vaccine could be further eroded, especially after Mr Kennedy’s recent embrace of questionable alternative therapies for measles during the Texas event.
“If we increase the vaccine and immunization rates are further reduced. We will see more outbreaks of diseases that can be affected by vaccines,” said Dr. Christopher Beyrer, Director of the Duke Global Institute of Health. “That’s how it works.”
Many experts have said that the appointment of David Geier to work in a vaccine safety study prefers the result – as the basketball referee appears in a team jersey.
“You would think you would like a fresh eye,” said Edward L. Hunter, a former head of the Washington office of the Disease Control and Prevention Centers.
“This is not a fresh eye. They have already published their results and spend all this time and money is not going to help anyone. I am sure they will come to the same conclusion.”
An employee with Mr Kennedy’s Ministry of Health and Human Services refused to comment. Two White House representatives did not respond to a request for comments. David Geier did not respond to emails or calls asking for comments.
Mary Holland, chief executive of the defense of children’s health, the non-profit anti-vaccination organization, Mr. Kennedy, ran to his presidential offer, praised David Geier on his website on Wednesday, describing him as “brilliantly informed”.
(During the weekend, federal officials ordered the non -profit organization to abolish a Mock CDC website indicating a connection between vaccines and autism.)
David Geier is listed in the list of the Ministry of Health and Human Services as a “higher data analyst”. His new role in the organization was initially reported by the Washington Post.
Earlier this month, federal officials announced plans for a large study to re -examine if there was a relationship between vaccines and autism. Mr Trump expressed support for HHS officials who wanted to review the issue, citing increases in autism diagnoses in children over the decades.
About 1 in 36 children are diagnosed with autism, according to CDC data collected in 11 states, compared to 1 in 150 children in 2000.
Many scientists believe that the rise is partly due to increased awareness of the disorder and changes in the way of diagnosis by medical professionals, although genetic and environmental factors could also play a role.
The Senate confirmed Mr Kennedy mainly because he won the chairman of the Senate Health Committee, Bill Cassidy, a Republican of Louisiana, who is a doctor and a strong supporter of childhood vaccines.
Mr Cassidy said further research into any alleged relationship between vaccines and autism would be a waste of money and distracting studies that could shed light on the “real reason” to increase autism rates.
On Thursday, Mr Cassidy said he wanted to confirm the role of David Geier, in addition to the news reports. He said he had breakfast with Mr Kennedy on Thursday, but said the issue did not come.
In one of his confirmation hearings, Mr Kennedy shot Mr Cassidy, citing a study by an ecosystem of vaccine criticism that stated that a relationship between vaccines and autism was proven.
David Geier comes from a similar cycle of researchers. Together with his father, he played a formal role in Mr Kennedy’s thought.
Mr Kennedy interview with David Geier on an essay in 2005, “Tobacco Science and the Thimerosal Scandal”, in which he accused the CDC of deliberately hiding vaccine data, according to headquarters such as “Conspiracy” and “Cover”.
Mr. Kennedy described Geiers’ belief that Thimerosal, a mercury conservative used in certain vaccines, was associated with child autism. The preservative has been removed from most childhood vaccines, but is still used in certain flu shooting.
In a Rolling Stone article called “Deadly Immony”, Mr Kennedy believed Geiers that they were among the few who had access to CDC vaccine data, which said “they are a strong correlation between thimerosal and neurological damage to children”. (The magazine later withdrew the article but did not work out.)
Nearly a decade later, in Mr. Kennedy’s book, “Thimerosal: Let science speak”, he gave Geiers tribute, citing them almost 250 times. He called them a “father-and-son group of independent medical researchers” who had “published extensively on the issue of Thimerosal and his possible bond with neurodevelopmental disorders, especially autism”.
Mr Kennedy acknowledged that the two had become “lightning of the controversy in the debate on vaccine safety”.
“Geiers published no less than thirteen epidemiological studies of the correlations between the effects of Thimerosal and health on US populations, using acceptable statistical practices,” Kennedy writes in the book.
In a podcast in 2022, Mr Kennedy believed Geiers’ research to show that vaccines “had nothing to do with” a decline in infectious diseases for decades. “It was all an illusion,” Mr Kennedy said, attributing a decrease in improving drainage and nutrition.
Geiers’ work has repeatedly been discouraged by other scientists and decisions of the Federal Court.
An extensive review of the supposed relationship between vaccines and autism in 2004 by the Institute of Medicine, a elite group of doctors and researchers, put on Geiers’ studies. The review found that their work should be violated by defects “making their results untapped”.
The Institute’s report on the connection to measles shots said: “The Commission concludes that evidence favors the rejection of a causal relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism.”
In 2011, the Maryland Medical Council accused David Geier of practicing medicine without permission with his father in Rockville, MD., Clinic for children with autism.
A mother of a 10 -year -old boy with autism blocks when David Geier ordered 24 different blood tests for her son.
His father, Mark Geier, lost his medical permit in 2012. The records in this case show that both the father and the son have promoted a theory that Thimerosal caused autism.
State authorities found that Geiers had offered treatment with adolescence medication. In some patients, they offered chelating, a process for removing heavy metals from the blood, the files show. David Geier was assessed a fine of $ 10,000.
The judges rejected Geiers’ efforts to serve as vaccine safety experts in court. The records show that the judges challenged the Billings of the Father-son group for hundreds of thousands of dollars associated with services provided as experts for a specialized vaccine injury court.
The judges reported the lack of qualifications of David Geier, which include a degree in biology, and raised concerns about his father’s credibility.
Judge George L. Hastings younger said in 2016 that David Geier was not qualified to make an opinion of experts in a national case of vaccine injuries.
Judge Hastings said his report “is neither useful nor relevant because he does not qualify as an expert on the issues he is discussing”.
In a review of two Geier studies this week, Jeffrey S. Morris, director of the division of biostatism at the University of Pennsylvania, said he found what seemed to be a numerical lip that made him seem to have caused a spike in autism.
“When I look at these two studies, they are so deadly that I have serious concerns that any study he is going to plan is going” to be strict enough, he said, “to deliver valid results.”
To Mr Hunter, a former CDC, the decision to spend federal funds on a new study on a failed theory would result at the cost of a meaningful discovery.
As he became a Health Secretary, Mr Kennedy has been chairing the cuts related to research in almost every aspect of healthcare and diseases. On Thursday, he announced a massive reorganization and reduction of the workforce from 82,000 to 62,000.
“For me, the great shame is that with budget cuts, we do not speed up the investigation of what really causes autism,” Mr Hunter said. “And if you are worried about a disease that can be infected with vaccines, this is such a clear backward.”
Michael Gold He contributed a report from Washington. Alain delaquérière He contributed research. Jeremy Singer-Vine provided data analysis.
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