CDC researcher accused of stealing over $1 million in grant funding extradited to US
A former influential scientist who did work at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is back in the grasp of U.S. law enforcement, facing financial fraud charges -- after more than a decade out of federal authorities’ reach, according to officials.
Poul Thorsen was extradited Thursday from Germany with U.S. Air Marshals, according to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General. It comes 15 years after he was indicted by a federal grand jury in the Northern District of Georgia.
His work, and the fraud allegations against him, have long lingered in the lexicon of conspiracy theorists seeking to question the safety of vaccines.
Thorsen helped lead research for the CDC studying infant disabilities, according to prosecutors. Thorsen’s work included co-authoring papers that found no link between autism and childhood vaccination -- science which, according to medical experts, still stands today.
Separate from Thorsen’s pursuit of peer-reviewed medicine, prosecutors say he schemed to divert research grant money to his own coffers.
Thorsen was indicted in 2011 after he allegedly "absconded" with over $1 million in CDC grant money for autism research and was charged with 13 counts of wire fraud and 9 counts of money laundering. He was arrested in Germany in June 2025.
Thursday, Thorsen was flown in handcuffs from Germany to Atlanta, also the home of CDC headquarters.
In a statement to ABC News, an HHS-OIG spokesperson lauded the work that brought Thorsen’s extradition to bear.
“Mr. Thorsen is alleged to have stolen more than a million dollars in federal research funds – money intended to advance critical scientific work and improve public health outcomes. His betrayal harms taxpayers, researchers, and the communities who depend on this research,” said HHS-OIG spokesperson Yvonne Gamble.
“HHS-OIG remains committed to protecting the integrity of federal health care programs and ensuring that individuals who misuse public funds are held accountable. We are grateful for our federal and international law enforcement counterparts, whose coordinated efforts made this extradition possible,” Gamble said.
In the 1990s and early aughts, Thorsen worked as a visiting scientist from Denmark at the CDC’s Division of Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities -- just as new public health initiatives in the area were flourishing and flush with fresh funding. Thorsen, at the time, vigorously advocated for grants for Danish research on infant disabilities. His push was successful: from 2000 through 2009, the CDC awarded over $11 million to two Danish government agencies for the research, according to prosecutors.
Thorsen quickly assumed responsibility for the research money he had pushed for. In 2002, he moved back to Denmark and “became principal investigator responsible for administering the research money awarded by the CDC,” the indictment said.
Thorsen began funneling the funds elsewhere, prosecutors said. He forged signatures and documents with official CDC letterhead and submitted fake invoices he claimed were for research, according to the indictment. Meanwhile, Thorsen was actually moving the funds into personal accounts within CDC's credit union, the indictment said. He would then withdraw the money for his own personal use, including the purchase of a Harley Davidson motorcycle, cars and a home in Atlanta.
From February 2004 through June 2008, Thorsen submitted for reimbursement more than a dozen fraudulent invoices purportedly signed by a CDC lab boss. He claimed it was for expenses incurred in connection with the CDC grant. They were not, prosecutors said.
“In truth, the CDC Federal Credit Union accounts were personal accounts held by defendant Thorsen. He used the accounts to steal money under the CDC grant,” the indictment said.
Thorsen’s alleged crimes have, since his indictment, also become attractive fodder for conspiracy theorists, attempting to conflate his financial fraud with his medical research. Among his published works are findings of “strong evidence against the hypothesis” that the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine causes autism. Some anti-vaccine groups have used Thorsen to paint a picture of corruption at the highest echelons of medical exploration.
Among those groups: the Children’s Health Defense (CHD), a group that pursues anti-vaccine causes. CHD was also once led by now-Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long shared vaccine-skeptic views.
There is a page dedicated to Thorsen’s “criminal conduct” on CHD’s site, linking to a lengthy 2017 paper in which a group chaired by RFK Jr. levied accusations of “questionable ethics and scientific fraud” that “have resulted in untrustworthy vaccine safety science.” The paper called Thorsen a “key figure” in “shaky research” on vaccines and autism.
Decades of research has found no link between autism and vaccines or any vaccine preservative. Thorsen was indicted on wire fraud and money laundering, not for falsifying medical research.
Thorsen is expected to be arraigned Friday in federal court in Atlanta, according to an HHS-OIG official.
