2000 Simpsonwood CDC conference

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The 2000 Simpsonwood CDC conference was a meeting convened in June, 2000, by the Centers for Disease Control, held at the isolated Simpsonwood Methodist retreat and conference center in Norcross, Georgia. Events at the session were highlighted by a presentation regarding vaccine research conducted by Dr. Thomas Verstraeten, and a comment on biologic plausibility and consistency from Dr. Loren Koller. Approximately half a dozen different industry and government groups were represented, whose representives included eleven consultants from the CDC, a rapporteur (Dr. Paul Stehr-Green), and an epidemiologist, Dr. Phil Rhodes, who was to provide a half hour summary review of the proceedings at the end of the second day.

Discussion of Dr. Verstraeten's vaccine research

The Simpsonwood conference was chaired by Dr. Dick Johnston, who mentioned early in the proceedings that, "There is very limited pharmacokinetic data concerning ethylmercury. There is very limited data on its blood levels. There is no data on its excretion. It is recognized to both cross placenta and the blood-brain barrier." The conference attendees were then apprised over the next two days about the state of research in these areas.

In 1997 the Congress of the United States passed a resolution requiring the FDA to review mercury in drugs and biologics. The Simpsonwood conference served the purpose of reviewing findings that resulted from the mandate. Fifty-two representatives from the pharmaceutical industry and from the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gathered in complete secrecy at the retreat for two days of discussions, with the main topic of discussion revolving around a presentation regarding vaccine research conducted by Dr. Thomas Verstraeten. No public announcement was made prior to the session.

In December, 1998, the FDA called for information from manufacturers about mercury in their products. Subsequently, in 1999, Dr. Verstraeten apprised officials of the CDC and FDA that infants were receiving up to 125 times the mercury exposure considered safe by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The exposure in question was due to the use of mercury as a preservative in vaccines called thimerosal. The vaccine preservative is still used in some vaccines. Despite Verstraeten's 1999 findings, the FDA and CDC have yet to order the drug industry to stop using thimerosal containing vaccines (TCVs), although several other countries have banned TCVs in recent years.

Three vaccines of primary interest were to be discussed, because they are given early in life. These included the Hepatitis B vaccine, the DTP, and the Haemophilus influenza type B vaccine. The MMR vaccine and other non-TCV vaccines were not at issue during the meeting. The exact process by which the mercury in TCVs affects cell biology is unknown. However, according to one researcher, Dr. Richard Deth, thimerosal shuts down the detoxifying methylation process when present in the body. A related process affected by mercury is the demethylization of dna, which has the effect of precluding genetic expression, including that of immune response.

Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices

The meeting also served as a prelude to high level government vaccine policy-making meetings, held by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which sets vaccine policy within the US for the CDC. The session was also to serve as the initial meeting of the ACIP work group on thimerosal and immunization. Dr. John Modlin, a faculty member at Dartmouth Medical School, was the Chair of the ACIP at the time of the CDC's Simpsonwood conference.

Dr. Walter Orenstein, who gaveled the Simpsonwood conference into session, told attendees that the event doubled as the initial meeding of the ACIP work group on thimerosal and immunization, which consisted, at the session, of the five voting members of the committee in attendance, with the group to expand in the two weeks following, prior to the next full ACIP meeding.

On January 12, 2001, members of ACIP's vaccine policymaking committee met to discuss ways to deal with statistics showing that children given mercury in vaccines had a much higher rate of autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other neurodevelopmental disorders.

Half of the officials involved in discussions held by APIC were employees or consultants of the drug companies regulated by APIC. Efforts to protect vaccine manufacturers from litigation over Thimoseral's use have included attachment of a rider to the Homeland Security Act legislation passed in 2002, but repealed in 2003.

Secrecy as priority one

The research under discussion, CDC officials cautioned the participants, was strictly 'embargoed'; no photocopying of documents was allowed, and no papers were allowed to leave with the attendees.

According to transcripts obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, attendees at the meeting were primarily concerned with how the damaging revelations about mercury exposure from vaccines would affect the drug industry's bottom line. In fact, the CDC paid the Institute of Medicine to conduct a new study to recast research findings about the risks of thimerosal, ordering researchers to 'rule out' the link between TCVs and autism.

