Master Manipulator: The Explosive True Story of Fraud, Embezzlement, and Government Betrayal at the CDC

by James Ottar Grundvig, Sharyl Attkisson (Foreword), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Introduction)

The explosive true story of fraud, embezzlement, and government betrayal.In 2000, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) carried out a secret mission to bury, skew, and manipulate data in six vaccine safety studies, in a coordinated effort to control the message that “vaccines do not cause autism.” They did so via secret meetings and backtesting health-care data. The CDC invested tens of millions of dollars in a foreign health-care data analytics startup run by Danish scientist Poul Thorsen, a move to ensure that no link ever surfaced. But fate had other ideas. The agency soon learned it couldn’t control Thorsen. In 2011, the US Justice Department indicted him for the theft of more than $1 million of CDC grant money.Master Manipulator exposes the CDC’s hidden agenda for the cover-up. Influenced by Big Pharma money, future high-paying jobs, and political lobbyists, CDC executives charted a course different than what the findings of earlier vaccine safety studies revealed. The CDC needed an outsider to “flatten” the results of the data, while building an exit a fall guy in case the secret plan was exposed. Thorsen fit the bill nicely, conducting studies overseas. But the CDC’s plan backfired, as Thorsen took the money to the bank and the power went to his head. It would take years for his fraud scheme-funneling CDC grant money to a Danish university and then back to a CDC bank account he controlled-to play out.Master Manipulator is a true story of fraud and betrayal, and an insider’s view of what takes place behind the closed doors of agencies and drug companies, and with the people tasked to protect the health of American children. It’s a cautionary tale of the dangers of blind trust in the government and the health-care industry.

Genres: Health

221 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 31, 2016

Reviews

[Raymond Nazon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book if you want to know the "devil details" of how the corruption that the CDC has put on the American people through the persona of Poul Thorsen, Diane Schendel, Colleen Boyle, etc...

This book name names and documents the corruption that has happened since year 2000 and is still being hidden from the American people.

[G. Bill Thompson Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books I have read on the autism tragedy. I couldn't put it down.

It is well researched and exposes what goes on not only in the SEC but in EVERY part of our corrupt dysfunctional government.

[Eric · Rating 1 out of 5]

The "explosive" story detailed in this book is about an obscure researcher who's been accused of embezzling U.S. research funds for his personal use, along with innuendo about the CDC.

That the book is intended as an antivaccine screed is immediately evident by the authors of the foreword and introduction, Sharyl Attkisson and RFK Jr., both notorious antivaxers.

Because the researcher who's the focus of the book, Poul Thorsen was one of multiple co-authors on a well-known study providing solid evidence that MMR vaccination doesn't cause autism, antivaxers have seized on the embezzlement charges to claim that 1) research debunking an MMR-autism link is fatally flawed, and that 2) the CDC and other health entities are a "cesspool of corruption" (as another reviewer put it).

The reality is that Thorsen has been a minor player in the research world whose work has mostly dealt with infant and perinatal health issues other than autism. He was never the lead author on any vaccine-related study. None of the work he was associated with, including the 2002 Madsen study finding no link between the MMR and autism has ever been seriously challenged, much less debunked. Unlike the Madsen study and many other papers supporting the safety of the MMR, numerous papers authored by antivaxers have been retracted by the journals that printed them, due to serious methodologic flaws and/or concealment of conflicts of interest.

Pro-immunization advocates would be happy to see Thorsen arrested and tried for embezzlement should he ever be successfully extradited here. What they recognize however is that his being (allegedly) caught with his hand in the cookie jar does nothing to undermine the well-established safety and efficacy of vaccines.

This book miserably fails in its mission to portray the Thorsen affair as a Scandal of the Century.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pros: there's a LOT of good information in this book with sources
Cons: the writing style rubbed me the wrong way.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little difficult to get through, but more information on the corruption, of international proportions, of the CDC, FDA, NIH.