Poul Thorsen, the least wanted Most Wanted man in the world
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Dr. Poul Thorsen
I feel a little bad for picking on Poul Thorsen—he’s just a faux scapegoat in a faux prosecution designed to make it look as though vaccine research fraud is rare and seriously frowned upon. But, as such, he’s fair game for critics, as will be his faux trial, if he ever has one.
Fraud is an essential component of the vaccine industry—the foundation of the vaccine paradigm is the fraudulent premise that vaccines saved humanity from deadly diseases. This lie is drilled into us from cradle to grave, so often we can’t fathom the idea it’s a lie—especially vaccine researchers.
Credit: https://dissolvingillusions.com/graphs-images/ , Graph #31
Ordinary Most Wanted fugitives live with at least some degree of anxiety about being caught. Not Poul Thorsen, a 61-year-old medical doctor and researcher, who’s known in the vaccine industry as the man who helped exonerate vaccines as a cause of autism.
Thorsen was indicted on 22 counts of wire fraud and money laundering in April 2011, alleged to have stolen in excess of $1 million in research funds from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), while he was the principle investigator on the autism research and other projects. You can read the indictment here. He’s been listed on the Office of Inspector General’s (OIG’s) Most Wanted list for nearly a decade—although there’s no apparent interest in apprehending him.
Thorsen’s research and publications continue unabated
Thorsen’s Most Wanted fugitive status hasn’t interfered with his research career. He has continued to practice science and publish studies as usual, appearing as an author in 33 research papers since May 2011, the most recent published in May 2021.
Incredibly, the CDC even funded some of the research Thorsen conducted after the indictment. Whatever else you might say about the CDC, you can’t accuse them of holding a grudge. From Vaccine 101:
“What’s exceptionally interesting about the additional research he’s conducted since his 2011 indictment, is that 6 of the studies were actually funded by the CDC, the agency that Thorsen allegedly stole over a million dollars from. You can see the CDC's contribution to the studies near the end of each paper, under the various headings titled Acknowledgements or Footnotes or Funding Statement or The following investigators participated in this study. The studies are as follows:
2012: Cytokines and posthemorrhagic ventricular dilation in premature infants Here
2012: Cytokine profiles of preterm neonates with fungal and bacterial sepsis Here
2013: Association between blood spot transforming growth factor-β and patent ductus arteriosus in extremely low-birth weight infants Here
2013: C-reactive protein and preterm delivery: clues from placental findings and maternal weight Here
2014: Cytokines associated with necrotizing enterocolitis in extremely-low-birth-weight infants Here
2015: Low to Moderate Average Alcohol Consumption and Binge Drinking in Early Pregnancy: Effects on Choice Reaction Time and Information Processing Time in Five-Year-Old Children Here”
A mercenary dedication to research
“…Poul Thorsen had almost built up a cult around him. He was the leader who brought the money home. A lot of money. The other researchers were his disciples, who lived in the belief that it was quite natural to ride in limousines and live in castles when on trips and research seminars. After all, Nanea [Thorsen’s research program at Aardus University] was the elite of Danish research. The new. The big one. And Poul Thorsen was the one with 'the loud laugh'. The one with the 'millions from the United States'. In their own words, the employees only discovered the problems when Poul Thorsen fled to the United States about a year ago and left a research center in managerial disintegration and economic chaos.”
-- Kristian Villesen (14. marts 2010). "LEDER: Fundraiserens universitet". information.dk. [Translated from Danish]
In the mid-2000’s, Poul Thorsen, an ambitious Danish medical doctor and visiting scientist at the CDC in Atlanta, Georgia, secured millions in CDC funding for vaccine research in Denmark—thanks to his knack for self-promotion, his willingness to do anything to succeed, and his helpful CDC supervisor and secret lover, Diana Schendel.
"’I'm ready to kill to get there.’
“The phrase hits a nerve in Anja when she hears her boss [Poul Thorsen] talk about the ambition that drives his career. For sure, he speaks in jest, but joking and seriousness are, as you know, complementary sizes, and Anja has seen and heard it all before…”
-- Sanne Maja Funch (13. marts 2010). "Da agitatoren kom til universitetet". information.dk. [Translated from Danish]
Thorsen led the new research program, which he named Nanea, at Aarhus University in Denmark. The Nanea “family,” as they called themselves, were special, elite—they were rock stars, and unlike the rest of struggling Danish academia, they had the backing of American millions. Dr. Poul Thorsen was the family’s beneficent father, who made it all possible.
But Daddy Thorsen allegedly grew dissatisfied with his meager 6-figure researcher’s salary, and longed for a cool Harley Davidson, a new Audi and an SUV, a comfortable home in Atlanta, and a lot of extra cash to go with it (See paragraph 10 of the indictment). So, he allegedly siphoned off over a million dollars of the grant money for himself, using bogus invoices submitted to Aarhus University, payable to his own accounts at the CDC Credit Union, which Aarhus thought were CDC bank accounts. He also allegedly forged letters to Aarhus that purported to be from the CDC.
Aarhus began to suspect something was wrong in 2008, prompting Thorsen to return to Atlanta, where he could manage Nanea from a distance. By 2009, the matter had been referred to Danish police, and Thorsen resigned his position at Aarhus, leaving his broken Nanea family to fend for themselves.
Meanwhile, Thorsen’s former CDC supervisor and secret lover, Diana Schendel, was by now no longer secret, after a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request revealed their steamy email exchanges. Schendel bravely withstood a slap on the wrist for the special favors she granted to Thorsen, and quietly moved abroad to work for—where else—Aarhus University in Denmark, where she still works now.
To this day, no one connected to the vaccine industry or its government regulators has seriously examined the integrity of Thorsen and company’s alleged autism research. I say “alleged” because it was later discovered that Thorsen failed to get the proper approvals to conduct the research at all. According to the World Mercury Project:
“After his indictment, at least two federal employees, Diana Schendel, then of the CDC, and Rosemary D. Higgins of the NICHD/NIH continued to collaborate and publish with Dr. Thorsen. Both the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) continue to use his research as grounds to reject vaccine injury claims in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation. The articles he orchestrated during his 2004 to 2010 criminal activities have not been retracted.
“After a four-year wait, CDC has released new information in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. These documents indicate that CDC officials gave preferential treatment to the Danish grantees, and took no apparent action to evaluate the veracity of the data when the theft was made known. Furthermore, when CDC officials including Coleen Boyle, Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp, Joanne Wojcik, and Diana Schendel became aware, in 2009, that Poul Thorsen failed to obtain legally required ethics permissions for the autism bio and genetic data projects, these CDC employees participated in a cover-up with the Danish grantees.”
Final wonderings
Will Poul Thorsen ever have a real faux trial? After nearly a decade moldering on the OIG’s Most Wanted list, it looks doubtful. His autism publications say vaccines are just fine—no sense risking upsetting the apple cart over a measly million dollars or two—chump change in an industry built on fraud.
I wonder if Thorsen is traveling freely between the US and Denmark these days. It wouldn’t surprise me.
I wonder if anyone ever pushes the button on Thorsen’s OIG web page to “Report Seeing This Fugitive”.
When he walks into the research lab, do his co-authors go online to report the sighting? Or is he still the beloved leader who “brings the money home”?
Finally, I wonder if Poul Thorsen and Diana Schendel are still an item; and if they are, whether Schendel ever pushes the OIG’s “Report Seeing This Fugitive” button when they get into a fight, just to watch him squirm.