Wham, Bam, Autism Scams: Wasting resources, and having conflicts of interest, in a White House that claims to want neither

Bronwyn Rideout - 31 March 2025

It was announced this week that RFK Jr. has hired David Geier as an analyst on a new study into the links between Autism and vaccines. A link that was debunked years ago, which even its most profitable holdout, American charity Autism Speaks, disavowed about a decade ago. This decision is just another in a series of attacks the White House has made against the disabled, and against science in general.

But who is David Geier, and why is his appointment such a problem?

David Geier has many discredits to his name. He never went to medical school, but still found himself disciplined by the Maryland State Board of Physicians for practising without a license in 2011. Geier and his father, the very recently deceased Mark Geier (who had a medical degree, but was also described as a self-employed geneticist), published several studies connecting Autism to the presence of thimerosal, a preservative used in some vaccines. Amongst the criticisms of their research:

• Insufficient declaration of conflicts of interest
• Generally poor methodology and statistical analysis
• Dumpster diving the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). Dumpster diving is a term used by David Gorski and others to describe studies that rely on cherry-picked, unprocessed data from databases like VAERS. VAERS is basically a repository of any adverse event. Anyone can make a report, and there are no criteria for reporting, or checks for confirming that the event was actually caused by the vaccine. So, VAERS is sensitive to patterns and is far from definitive, as there are no control groups or consideration of the occurrence of specific adverse events in the absence of vaccination. Given the efforts of the Geiers in promoting the thimerosal link, as this blogger pointed out, VAERS was effectively, and maybe maliciously, contaminated by anti-vaccine and Autism groups.
• Creating a bogus institutional review board (IRB) stacked with friends and business associates.
• Using the vaccine safety datalink (VSD) in a manner that had not been approved, and merging datasets in a manner that threatened confidentiality. Further, they attempted to remove these files from the CDC research data centre.

Criticisms made about Geier’s research then are being repeated now with regards to the RFK Jr.-led study: They’re starting with the answer and working backwards.

David (left) and Mark (right) Geier

Now, the foxes are in the henhouse.

Again, this link between thimerosal and Autism has been disproven, but Trump is somehow preoccupied with replicating something that has already been replicated in multiple countries.

Far more troubling than the publication of terribly flawed and poorly designed research is that, like many Autism cure scammers I have profiled in my series, the Geiers had a sales pitch. They ran a multitude of organisations out of their private address in Maryland, including some very official sounding companies like ASD Centers (a national network of genetic centres involved in the evaluation and treatment of autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders), MedCon Inc (medical-legal consulting and biochemical-epidemiological research), Institute for Chronic Illness, and the Genetic Centers of America. Mark Geier served as expert an witness in vaccine-related lawsuits, and together the duo treated Autistic children with a combination of chelation and a hormone called leuprorelin acetate (Lupron), which suppresses testosterone and is used to delay puberty. Or as David Gorski and others so charmingly call it, chemical castration.

Testing and treatment with the Geiers was not cheap. The fleet of lab tests cost one family $12,000, and one month’s worth of Lupron could cost upwards of $5,000. It is unsurprising that possible insurance fraud was included in accusations against the elder Geier.

It is also important to consider how the Geiers present or misrepresent themselves to the public. And here we revisit the perennial issue of expertise, qualifications, certifications, and the problems that come with assuming that someone has more expertise than they do. According to Dave Gorski in Science Based Medicine, Mark Geier is not a medical geneticist, but a genetic counsellor who really has no business diagnosing genetic conditions in anyone. In legal documents published by the Maryland State Board of Physicians, the elder Geier is not a board certified geneticist or an epidemiologist, although he did earn a PhD in Genetics. According to a tribute written by the Children’s Health Defense, he was a member/fellow/associate fellow of professional organisations connected to these fields; being a member of a professional organisation does not always mean that one is certified to practice in those fields. According to journalist Sarah Bridges, Mark had some genetic engineering cred to his name in the early 1970s, which is demonstrated in these articles published in Time and the Chemical and Engineering News. Geier also worked for the National Institutes of Health early in his career. So while there was misrepresentation of his certification and specific expertise in medical genetics, he had more education than your average bear.

David, who was part of the Maryland state commission on Autism, allowed himself to be misrepresented as a doctor and a diagnostician on the commission’s website. David has a bachelor’s degree in Biology, and some postgraduate credits, but no further qualifications. Despite all the fancy and illustrious companies they lead, much of their operation was run out of a room in their basement, which included a fume hood purchased off of Ebay. Articles published in the 2010s said the family had relocated to Florida, however Maryland addresses were still being used for the companies that the Geiers listed in their publications.

So, why did RFK Jr. choose David Geier and not another anti-vaccine researcher? It is possible that Mark Geier was too much of a persona non grata, as his medical license was revoked in multiple states. The very recent passing of Mark Geier (on March 20th this year) does leave it open for speculation that both Geiers might have been in consideration for the position. Still, the Geiers have their own history with RFK Jr., as the latter interviewed them back in 2005 on the subject of thimerosal. Kennedy has also heaped praise onto the duo in the years since, demonstrating the immense influence the Geiers have had on Kennedy’s thinking and understanding of Autism and vaccines over the past two decades. The ongoing relationship between Kennedy and the Geiers strikes some as deeply ironic; in an administration that bleats loudly about transparency and efficiency, David and his father were not so forthcoming about their conflict of interests.

Commentary on David’s work seems to stop at 2011, and I was curious about what the Geiers had been up to since then.

The Geiers sued the 25 members of the Board of Physicians for disclosing private medical information in 2012 about the family, claiming that it was done to embarrass them. The board of physicians had posted a cease-and-desist order on their website demanding Mark stop prescribing medications to his family while his license was suspended; listed in the order were the medications that Mark prescribed. A judge sided with them, and the Board of Physicians were initially ordered to pay out $2.17 million in 2017 but the penalties were overturned on appeal in 2018.

Despite the reputational blow from the court cases, and the occasional retracted article, the Geiers never abandoned their Autism research, frequently co-authoring papers. As the Washington Post pointed out, the Geiers also turned their attention to dentistry and the presence of thimerosal in amalgam fillings. Some of their recent publications indicate that the Geiers can still secure allies, including Janet Kern, a neuroscientist with a nursing background, and Reverend Lisa Sykes, CEO at the coalition for mercury-free drugs.

An example of Lisa Sykes’ writing

Can we expect any more ghosts from skepticism past to reappear like bad pennies? I wouldn’t doubt it. As we’ve seen time and time again with cult leaders and other cancelled or discredited “experts”, scandal and public shame are rarely effective deterrents. That the Geiers have been able to continue publishing about mercury poisoning in other fields without the same outrage their Autism research drew may be a point of reflection for skeptics - nonsense rarely disappears, often it either takes a new name or finds a new target.