It's Anne Schuchat's job to take on this last group of misinformationists—and help the public understand the science of disease.

As deputy director at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention,Schuchat has battled the anti-vaccer position on Capitol Hill. When asked at a February 2015 Senate hearing if there exists scientific evidence between vaccines and what the deniers call clear links to mental illness, she flatly said, "No." When the health committee cited a scholarly paper purporting to prove the link, and being widely circulated online, she called the research "fraudulent" and "totally discredited."  How much corruption and cover-up can come from this agency?  
 
The CDC pretended to look into the Hannah Poling story in 2008, when it was announced that medical experts from Health and Human Services had conceded her case of vaccine induced autism.    They completely ignored the revelation that investigators had found 83 vaccine injury claims had been compensated by the federal government http://www.ebcala.org/unanswered-questions --and they all involved autism as part of the damage.
 
Most egregious of all is the total lack of accountability over the 2014 CDC whistleblower story.  Anne Schuchat must have missed the local coverage on CBS 46 in Atlanta on Oct 29, 2015 by reporter Ben Swann.   Swann reported on the admission by a top researcher at the CDC, Dr. William Thompson, that higher-ups at the agency ordered the destruction of incriminating findings showing a higher risk of autism in African American boys who receive the MMR before 36 months,
 
Meanwhile, as if nothing has happened since Dr. Andrew Wakefield's findings on the MMR and autism came out in 1998, Popular Science attacked anyone questioning vaccine safety as "anti-science."
 
Dec 14, 2015, Popular Science: Let America's Anti-Anti-Science Crusader


America's war on science is widespread and well documented: from climate-change deniers, to moon-landing doubters, to those who claim there is a link between vaccination and autism.  It's Anne Schuchat's job to take on this last group of misinformationists—and help the public understand the science of disease. As deputy director at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Schuchat has battled the anti-vaccer position on Capitol Hill. When asked at a February 2015 Senate hearing if there exists scientific evidence between vaccines and what the deniers call clear links to mental illness, she flatly said, "No."

When the health committee cited a scholarly paper purporting to prove the link, and being widely circulated online, she called the research "fraudulent" and "totally discredited."  Schuchat has been used as the public defender of vaccines before.  Here's a video of her congressional testimony on vaccines and the link to autism back in Feb. 2015, months after the CDC whistleblower story broke.  
 
In Can You Trust What the Government Tells You About Vaccines? Health Impact News reported on Schuchat's testimony in Congress early in 2015, months after the whistleblower story broke.

On February 10, 2015, there was a Congressional hearing “on the link between recent outbreaks of diseases such as measles, and some parents’ decision not to vaccinate their children.” Representing the government’s view on this subject was Dr. Anne Schuchat of the CDC. You can watch the entire 2-hour hearing on CSPAN here.  . . .

Why didn’t Congress address both sides of the vaccine debate? Why wasn’t Dr. William Thompson of the CDC also present to answer questions? Dr. Thompson stated last year that one of the CDC studies that supposedly proved that “vaccines don’t cause autism” had data withheld that showed that the MMR vaccine did in fact increase the risk of autism among African-American boys. He was a co-author of the study.  The corruption is rampant.  These people are above the law and answerable to no one.

Here's Age of Autism's coverage of Anne Schucchat:

 June 3, 2015, RFK Jr.: CDC Vaccine Program a 'Cesspool of Corruption,' By Anne Dachel

The video begins with a video of CDC representative, Rear Adm. Anne Schuchat, testifying before a U.S. Senate committee meeting.  She denied vaccines can cause autism.  She cited "dozens of studies" showing no link.

Feb 16, 2015, Questions Elizabeth Warren Forgot to Ask, By Julie Obradovic

Senator Elizabeth Warren had quite a moment the other day. In what appeared to be a “smack down” of vaccine safety concerned parents, she asked rapid fire questions to Anne Schuchat, the director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, in a last minute Congressional hearing on vaccine uptake amidst the apparent measles crisis of 2015 (which includes a whopping 100 plus cases among a population of 350,000,000 people).

On the surface she appeared to be looking for evidence for a reason a parent might be hesitant to vaccinate her child using the typically touted but not actual questions of concerned parents. (In reality, she was really just trying to attack Rand Paul for his comments about vaccines a few days prior. Make no mistake. This was political, not medical.) For less than well-versed veterans in this issue, it really seemed impressive too. A big wallop of “truth” to shut down dissenters, I heard it called.

Feb 17, 2015, Democrats, Republicans and the Reality of Vaccine Injury, By Louis Conte and Wayne Rohde

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) used a quickly assembled Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) hearing last week to demean Senator Paul’s comments about parental claims that vaccines cause “profound mental disorders.” In a questioning that seemed scripted, Senator Warren asked Anne Schuchat, the director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases about vaccine safety:

“Is there any scientific evidence that vaccines cause autism?”

“No,” Schuchat answered.

“Is there any scientific evidence that vaccines cause ‘profound mental disorders’?”

“No,” Schuchat responded, “but some of the diseases we vaccinate against can.”

Nov 5, 2009, CDC's Dr. Schuchat Said Nothing -- and That Says a Lot, By Anne Dachel

...Schuchat was quick to respond with all the standard denials:

“So, the mercury that you're speaking about, a lot of people talk about thimerosal, which is a preservative that contains a type of mercury in it.  We know that some people are concerned about that, and we've produced vaccine that doesn't have the thimerosal in it.  There will be formulations, like the nasal spray, that doesn't have the, the thimerosal.  And some single syringes that don't have it.  And then there will be multidose vials that do have the thimerosal.  We've procured a whole lot of that, so we do think you're likely to be able to get that, if that's your preference.  As a scientist and a public health expert, I can say that, although there were some questions about thimerosal, there have been a lot of studies done, and there really isn't any scientific link between the thimerosal and problems, but we know that some people have concerns and we wanted to be able to address those.  So that's why both formulations will be available.”

 More proof that as long as people like Anne Schuchat are in charge of vaccine safety, there will never be any acknowledgement of  "any scientific link between thimerosal and problems."

Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism and author of  The Big Autism Cover-Up: How and Why the Media Is Lying to the American Public, which is on sale now from Skyhorse Publishing.