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🏛 The Simpsonwood Retreat: June 7-8, 2000
The meeting was held at the Simpsonwood Conference Center in Norcross, Georgia — a quiet, secluded retreat owned by the United Methodist Church. Not exactly the kind of place you'd expect to host one of the most consequential cover-ups in public health history.
Who Was in the Room
- CDC — the National Immunization Program officials, including Dr. Roger Bernier, Dr. Robert Chen, and EIS officer Dr. Thomas Verstraeten
- FDA representatives
- Vaccine manufacturers — GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Wyeth, Aventis Pasteur, and others
- Consultants and epidemiologists from various universities
- World Health Organization reps
Conspicuously absent: no parents, no independent scientists, no public health advocates. Just the people with the most to lose.
What They Had Just Discovered
Dr. Thomas Verstraeten had been crunching data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) — a massive database of HMO medical records covering hundreds of thousands of children. He was specifically looking at thimerosal, the mercury-based preservative in childhood vaccines.
What he found was catastrophic:
- Statistically significant associations between thimerosal exposure and neurodevelopmental disorders
- Increased risks for autism, ADHD, speech delays, and tics
- A dose-response relationship — the more thimerosal a child received, the higher the risk
The VSD data showed relative risks for autism at 2.48 to 7.62, depending on exposure level. These weren't borderline results. They were screaming.