[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 121 (Wednesday, July 29, 2015)]
[House]
[Page H5602]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   RESEARCH AND SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Posey) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POSEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today on matters of research and 
scientific integrity.
  To begin with, I am absolutely, resolutely provaccine. Advancements 
in medical immunization have saved countless lives and greatly 
benefited public health.
  That being said, it is troubling to me that, in a recent Senate 
hearing on childhood vaccinations, it was never mentioned that our 
government has paid out over $3 billion through the National Vaccine 
Injury Compensation Program for children who have been injured by 
vaccinations.
  Regardless of the subject matter, parents making decisions about 
their children's health deserve to have the best information available 
to them. They should be able to count on Federal agencies to tell them 
the truth.
  For these reasons, I bring the following matter to the House floor. 
In August 2014, Dr. William Thompson, a senior scientist at the Centers 
for Disease Control and Prevention, worked with a whistleblower 
attorney to provide my office with documents related to a 2004 CDC 
study that examined the possibility of a relationship between the 
mumps, measles, and rubella vaccine and autism.
  In a statement released in August 2014, Dr. Thompson stated: ``I 
regret that my coauthors and I omitted statistically significant 
information in our 2004 article published in the Journal of 
Pediatrics.''
  Mr. Speaker, also quoting Dr. Thompson:

       My primary job duties while working in the immunization 
     safety branch from 2000 to 2006 were to lead or colead three 
     major vaccine safety studies. The MADDSP MMR-Autism Cases 
     Control Study was being carried out in response to the 
     Wakefield Lancet study that suggested an association between 
     the MMR vaccine and an autism-like health outcome.
       There were several major concerns among scientists and 
     consumer advocates outside the CDC in the fall of 2000 
     regarding the execution of the Verstraeten study.
       One of the important goals that was determined upfront in 
     the spring of 2001 before any of these studies started was to 
     have all three protocols vetted outside the CDC prior to the 
     start of the analyses so that consumer advocates could not 
     claim that we were presenting analyses that suited our own 
     goals and biases.
       We hypothesized that if we found statistically significant 
     effects at either 18- or 36-month thresholds, we would 
     conclude that vaccinating children early with MMR vaccine 
     could lead to autism-like characteristics or features.
       We all met and finalized the study protocol and analysis 
     plan. The goal was to not deviate from the analysis plan to 
     avoid the debacle that occurred with the Verstraeten 
     Thimerosal study published in Pediatrics in 2003.
       At the September 5 meeting, we discussed in detail how to 
     code race for both the sample and the birth certificate 
     sample. At the bottom of table 7, it also shows that for the 
     nonbirth certificate sample, the adjusted race effect 
     statistical significance was huge.
       All the authors and I met and decided sometime between 
     August and September 2002 not to report any race effects for 
     the paper. Sometime soon after the meeting, where we decided 
     to exclude reporting any race effects, the coauthors 
     scheduled a meeting to destroy documents related to the 
     study.
       The remaining four coauthors all met and brought a big 
     garbage can into the meeting room and reviewed and went 
     through all the hard copy documents that we had thought we 
     should discard and put them in a huge garbage can.
       However, because I assumed it was illegal and would violate 
     both FOIA and DOJ requests, I kept hard copies of all 
     documents in my office, and I retained all associated 
     computer files.
       I believe we intentionally withheld controversial findings 
     from the final draft of the Pediatrics paper.

  Mr. Speaker, I believe it is our duty to ensure that the documents 
Dr. Thompson provided are not ignored; therefore, I will provide them 
to Members of Congress and the House committees upon request.
  Considering the nature of the whistleblower's documents, as well as 
the involvement of the CDC, a hearing and a thorough investigation is 
warranted.
  I ask, Mr. Speaker, I beg, I implore my colleagues on the Committee 
on Appropriations to please, please take such action.

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