Opinion by Consumer Advocate Tim Bolen
Thursday, October 13th, 2011
In late 2004 Biochemist Scientist Brian Hooker PhD had had enough. He'd been looking, carefully, through the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)'s so-called "Evidence" that Thimerosal was "Safe and Effective" as a preservative in vaccines. Having read all of the then available CDC studies making that claim, he, as a PhD Scientist, couldn't help but shake his head "NO." To him, none of the purported proof was anywhere near being scientifically adequate. Far from it.
So, like any math teacher would do to a student he began to communicate to the CDC his questions. In essence he was saying "Show me your work. Show me how you came up with these answers" - a reasonable question series among scientists, teachers and students, and frankly, the population of Planet Earth.
What was CDC's response? STONEWALL - a six year knock-down, drag-out brawl to get that information. Brian Hooker would not let up. Neither would the CDC.
At the CDC, the smell of corruption couldn't be masked, anymore, with air freshener. CDC employees, backed by CDC attorneys, dug in deeper, surrounding themselves with a wall-of-silence, removing themselves from public scrutiny. It was, without doubt, the CDC that President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder had in mind when Holder issued a 59 page Legal Opinion (here) just on this subject. It started out by saying:
"When administering the FOIA, it is important to first note that the President and Attorney General have issued memoranda to all agencies emphasizing that the FOIA reflects a "profound national commitment to ensuring an open Government" and directing agencies to "adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure."
Obama and Holder were, no doubt, provoked by an earlier Congressional Report titled "CDC Off Center," which is summarized, below, with an opening statement:
"A review of how an agency tasked with fighting and preventing disease has spent hundreds of millions of tax dollars for failed prevention efforts, international junkets, and lavish facilities, but cannot demonstrate it is controlling disease."