Paul D. Thacker

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Paul D. Thacker

Paul D. Thacker is an American journalist who reports on science, medicine, and the environment,[1] but has been accused of anti-vaccine activism and promoting Big Pharma conspiracy theories and COVID-19 misinformation.[2][3] He was a lead investigator of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance for Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, where he examined financial links between physicians and pharmaceutical companies.[4]

Early life

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Thacker was raised in California and Texas, and joined the US Army after high school, where he was deployed in Saudi Arabia and Iraq during the Gulf War.[5][6] He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology, with an emphasis in ecology and evolution, from the University of California, Davis in 1997.[7][5] He worked as a laboratory technician at Emory University before turning to journalism, leaving Emory for an Audubon magazine internship in 2000.[5]

Career

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After 2000, Thacker wrote for publications such as The New Republic and Salon and was a staff writer with Environmental Science & Technology, a journal of the American Chemical Society (ACS). Here he published a series of exposés that a senior ACS official claimed showed an anti-industry bias, culminating in an article on the Weinberg Group that resulted in him being fired by the journal in 2006.[5][8][9] In Thacker's Weinberg Group story he wrote about a letter that group sent to DuPont outlining a plan to protect DuPont from litigation and regulation over Teflon.[10] The Weinberg Group had done similar work for Big Tobacco and then began working in Europe to defeat alcohol regulations.[11][specify] ACS editor Rudy Baum called the Weinberg article a "hatchet job".[12][9] In 2006, the Weinberg article won a second place prize in annual awards presented by the US Society of Environmental Journalists.[13] Later that year, Thacker's work was profiled on Exposé: America's Investigative Reports.[14]

In 2007, Thacker joined the United States Senate Committee on Finance for Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, investigating medical research conflicts of interest.[5][15] Among his work he identified several physicians who had failed to disclose payments from drug and medical companies, including psychiatrist Charles Nemeroff.[16] He also led the committee's investigation of the drug Avandia,[17] which included a report that a medical journal had published a ghostwritten article promoting the drug.[6] He left the committee in 2010 to join the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog organization.[16][6][18]

From 2012 to 2014, Thacker completed two fellowships at Harvard University’s Safra Center for Ethics.[19]

Thacker received the 2021 British Journalism Award for Specialist Journalism for a series of articles in The BMJ investigating undisclosed financial interests among medical experts advising the US and UK governments on vaccines. The award judges said “[t]his was expertly researched and written journalism on a subject of huge national importance.”[20][21] The Association of British Science Writers chose an article Thacker wrote on Pfizer as a finalist for the Steve Connor Award for Investigative Science Journalism.[22]

Controversies and False Claims

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In 2006, Thacker was fired from the journal Environmental Science & Technology for "anti-industry bias."[5]

On November 29, 2010, Thacker co-wrote a letter on behalf of the Project on Government Oversight to the National Institutes of Health falsely claiming that psychiatrist Alan Schatzberg and others had a report on the antidepressant Paxil ghostwritten for them by the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline.[23] The chief executive of the publishing arm of the American Psychiatric Association declared the claim to be "not true."[24] In response to a legal threat, POGO retracted the word "ghostwriting" in its letter.[25]

In August 2015, Thacker and NYU professor Charles Seife wrote a blog post for the journal PLOS regarding scientific funding that resulted in multiple scientists expressing "grave offense at the authors' characterization of their situation." The journal retracted the article and apologized, promising that a "similar failure will not be repeated."[26]

On June 2, 2022, Thacker spread 5G misinformation by falsely claiming in an article for De Telegraaf that 5G technology is a threat to public health.[27]

On May 18, 2023, Thacker falsely claimed that journalist Taylor Lorenz used family connections to remove content from the Internet Archive.[28]

Anti-vaccine reporting

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In November 2021, The BMJ published a piece by Thacker alleging there has been "poor practice" at Ventavia, one of the companies involved in the phase III evaluation trials of the Pfizer vaccine.[29] The report was enthusiastically embraced by anti-vaccination activists. Questioning Thacker's work in Science-Based Medicine, David Gorski wrote that his article presented facts without necessary context to misleading effect, playing up the seriousness of the noted problems.[30] Some experts have expressed skepticism over the allegations made in the report. Prominent vaccination expert Paul Offit has criticized the issues outlined in the report as being vague and has cautioned against assuming the claims made in it are true.[31]

In a 2023 article in Politico about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s history of endorsing conspiracy theories, Thacker is described as an "anti-vaccine reporter."[32] Medical doctor David Gorski referred to Thacker as a "conspiracy-monger."[33] The American chapter of the British charity Sense about Science, which promotes public awareness of science, noted Thacker's collaboration with anti-vaccine activists and referred to his work as "pseudo journalism."[34]

In March 2025, Michael Hiltzik at the Los Angeles Times criticized "right-wing vaccine critic" Paul Thacker for mischaracterizing a vaccine study by Akiko Iwasaki from Yale University.[35] Published on his blog, The Disinformation Chronicle, Thacker claimed that the Yale study showed that "long COVID patients may actually be vaccine injured."[36] Iwasaki responded, "No. This is not what our study shows."[37] Reuters also criticized Thacker's article, labeling it "misleading."[38] For Bloomberg News, science columnist Faye Flam reported that pulmonologist Dr. Adam Gaffney of Harvard Medical School said that "the antivaccine community is ecstatic about this study because they think it validates their favorite pseudoscientific theory" regarding Long COVID.[39]

