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Ex-CDC Scientist Stole $1M in Grants Meant for Autism-Vaccine Research
Poul Thorsen, a 65-year-old Danish researcher and former federal fugitive, pleaded guilty Tuesday to wire fraud for operating a scheme that stole over $1 million in federal grant money intended for overseas autism research. Thorsen previously served as a visiting scientist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Between 2000 and 2009, the CDC awarded more than $11 million in grants to two Danish governmental agencies to study relationships between autism and vaccine exposure, cerebral palsy and infection during pregnancy and childhood development and fetal alcohol exposure. In 2002, Thorsen became the principal investigator responsible for administering those funds.
According to federal court records, Thorsen systematically stole the CDC grant money from February 2004 through June 2008 by submitting over a dozen fraudulent invoices for expense reimbursements.
The invoices contained the forged signature of a CDC laboratory section chief. Based on the fraudulent submissions, Aarhus University transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars into credit union accounts that belonged personally to Thorsen, despite his claims that the accounts belonged to the CDC.
Amish Fight New York Vaccine Mandate for Children: ‘Left With No Choice’
New York has fined Amish private schools $118k — more than they can pay — for refusing to vaccinate children, and now the Amish are heading to the Supreme Court.
New York’s large Amish population is threatening a mass exodus from the state as a court battle against forced vaccines for children rages on. The Amish are now pinning their hopes on the case being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Governor Kathy Hochul has continued to insist that Amish children attending school in one-room schoolhouses — which receive no state or federal funding — must submit to her state’s tyrannical vaccine mandates or incur massive fines. New York requires schoolchildren to receive between 24 and 27 shots, according to the New York Department of Health (DOH) vaccine schedule.
So far, three state-targeted Amish schools have racked up a total of $118,000 in civil penalties. The attorney for the Amish explained to the New York Post that they could only pay if the state seized their land. Up until 2019, the Empire State allowed religious exemptions for vaccines required for schoolchildren but rescinded those exemptions after a measles outbreak in an Orthodox Jewish community. “Have we gotten to a place where we aren’t going to make room for the Amish anymore?” plaintiff attorney Hiram Sasser asked.
EXCLUSIVE: How The Trump Administration Is Encouraging Kids To Ditch Screens And ‘Live Real Life’
The Department of Health and Human Services is releasing a new children’s book that encourages kids to put down screens and rediscover the joys of creative play as part of a national effort to combat the harms of excessive screen use.
“The Magic Tablet” tells the story of little girl named Eleanor, who discovers a world of wonder when she spends a day using her imagination after her parents won’t let her have a tablet. Young readers follow Eleanor and her magic tablet through a wonderful day filled with drawing with her brother, spending time with friends at a playground, and enjoying a healthy family dinner — all without screens.
“The Magic Tablet reminds us of something simple and powerful: Children do not need a device to discover a new world. They need imagination,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. writes in the book’s introduction.
Newborn Shot Refusals Soar 57% as Doctors Fear Fallout From Trump and RFK Jr. Health Messaging
The percentage of parents and caregivers in the United States opting out of a standard vitamin K shot for infants at birth has accelerated sharply this year, according to a data analysis, placing more newborns at risk of life-threatening bleeding episodes.
The findings confirm what a dozen pediatricians, neonatologists, and pediatric critical care specialists identified as a major concern: growing refusals of a protective shot amid a rising wave of mistrust toward vaccines and routine newborn interventions.
For decades, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has stoked that mistrust by sowing doubt about vaccines and established medicines. The acceleration in vitamin K refusals this year follows his January decision to drop recommendations for the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine and five other routine childhood vaccines.
GLP-1 Drugs Tied to Gallbladder and Biliary Risks in Youth
Use of GLP-1 receptor agonists was associated with increased cumulative gallbladder and biliary events in youths, according to a retrospective analysis of TriNetX data.
Among over 37,000 adolescents and young adults with overweight or obesity, GLP-1 drug use was associated with increased risks of biliary colic and cholecystectomy compared with matched controls, but not with cholecystitis, reported Josélio Rodrigues de Oliveira Filho, MD, of Mass General Brigham and Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues.
Lag analyses and 12-month administrative censoring yielded similar results, the researchers wrote in a JAMA Pediatrics research letter.
