Did the "CDC whistleblower" William W.

Thompson
apologize to Andrew Wakefield in a text message? A
hilarious ...
Did the "CDC whistleblower" William W. Thompson apologize to Andrew Wakefield in a text
message? A hilarious challenge is issued! - Respectful Insolence

Two months ago, one of the strangest stories ever to be flogged by antivaccine activists was
insinuating its way throughout social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and everywhere else,
where antivaccine activists were engaged in a frantic effort to get the attention of mainstream media
regarding their belief that there was a "CDC whistleblower" who had revealed a "cover up" that
results from a CDC study looking at age of receiving MMR vaccination was studied as a potential
risk factor for autism had shown that African-American boys showed a more than three-fold
increased risk due to MMR vaccination. It's actually a lot more complicated than that and details can
be found in the links that follow. This story came to after Brian Hooker published a paper that was a
reanalysis of the data from that CDC study (DeStefano et al) that claimed to show the correlation
between MMR vaccination and autism in African-American boys (but only African-American boys,
not any other subgroup).
As I pointed out at the time, in reality what Hooker had done was to confirm that Andrew Wakefield
was wrong in claiming that MMR could cause autism. It was further revealed that Brian Hooker had
been speaking with a senior psychologist at the CDC named William Thompson, and that Thompson
had said some unflattering things about his employer. This all led to the claim that he was a
"whistleblower" who was revealing a "cover up" of this data, complete with Andrew Wakefield
himself likening this "cover up" to the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, and
Pol Pot all in one. More details about how bad Hooker's study was, how deceptive Andrew
Wakefield's video was, and how nothing Thompson said indicated a conspiracy, fraud, or cover up
can be found here, here, here, here, here, and here. Ultimately, Brian Hooker's paper was retracted,
but that didn't stop Andrew Wakefield and Brian Hooker from sending a disingenuous,
misinformation-packed complaint to the CDC about "research fraud." Everyone yawned, as well they
should have.
One of the weirdest parts of this whole thing was an incident where Celia Farber, a well-known
HIV/AIDS denialist, posted a text message exchange allegedly between William Thompson and
Andrew Wakefield, in which Thompson appeared to be apologizing and Wakefield appeared to be
giving him absolution. It was all very weird and very stilted, leading me to question whether the text
messages, sent on iPhones using iMessage, were real or not. At the time, I speculated whether they
might be fake or not. Overall, it was not a major part of the story, as far as I was concerned,
although if the messages were legitimate it would greatly lower my opinion of Dr. Thompson.
Certainly there was nothing in them that "proved" a cover up or research fraud, although certainly
the antivaccine movement went absolutely nuts trying to claim that they did.
There was a flurry of commentary, with my post garnering 300+ comments. Then, as is usually the
case with blog posts, there was nothing; that is, until a couple of days ago, when Farber showed up
in the comments to "challenge" me and posted an article entitled Challenging Orac To Determine
Authenticity Of Wakefield/Thompson Exchange: Were The Texts Fake?. She also posted the text of
her "challenge" in my comments:
You and your readers have spent an inordinate amount of time and energy speculating about the
veracity of the text message exchange I posted to my website The Truth Barrier, seen here:

http://truthbarrier.com/2014/09/02/breaking-news-cdcwhistleblower-text-messages-to-andy-wakefieldstudy-would-have-supported-his-scientific-opinion/
On your blog, people even Google mapped my
building,published my address, and speculated about
my son's age and computer equipment.
But you never thought to contact me, and ask me.
It's Nov 4, 2014, and this is a matter of public record:
I am inviting you to engage in a resolution of this, so that the questions raised can be answered.
Typically, as a journalist. when you want to find something out, you start by contacting people close
to the story. You ask questions. Unless, of course, you don't really want to know the answer.
Journalists don't rely on comments from readers of their blogs to find things out, nor merely consult
their own thoughts and suspicions. They investigate.
So let's find out of the texts are fake.

I challenge you to go to the source-to write to Dr. William Thompson at the CDC and ask him if he
had these exchanges with Dr. Wakefield and his wife.
Then I'd like you to ask me anything you like, about the texts.
Present me with terms of proof that would satisfy you and your readers that they are real not fake.
You want to know that beneath the name "William" on Dr. Wakefield's phone, there is a cell phone
number belonging to Dr. Thompson, correct? We all understand that we are not at liberty to make
this number public.
Let us agree that if the texts are proven real, you will publish the results, and apologize to me for the
false and slanderous accusations that I published falsified materials.
My question to you is this: If they ARE proven real, what does that mean?
It means that Dr. William Thompson is a real, as opposed to "fake" CDC Whistleblower. It means that
he was not at all "taken out of context" by Dr. Wakefield and Dr. Hooker. It means that he stands by
what he said in his press release, namely that the CDC significantly altered (falsified) data, and
deliberately sought to eliminate the link between MMR vaccines given at a certain time in
neurological development, and autism.
If you do not think this is what Dr. Thompson means to convey, please say so here and now, and we
will answer that question next. I am inviting you to pose, investigate, and weigh evidence to three
questions, publicly:

