The owner of Asheville Academy had a nature-based residential therapy program for boys closed by North Carolina officials last year. The license for Trails Carolina in Transylvania County was revoked after a 12-year-old boy was found dead in a cabin in February 2024, the day after he arrived.
The man tapped by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run a clinical trial looking to tie vaccines to autism has been charged with practicing medicine without a license, given autistic children a dangerous drug not approved for use in the U.S. and improperly prescribed puberty blockers.
In 2011, the Maryland Board of Physicians charged David Geier, who is not a physician and has only a bachelor’s degree, with illegally practicing medicine alongside his father, Mark Geier, a doctor who died last month. The two treated children with Lupron, a drug used to lower testosterone or estrogen levels in patients with prostate cancer, endometriosis and other diseases, along with chelation therapy, which leaches heavy metals from the body, as in lead poisoning.
Those treatments follow a widely discredited theory that blames autism on exposure to mercury in preservatives used in vaccines. Kennedy has promulgated that theory even though more than two dozen large, rigorous studies have discredited any link between vaccines and autism.
Autistic advocates decried Kennedy’s appointment, fearing his refusal to give up on efforts to establish one would refocus federal resources on finding a “cure” for what most scientists now believe is a naturally occurring human neurotype.
“Anyone who would fleece families with fake cures should not be trusted to interpret a scientific study, let alone conduct one,” the Autistic Self Advocacy Network said in a statement decrying David Geier’s hiring. “This move toward conspiracy theories and junk science puts all our lives at risk.”
A request for comment from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was not immediately answered. The Geiers’ Institute of Chronic Illnesses, Inc., does not have a website.
The network’s statement calls Kennedy’s selection of Geier “a clear indication that the Trump administration plans to rig the upcoming study and claim that it proves vaccines cause autism.
Autistic advocates decried Kennedy’s appointment, fearing his refusal to give up on efforts to establish one would refocus federal resources on finding a “cure” for what most scientists now believe is a naturally occurring human neurotype.
“Anyone who would fleece families with fake cures should not be trusted to interpret a scientific study, let alone conduct one,” the Autistic Self Advocacy Network said in a statement decrying David Geier’s hiring. “This move toward conspiracy theories and junk science puts all our lives at risk.”
A request for comment from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was not immediately answered. The Geiers’ Institute of Chronic Illnesses, Inc., does not have a website.
The network’s statement calls Kennedy’s selection of Geier “a clear indication that the Trump administration plans to rig the upcoming study and claim that it proves vaccines cause autism. This will set public health back decades at a time when vaccine hesitancy and infectious disease are both spreading at alarming rates.”
Among other claims, the Maryland board found that the Geiers diagnosed precocious puberty — a medical condition where children’s bodies mature too early — in an unusually large number of patients, did so without using the standard protocol for establishing whether the children in fact had the condition and failed to tell their families that the chelation drug prescribed was not authorized for use in the United States.
Mark Geier’s medical licenses eventually were suspended by the seven states where he and his son operated autism treatment centers under a variety of names, including the Genetic Centers of America. The Geiers conducted several studies linking vaccines to autism, only to have them retracted and withdrawn from publication by scientific journals. They have testified in hundreds of lawsuits brought by people who claim to have been injured by immunizations.
Lupron is a brand name for a GnRH analogue drug that pauses puberty without causing permanent physical changes. The drugs are sometimes prescribed for children who experience gender nonconformity or gender dysphoria at the onset of puberty.
In January, a large-scale study published in JAMA Pediatrics found the drugs were prescribed for fewer than 0.1% of youth in an insurance claims database covering more than 5 million patients ages 8 to 17. Only 926 youth with a gender-related diagnosis received puberty blockers from 2018 through 2022. No patient under the age of 12 was given the drugs.
Nonetheless, in recent years, 26 states have banned gender-affirming care for young people. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on challenges to the laws. In a January executive order, President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies to restrict such care.
It’s me! I technically have medical insurance but doctor’s visits cost too much to get seen when I want/need, and the insurance covers nothing…it cost me $60 for a 5 minute teledoc call for a nasal spray once. The spray was an additional $35. This was last year
I feel sick.
Can someone ELI5 what they’re demanding from these protests? The website doesn’t have anything but “stand up for democracy”, which tells me nothing. What are they pushing back on?
Happy Autism Awareness month I guess
Someone irl told me last week “All we can do is bend over and take it”
…I’m so tired lol.
Not to scare you, but if they last more than a couple days you should reach out to a doctor. I have a family member who had this happen, had horrid hiccups for 4 days straight and it tore open a part that required surgery. It’s been so long now I can’t remember exactly how it happened since I was fairly young at the time, but do take care of yourself <3 hope they clear up soon
You expressed this very well. Fighting ableism irl is such a huge, daunting task, especially when fully masked. Know you’re not alone.
According to the CDC, fewer than 10 people die annually from rabies in the U.S. And it happening due to organ transplants is very rare, but not unheard of; in 2013, a patient who received a kidney transplant died from rabies.
So it’s happened before…cool cool, cool…
Nah, Texas makes too much money. Oklahoma maybe
Any other weather nerds see the hurricane center make note of a storm that came very close to forming a tropical depression a couple weeks ago?
Really? I would have guessed jealousy, like a petty “tHeY hAvE iT EaSy” or something else small-minded. Either way, kudos!
Chuckling at the downvotes, treatlers mad at your simple living I guess
We’ll get to it right after bird flu and mpox, right guys?
Only when I start screaming or crying from nightmares…