ATLANTA — Poul Thorsen, a former influential scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was extradited Thursday from Germany with U.S. Air Marshals.
He is facing financial fraud charges after evading federal authorities for more than a decade.
Thorsen was flown in handcuffs from Germany to Atlanta, ABC News reported. His extradition comes 15 years after a federal grand jury indicted him.
Thorsen faces 13 counts of wire fraud and nine counts of money laundering following his original indictment in 2011 in the Northern District of Ga.
Prosecutors allege he got away with over $1 million in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant money designated for autism research.
Thorsen was arrested in Germany in June 2025.
Thorsen helped lead research for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studying infant disabilities.
His work included co-authoring papers that found no link between autism and childhood vaccination. Medical experts maintain that this science still stands today.
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Separate from Thorsen’s pursuit of peer-reviewed medicine, prosecutors say he schemed to divert research grant money to his own coffers. His work and the fraud allegations have become part of the lexicon of conspiracy theorists who question the safety of vaccines.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, Thorsen worked as a visiting scientist from Denmark at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. During this time, new public health initiatives were flourishing and well-funded. Thorsen vigorously advocated for grants to support Danish research on infant disabilities.
From 2000 through 2009, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention awarded over $11 million to two Danish government agencies for this 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 the principal investigator responsible for administering the money awarded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Prosecutors said Thorsen began funneling the funds elsewhere. He allegedly forged signatures and documents using official Centers for Disease Control and Prevention letterhead and submitted fake invoices he claimed were for research.
Thorsen was actually moving the funds into personal accounts within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s credit union. He then withdrew the money for his own personal use, which included buying a Harley Davidson motorcycle, cars, and a home in Atlanta.
From February 2004 through June 2008, Thorsen submitted more than a dozen fraudulent invoices for reimbursement.
These invoices were purportedly signed by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lab boss.
They claimed expenses incurred in connection with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant. Prosecutors said these claims were false.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Federal Credit Union accounts were personal accounts held by Thorsen, which he used to steal money under the grant.
Since his indictment, Thorsen’s alleged crimes have also become fodder for conspiracy theorists. These groups attempt 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’s case to depict corruption at the highest levels of medical exploration. The Children’s Health Defense (CHD), a group that pursues anti-vaccine causes, has a page dedicated to Thorsen’s “criminal conduct” on its site.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the current Health and Human Services Secretary and former head of CHD, has long shared vaccine-sceptic views.
The Children’s Health Defense page links to a lengthy 2017 paper, chaired by a group led by Kennedy Jr. The paper levied accusations of “questionable ethics and scientific fraud” that “have resulted in untrustworthy vaccine safety science.”
It called Thorsen a “key figure” in “shaky research” on vaccines and autism.
However, decades of research have 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.
Information from ABC News was used for this article.