Aftermath

After the conference, the CDC continued to withhold Dr. Verstraeten's findings, although they had been slated for immediate publication. The CDC also told other scientists that Verstraeten's original data had been 'lost' and could not be replicated. To thwart the Freedom of Information Act, the CDC handed its database of vaccine records over to a private company, declaring it off-limits to researchers. By the time Verstraeten finally published the amended study results in 2003, he had gone to work for GlaxoSmithKline while in the midst of reworking his research results to fix the data around the CDC's objective of obscuring the link between thimerosal and autism.

Conference participants

Among the attendees were the top vaccine specialist from the World Health Organization and representatives of every major vaccine manufacturer, including GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Wyeth and Aventis Pasteur. A partial list of the participants:

Dr. Roger Bernier, associate director for science for the CDC's National Immunization Program
Dr. Mike Blum, from the safety surveillance and epidemiology at Wyeth
Dr. Vito Caserta, chief medical officer for the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program
Dr. Bob Chen, chief of vaccine safety and development for the CDC's National Immunization Program
Dr. Susan Chu, deputy associate director for science for the National Immunization Program
Dr. John Clements, of the World Health Organization's Expanded Program on Immunization
Dr. Richard Clover, chair of the department of family and community medicine, University of Louisville, and a member of the ACIP vaccine policy committee
Dr. Carolyn Deal, acting deputy director of the division of bacterial producst at CBER at the FDA
Dr. Jose Cordero, deputy director of the National Immunization Program
Dr. Frank DeStefano, medical epidemiologist in the National Immunization Program, and project director of the Vaccine Safety Datalink
Dr. Bill Egan, acting director for the FDA's Vaccines Research and Review committee
Dr. Harry Guess, head of the epidemiology department at Merck Research Laboratories
Dr. Steve Hadler, an epidemiologist with the National Immunization Program
Wendy Heaps, a health communications specialist with the National Immunization Program
Dr. Barbara Howe, head of clinical research group for vaccine development for SmithKline Beecham
Dr. David Johnson, State public health officer in Michigan, and a member of the ACIP vaccine policy committee
Dr. Dick Johnston, chair of the Simpsonwood conference
Dr. Loren Koller, a pathologist and immunotoxicologist from Oregon State University
Dr. Xavier Kurz, an epidemiologist from Bryssels, representing the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products
Ned Lewis, data manager at the Northern California Kaiser Permanente vaccine study center
Dr. Alison Mawle, vaccine coordinator for the CDC's National Center for Infectious Diseases
Dr. John Modlin, a faculty member at Dartmouth Medical School and chairman of the ACIP vaccine policy committee
Dr. Martin Myers, acting director of the National Vaccine Program
Dr. Robert Pless, epidemiologiest with the vaccine safety and development branch of the National Immunization Program
Dr. Douglas Pratt, a medical officer for the FDA's Office of Vaccines
Dr. Peggy Rennels, pediatric infectious disease specialist at the center of vaccine development, Universiy of Maryland and a member of the ACIP vaccine policy committee and the AAP Committee on Infectious Diseases
Dr. Phillip Rhodes, statistician for the National Immunization Program
Dr. Lance Rodewald, associate director for science for the CDC's Immunization Services Division
Ben Schwartz, of the epidemiology and surveillance division at the National Immunization Program
Dixie Snyder, the CDC's associate director for science and the executive secretary for ACIP
Marty Stein, pediatrics department faculty member at University of California, San Diego, co-chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines on the diagnosis and evaluation for ADHD
Dr. Ted Staub, global head of biostatistcs and data systems for Aventis Pasteur
Dr. Thomas Verstraeten, of the EIS office at the National Immunization Program
Dr. Alex Walker, chair of the epidemiology department at the Harvard School of Public Health
Dr. Jo White, head of clinical development and research at North American Vaccine
Dr. Bonnie Word, from State University of New York, Stony Brook, and a member of the ACIP vaccine policy committee

External links

SafeMindes.org (pdf) - 'Scientific Review of Vaccine Safety Datalink Information' (transcript of conference proceedings, June, 2000)
HuffingtonPost.com - 'ABC Flips: To Now Air 'Killed' Robert Kennedy Jr. Interview. ABC Responds ...' Huffington Post, (June 16, 2005)
Salon.com - 'Deadly immunity: When a study revealed that mercury in childhood vaccines may have caused autism in thousands of kids, the government rushed to conceal the data -- and to prevent parents from suing drug companies for their role in the epidemic', Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Salon.com
Skeptico.blogs.com - 'Robert F. Kennedy Junior’s completely dishonest thimerosal article' (June 20, 2005)