Are the texts real?Does Dr. Thompson confess to partaking in scientific fraud at the CDC?Does Dr.
Thompson feel Dr. Wakefield's career was unjustly destroyed, and that his own study, done right,
would have backed up the paper Dr. Wakefield lost his career over?
Your reputation is at stake. I await your reply.
I responded to her in the comments and was going to leave it at that, but apparently Farber is not so
easily deterred; so I'm turning this into a full post. I should probably not have allowed this silliness
to have intruded into my blogging, so utterly daft is it, but I did. Hopefully, I can be forgiven
because, I must confess, rarely have I been so amused by a "challenge." As you can see, its hilarity is
epic.
It's hard for me not to note that Ms. Farber has things exactly backwards (as usual given her history
as a notorious HIV/AIDS denialist). She apparently received an a screenshot of an alleged text
exchange between William Thompson and Andrew Wakefield from Andy Wakefield and immediately
took it at face value, based only on evidence that, boiled to its essence, consisted of, "Andy says it's
legit." The image goes viral, and the best she can come up with when people note that she's sending
around a picture of a computer screen showing the alleged text exchange. Then, when I (and others)
point out reasons to doubt its authenticity and that it would be incredibly easy to spoof such a text
exchange just by having an exchange with someone else and then assigning Thompson's name to the
phone number or e-mail address from which the iMessage was sent (or using various other
methods), what does she do? Does she provide corroborating evidence demonstrating the
authenticity of the messages? Of course not! Instead, she shifts the burden of proof to me!
Seriously, though, Farber posted it first without bothering to check whether it was legit or not. That
was her job if she wanted to be taken seriously. At the very least, if she had done additional
investigation, she should have described it in order to provide evidence of the text message's
provenance. I can't repeat this often enough: Andrew Wakefield's word is not enough, and I'm not
going to do her work for her. I'm certainly not going to try to contact Dr. Thompson. Having briefly
been in contact with his lawyer, I know that he's aware of the things I've written about him; so it's
highly unlikely that he would agree to talk to me anyway. As for my "credibility," let's just put it this
way. In my post, I was measured and discussed a lot of alternate explanations, conceding that the
text exchange might actually be real. Let me reemphasize the point near the end of my post:
The other two possibilities are either that this screenshot was faked (which seems possible, although
I could be mistaken, given that, despite extensive Googling I haven't been able to find a screenshot
that uses "Back" instead of "Messages" my search is not comprehensive) or that Wakefield faked a
text exchange and made it appear to be someone named "William," the implication being that that's
William Thompson, something that is incredibly easy to do. All you need is a friend with an iPhone to
do it. There's no concrete evidence to argue for or against this last possibility, but I also note that
there's no concrete evidence (just Farber's and apparently Wakefield's word) that the screenshot
represents a real text exchange between William Thompson and Andrew Wakefield, either. That
doesn't even take into account the content of the text exchange, which is bizarre and stilted, to say
the least. Even if it is real, it's no doubt highly cherry picked.
Note the conclusion: I don't know whether this text message was faked. There's no slam dunk
evidence that it was, but there are lots of anomalies to lead me to doubt its authenticity. More
importantly, there's no slam dunk evidence that it's real, either. Unless Farber--yes, Farber, not I-can provide really strong evidence for the iMessage exchange's authenticity, such as a public
statement or affidavit by Dr. Thompson that he had that exchange or irrefutable forensic evidence
that the message is legit, then I stand by my conclusions, which are that there are plenty of reasons

to doubt the authenticity of this exchange. It's Andy friggin' Wakefield, fer cryin' out loud!
Finally, regarding my "reputation," I was amused that someone who is an HIV/AIDS denialist who
has misrepresented the science of AIDS for many years and posted a BS explanation denying that
fellow HIV/AIDS denialist Christine Maggiore actually died of AIDS and then took it down after she
realized that her "explanation" was actually very consistent with a death due to an AIDS-defining
pneumonia, would lecture anyone about "reputation." Hubris, apparently, thy name is Farber.
In any case, I suggested that Farber go up to comment #59: "Hey, worst case scenario, I get a little
mud on my face, but such is life. I'm willing to risk being wrong sometimes." I've already
straightforwardly admitted that I might be wrong (although I still doubt that I'm wrong about this
exchange's complete authenticity). And guess what? If you--or someone else other than Andrew
Wakefield, who lies, or Brian Hooker, who is complicit in Wakefield's lies--were to provide evidence
irrefutable evidence that the iMessage exchange is legit, I'd admit my mistake and move on. The
only change I'd have in my opinion is that Thompson has gone antivaccine; it wouldn't demonstrate
that there was a conspiracy to "cover up" the "true" results of DeStefano et al. It would just
demonstrate that Thompson has gone off the deep end, which is a conclusion I've pretty much come
to since September anyway.
Apparently Farber still doesn't get it. Overnight in my comments, she responded:
You make an assumption that I did not know the veracity of the texts before I published them. I did.
They are real, and you know it, and yes, I did note the third possibility, that the texts are real.
You're the one who has a relationship with Dr. Thompson's attorney. The challenge is that you take
any steps of any kind to FIND OUT if YOUR OWN published suspicions are valid. You can't publish
wild suspicions and accusations and then expect the recipient of the accusations to jump around and
attempt to extinguish all your concerns.
A journalist takes responsibility for trying to find answers to their own questions. The way you do
that is by contacting the parties involved and asking for comment on or off the record.
So, we've established that you don't do journalism. That you react with indignation upon being asked
to lift a finger to find out whether any of your conspiracy theories are valid. That all your reader's
brain bubbles about the interfaces of iPhones were and are absurd. That the only journalist present
here, Brian Deer, tried to set you straight, but even that had no sobering effect on your thought
processes.
That you can't even stick to the point enough NOT to throw Christine Maggiore's corpse into this.
(Her cause of death was renal failure. And she had pneumonia and bronchitis at death.)
I am not in a position to start demanding affidavits from William Thompson.
In two months, he has in no way denied either sending the texts, nor objected to their being
published.
Does that tell you anything?
I urged you to contact him, as a means of showing you that I DO know they are real, and inviting you
to ALSO learn that they are real.