Notes

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  1. ^ "Paul Thacker". The Daily Beast. April 2021. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
  2. ^ Gorski, David (November 20, 2023). "What the heck happened to The BMJ? (2023 version)". Science-Based Medicine.
  3. ^ Berezow, Alex (June 8, 2020). "Meet the Journalist Who Is a 5G Conspiracy Theorist And His New Collaborator". American Council on Science and Health. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
  4. ^ Heffner, Alexander (October 4, 2011). "At HLS, former investigator questions the relationship between physicians and pharmaceutical industry". Harvard Law Today. Harvard Law School.
  5. ^ a b c d e f Wadman, Meredith (September 17, 2009). "Money in biomedicine: The senator's sleuth". Nature. 461 (7262): 330–334. doi:10.1038/461330a. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 19759593.
  6. ^ a b c Arnold, Matthew (October 2010). "Grassley's Ghostwriter Exits the Hill" (PDF). Medical Marketing & Media. p. 36. Archived (PDF) from the original on November 29, 2015. Retrieved February 19, 2020.
  7. ^ "Paul Thacker". ethics.harvard.edu. Retrieved January 22, 2021.
  8. ^ Thacker, Paul D. (Summer 2007). "Investigative reporting can produce a "higher obligation"" (PDF). SEJournal. 12 (4): 4+24.
  9. ^ a b Roberts, David (April 28, 2008). "Uncovering the Weinberg Group". Vanity Fair. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
  10. ^ Paul D. Thacker (February 22, 2006). "The Weinberg Proposal". Environmental Science & Technology. Archived from the original on June 10, 2008. Retrieved November 27, 2023.
  11. ^ McKee, Martin (2006). "A European Alcohol Strategy". British Medical Journal. 333 (7574): 871–872. doi:10.1136/bmj.39003.629606.be. PMC 1626340. PMID 17047004.
  12. ^ Baum, Rudy M. (Summer 2007). "ES&T, ACS officials respond" (PDF). SEJournal. 12 (4): 24.
  13. ^ "Society of Environmental Journalists: SEJ Awards". www.sejarchive.org.
  14. ^ Science Fiction, WNET
  15. ^ Weinstein, Jamie (May 11, 2007). "Grassley's Committee Staff Grows". Roll Call.
  16. ^ a b Kintisch, Eli (September 21, 2010). "New Post for Senate's Medical Research Watchdog". Science.
  17. ^ "U.S. restricts, E.U. bans controversial diabetes pill". The Standard-Times. AP. September 23, 2010. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
  18. ^ Scudellari, Megan (March 2011). "Whistleblower protections for US government scientists flounder". Nature Medicine. 17 (3): 234. doi:10.1038/nm0311-234a. PMID 21383703. S2CID 205376958.
  19. ^ ethics.harvard.edu/people/paul-thacker
  20. ^ Coombes, Rebecca (December 9, 2021). "Investigative journalist wins British Journalism Award for "expertly researched" BMJ series". The BMJ. 375: n3052. doi:10.1136/bmj.n3052. PMID 34887249.
  21. ^ Tobitt, Charlotte (December 8, 2021). "British Journalism Awards winners revealed for 2021". Press Gazette.
  22. ^ "ABSW Awards 2022: The Finalists". Association of British Science Writers. Retrieved May 6, 2024.
  23. ^ "POGO Letter to NIH on Ghostwriting Academics". Project on Government Oversight. November 29, 2010.
  24. ^ "Professor, APA dispute ghostwriting allegation". The Stanford Daily. December 1, 2010. Retrieved June 4, 2025.
  25. ^ Tillman, Traci (December 16, 2010). "Med School professor denies ghostwriting claim". Yale Daily News. Retrieved June 4, 2025.
  26. ^ "The Trouble with Transparency". PLOS. August 20, 2015. Retrieved June 4, 2025.
  27. ^ Berezow, Alex (June 8, 2020). "Meet the Journalist Who Is a 5G Conspiracy Theorist And His New Collaborator". American Council on Science and Health. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
  28. ^ Doak, Sam (May 22, 2023). "Taylor Lorenz didn't use family connections to remove information from the Internet Archive". Logically Facts.
  29. ^ Thacker PD (November 2021). "Covid-19: Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer's vaccine trial". BMJ. 375: n2635. doi:10.1136/bmj.n2635. PMID 34728500. A regional director who was employed at the research organization Ventavia Research Group has told The BMJ that the company falsified data, unblinded patients, employed inadequately trained vaccinators, and was slow to follow up on adverse events reported
  30. ^ Gorski, David (November 8, 2021). "What the heck happened to The BMJ?". Science-Based Medicine.
  31. ^ Clark, Cheryl (November 5, 2021). "Experts Blow Whistle on Alleged COVID Vaccine Whistleblower Claims". MedPage Today. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
  32. ^ Freedlander, David (October 8, 2023). "RFK Jr.'s Ultimate Vanity Project". Politico.
  33. ^ Gorski, David (November 20, 2023). "What the heck happened to The BMJ? (2023 version)". Science-Based Medicine.
  34. ^ "Fake news, science, and pseudo journalism". Sense about Science. February 2, 2018.
  35. ^ Hiltzik, Michael (March 12, 2025). "A small study of COVID vaccine aftereffects triggers a political and scientific storm". Los Angeles Times.
  36. ^ Thacker, Paul (February 19, 2025). "Yale Researchers Find COVID Spike Protein in Blood 709 Days After Vaccination, Positing Millions of Long COVID Patients May Actually Be Vaccine Injured". Disinformation Chronicle.
  37. ^ @VirusesImmunity (February 21, 2025). "No. This is not what our study shows" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  38. ^ "Fact Check: US study does not suggest long COVID is a vaccine injury". Reuters. March 7, 2025.
  39. ^ Flam, Faye (March 3, 2025). "How a Yale Study Got Twisted Into an Anti-Vaccine Talking Point". Bloomberg News.
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