From: Truth in Media
Exterior view of CDC′s Roybal campus in Atlanta, GA. Photo: James Gathany, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC announced today
an autism rate of 1 in 68 children (1.5% of eight year olds surveyed in
2012) for those born in 2004, unchanged from the last reported rate for
children born in 2002. Meanwhile, the United States District Court for
the District of Utah is preparing to hear critical motions on April 4th
from a former CDC researcher and whistleblower. Although the lawsuit is
directed primarily to the University of Utah, the whistleblower has
also alleged that the CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities
Monitoring (ADDM) Network, allowed research misconduct and persistent
data errors in their autism prevalence reports. These whistleblower
allegations reveal serious concerns over the legitimacy and integrity of
the CDC’s management of its widely cited ADDM Network reports.
In documents filed on January 4, 2016 in the Federal District Court,
District of Utah, (Case No. 2:13-cv-1131) the former Principal
Investigator for the Utah ADDM Network site, Judith Pinborough-Zimmerman
asked for the right to a jury trial to adjudicate a range of claims
against her employer, the University of Utah, with respect to
Zimmerman’s work as an autism researcher for the ADDM Network. According
to the January 4 motion, “Dr. Zimmerman was a successful University
employee until she accused [her supervisor], among others, of research
misconduct and ethical misconduct. Defendants retaliated against Dr.
Zimmerman for raising legal and ethical questions of employees’
impropriety, and took multiple adverse actions against Dr. Zimmerman
because of her protected speech; her age; her disability; and her
religion. Defendants also breached its contract with Dr. Zimmerman and
denied her due process and liberty rights.”
Zimmerman’s complaint includes specific concerns over alleged
uncorrected errors in the ADDM Network’s reported autism analysis for
Utah. Zimmerman “reported that [university researchers] were publishing
data under people’s names who had not done the work and that the data
contained uncorrected errors. [emphasis added]” Dr. Zimmerman
further testified, “I think the fact that I reported data errors,
research misconduct, is significant.” According to the lawsuit,
knowledge of these errors was not confined to Utah. “On or about
December 2012, Dr. Zimmerman also reported the same concerns she had
made to the University’s Privacy & Security office to the United
States Department of Health and Human Services…. She reported her
concerns to the CDC as well. “ MORE
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