If you care, if you want to know the truth, try to find out. All I can do is state publicly that were you
to unearth a shred of real evidence, from Thompson or anybody else, that the texts are false, I would
heartily participate in the process of correcting the record. But they are real, so that won't happen.
You also have no evidence Thompson ever said his comments were taken out of context. Note the
wording: "Taken out of context."
Where does he say that?
The context is given BY Thompson IN his own press release on Aug 27, in which he states that he
regrets partaking in the research fraud at the CDC.
You can hear his voice on those recordings, can't you?
It doesn't matter what you think. The matter is moving toward congressional hearings and there are
criminal implications in this.
Dr. Thompson expressed clearly that his conscience had become unbearable.
In your mystification about what "motivates" Dr. Thompson, I don't know how to translate to you
what it means to have a conscience. That's the story.
Read or listen to his own words, maybe, as a start?
Journalism is nothing if not this: Listening.
When I saw this this morning, I couldn't help but nearly laugh hysterically. First off, as I've
documented extensively, "Williams' own words" that we've heard are very much cherry picked. If
Wakefield and Hooker had quotes from Williams that really were slam-dunk accusations of scientific
fraud and conspiracy on the part of the CDC, don't you think that, given how their initial "drip, drip,
drip" strategy of releasing "revelations" failed so utterly, Wakefield and Hooker would have released
them by now? The best they could do were some fairly unconvincing comments included in their
"complaint" to the CDC. Also particularly hilarious is Farber's argument that, because Thompson
hasn't said anything or denied the authenticity of the texts, that's a good reason to think they're
authentic (and, no, that's not a straw man argument). Come on! Thompson lawyered up and tried to
claim whistleblower status. He issued exactly one statement (which, contrary to Farber's realitychallenged claim, did not even allege research fraud, just a scientific disagreement) and, given the
likelihood of legal actions, has issued exactly zero more statements since then.
More importantly, this whole thing is an insight into how cranks think. Farber put out a text
message exchange, allegedly between Andrew Wakefield and William Thompson, based apparently
on Wakefield's word alone that it's real. I and my readers question whether it's real or not, giving
pretty good reasons to doubt the provenance of the text exchange, and what does Farber do? Does
she produce a statement from Thompson that it's real? No. Does she present additional evidence?
No. What she does is...nothing. Well, actually she did have a bit of a Twitter tantrum first. Then
there was nothing for two months, until Farber decided to "challenge" me. Why did she wait two
months? Does she need attention now? (I realize that I'm giving her what she wants, but I was
amused enough by the whole exchange that I couldn't resist. Forgive me.)
The other insight that this exchange gives is the belief of Farber (and, apparently, Wakefield,
Hooker, and the rest of the merry band of antivaccine activists promoting the "CDC whistleblower"

myth) that everything rests on whether or not Thompson is telling the truth and that I'd be
devastated if these texts were shown to be authentic. It doesn't, and I wouldn't. Seriously. Farber
seems to think that my whole case would fall apart if these texts were authenticated. They wouldn't.
If that were the case, then I might have actually pursued this beyond one blog post (and now this
second one, provoked by Farber), but I didn't, because I view the whole text message incident as
more a curiosity, an odd little sideshow that piqued my curiosity. It really doesn't matter that much
to me whether the texts are authentic or not, other than the prospect of some mild embarrassment
over my previous post, which, given how old the post is, wouldn't be much and wouldn't last long. As
I said before, all that would happen is that I'd think a lot less of Thompson, but if there's anything
that's happened over the last two months already, it's that I've come to think a lot less of Thompson.
In any case, unless Farber can come up with new evidence, I'm done with this curiously amusing
little sideshow to the main show of the "CDC whistleblower" gambit. Fortunately, it's a show that's
bombed massively, both critically and popularly.