Autism-Vaccine Researcher Arraigned in the U.S.

Poul Thorsen, MD, PhD, a Danish researcher who co-authored key papers demonstrating no links between childhood vaccines and autism, was arraigned on federal wire fraud and money laundering charges after his extradition from Germany, the Department of Justice said.

Thorsen was a co-author of a 2002 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that offered strong evidence based on a cohort of 500,000 Danish children that refuted the hypothesis that measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination caused autism.

He also was part of a 2003 ecological study in Denmark published in Pediatrics that did not support a correlation between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism incidence.

In 2010, Aarhus University in Denmark discovered a “considerable shortfall” that involved U.S. grant funds Thorsen administered and referred the matter to the police.

A news report in The BMJ at the time included interviews with CDC staff who said that the research Thorsen worked on remained valid despite the missing funds. The lead author of the thimerosal study also explained to The BMJ that Thorsen’s contribution was “more administrative than scientific.”

According to the Justice Department, the CDC awarded more than $11 million to two Danish government agencies to study links between autism and vaccine exposure, cerebral palsy and infections during pregnancy, and childhood development and fetal alcohol exposure.

Thorsen became responsible for administering the CDC research funds and allegedly misappropriated more than $1 million in CDC grant funds by submitting fraudulent documents to the Danish government, Aarhus University, and a Danish hospital, the Justice Department said.

Between February 2004 and June 2008, he allegedly submitted more than a dozen fraudulent invoices bearing a forged signature of a CDC laboratory section chief, stating that a CDC laboratory had performed work and was owed grant payments. Relying on these invoices, Aarhus University transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars to CDC Federal Credit Union accounts it believed belonged to the CDC, the Justice Department said. After the transfers, Thorsen allegedly withdrew the proceeds for personal use.

After a grand jury in Atlanta indicted Thorsen in April 2011, a federal magistrate judge issued an arrest warrant. Thorsen remained in Denmark for nearly 14 years until June 2025, when authorities arrested the 65-year-old researcher in Germany, based on an INTERPOL Red Notice tied to the April 2011 warrant.

Earlier this year, Germany agreed to extradite Thorsen to stand trial on two counts of wire fraud and nine counts of money laundering. On May 7, 2026, he was returned to the U.S. in federal custody and arraigned.

He will be detained without bail pending further proceedings, the Justice Department stated. The case is being investigated by the HHS Office of Inspector General.