FactCheck.org

The video misrepresents a 2004 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that did not find an association between autism and measles, mumps and rubella vaccines.

Notes

Actually, the 2004 CDC study did find an assocation when comparing all children receiving the MMR before and after three years of age. They also found an association when looking at boys only. And Dr. William Thompson, a coauthor and lead statistician of the paper, invoked whistleblower protection and says the study also found an association when looking at African-American children, but they didn’t publish it.

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• Vaccines and autism

FactCheck.org

The study did not find that vaccines were causing autism.

Notes

The study cannot find that vaccines were causing autism, since it was a retrospective case-control study, which is inherently incapable of establishing a causal relationship between an exposure and an outcome.

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• Vaccines and autism

FactCheck.org

But Kennedy’s organization falsely claims that the “study discovered that African-American boys who receive the MMR vaccine ‘on-time’ by the age of 3 are 3.36 times more likely to be diagnosed with severe autism as Black boys who waited until they were older.” That’s not what the study found. That’s what a purported reanalysis [by Brian Hooker] of the data claimed to find a decade later.

Notes

While the documentary’s accompanying fact sheet quoted above is missing context, the documentary never claims the 2004 CDC study reported a link between the timing of the MMR vaccine and autism in black children. Instead, the film clearly presents the case that the 2004 CDC study most certainly did not report an association.

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• Vaccines and autism

FactCheck.org

Prior to publishing his paper, Hooker had spoken to Dr. William Thompson, one of the researchers on the original CDC study. Thompson had shared his concerns about the study’s process, but later explained that he did not know Hooker had been recording their conversations and had no control over how Hooker used the recordings. Thompson still works at the CDC, and when we reached him by phone, he referred us to his lawyer, Rick Morgan. Neither would speak to us on the record, but Morgan provided us with Thompson’s 2014 statement. It said, in part: “I want to be absolutely clear that I believe vaccines have saved and continue to save countless lives. I would never suggest that any parent avoid vaccinating children of any race. Vaccines prevent serious diseases, and the risks associated with their administration are vastly outweighed by their individual and societal benefits.”

Notes

Thompson’s 2014 statement also says, “I regret that my coauthors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics. The omitted data suggested that African American males who received the MMR vaccine before age 36 months were at increased risk for autism. Decisions were made regarding which findings to report after the data were collected, and I believe that the final study protocol was not followed.”

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• Vaccines and autism

FactCheck.org

So, the claim in the video uses a discredited paper to misrepresent the findings of a CDC study.

Notes

FactCheck.org never cites any claim in the video. While Hooker’s 2014 reanalysis was retracted by the publisher, its findings of an association between the MMR vaccine and black children are consistent with Thompson’s analyses of the same data prior to the publication of the CDC study. And the documentary never claims the 2004 CDC study reported a link between the timing of the MMR vaccine and autism in black children, rather it shows that Thompson invoked federal whistleblower protection and testified to a Congressman that he and his coauthors witheld this statistically significant information in the 2004 CDC study. Thompson argues that he and his colleagues misrepresented their own findings, rendering the CDC study itself a discredited paper.

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• Vaccines and autism

FactCheck.org

Misrepresented Mayo Clinic Study

In another distortion of scientific research, the video twists the meaning of a preliminary 2014 study that found some Somali Americans developed twice the antibody response to rubella after getting the vaccine compared with Caucasians.

The Children’s Health Defense material, however, claims that the study, which was done by Dr. Gregory Poland of the Mayo Clinic, “means that African-American children are being ‘overdosed’ with today’s current vaccine concentration.”

Notes

While the documentary’s accompanying fact sheet (the “Children’s Health Defense material” quote above) is misleading, FactCheck.org never cites any claim in the video. The claim inappropriately implies causation when the interpretation can only be speculative based on the study’s findings. In other words, if “means” is replaced with “suggests,” there is no distortion.

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• Are African-American children being over-dosed with current vaccine concentrations?

FactCheck.org

What is clear is that the claim from the Children’s Health Defense is wrong. “We do not have a study that shows African Americans need half the dose. We do not have a study that shows African American children are being overdosed,” Poland said.

He described the claim as being “like a good conspiracy theory — it contains a grain of truth with a lot of speculations around it.”

Notes

While it is true that Poland does not have a study that shows African Americans need half the dose, nor does it show that African American children are being overdosed, the study’s findings raise the possibility, as the author himself suggests.

“…maybe we only have to give African Americans half the size dose that we give to Caucasians,” Poland says in an interview with the Mayo Clinic (140226). “We may be able to reduce the amount of side effects. If you only need half as much vaccine to reach the same level of protection, we're adding cost and potentially risk by giving you double what you actually need.”

For more information and context

• Are African-American children being over-dosed with current vaccine concentrations?