Beyond Doubt · Sources and references

Sources

What each checked claim rests on, where it can be read, and how far it can be trusted. The list is honest about its own limits: it covers the records verified in the session of 13 September to 13 October 2026, and it names the sources that could not be reached.

Compiled 13 October 2026 Pass one of two Grades stated, not implied

Beyond Doubt — front page and index. Pillars I, II, III, IV, V · The Deference Audit.

How to read this list

Every entry carries a grade. The grade describes the evidence for the claim the study makes, not the politics of the publisher. A partisan outlet that reproduces a court filing accurately is graded on the filing.

Documented A primary or official record: a judgment, a transcript, a statute, an audit, a published study, an agency statement.

Reported Reported by one side and not disputed by the other, or reported by a named journalist or scholar whose working the study could not re-do.

Disputed The parties disagree, and the study says so on the page.

Not retrieved The source exists but this study could not obtain it. Claims resting on these are marked on the pages too.

What this list does not yet cover

Roughly 120 records were checked against sources on 8 September 2026 and marked Verified 8 Sep on the pages, but the URLs were not recorded at the time. Rebuilding those citations means re-doing that work record by record, and it is pass two. Until then, a record carrying a verification badge but no entry here has been checked, and its sources are named in its own text rather than linked.

Pillar I · Medicines and medical practice

Thimerosal: how its safety was established

Documented "Mercury in Medicine", House Government Reform subcommittee report, entered in the Congressional Record, 21 May 2003The 1930 injection of thimerosal into 22 dying meningitis patients; Powell and Jamieson's published wording; the FDA never requiring safety studies; the 1982 topical finding and the 1998 ban; independent access to the CDC database called inadequate. The subcommittee's chair, Dan Burton, argued vaccines cause autism; the quotations from the 1930s record are not his.
Documented Simpsonwood transcript, "Scientific Review of Vaccine Safety Datalink Information", 7–8 June 2000 (CDC Stacks) · searchable text copyVerstraeten's presented associations and the P value below 0.01; "I was actually stunned by what I saw"; Weil's "You can play with this all you want"; the grandson remark; the request to treat the data as embargoed; "less responsible hands". Quotations in the record were read from this transcript, not from secondary accounts.
Documented Verstraeten et al., "Safety of thimerosal-containing vaccines", Pediatrics 2003;112:1039The published two-phase result: tics and language delay in phase I, nothing consistent in phase II, no increased risk of autism or attention-deficit disorder.
Reported Verstraeten, "Thimerosal, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and GlaxoSmithKline", Pediatrics 2004;113:932His answer to critics. The study has the citation and the title, not the full text.
Documented Institute of Medicine, Vaccine Safety Research, Data Access, and Public Trust (2005)Outside researchers' access to the Vaccine Safety Datalink "at best, unclear and narrow".
Reported Annette Fuentes, "Eli Lilly and Thimerosal", In These Times, 11 November 2003The 1931 publication and its later use; the 2002 Homeland Security Act liability provision and its repeal in 2003.
Reported Baker, "Mercury, vaccines, and autism: one controversy, three histories", AJPH 2008;98:244The scholarly history of the controversy. Abstract obtained; full text not reachable from here.

Removing thimerosal as a precaution · the evidence and the counter-case

Documented Madsen et al., "Thimerosal and the occurrence of autism", Pediatrics 2003;112:604 · full textThe ecological design; the 1994 move to ICD-10 and the 1995 inclusion of outpatients, both named by the authors as reasons the rise may be exaggerated; the inpatient-only analysis reported as "data not shown"; rates lower in 2000 than 1999.
Documented Hviid et al., "Association between thimerosal-containing vaccine and autism", JAMA 2003;290:1763467,450 children; relative risk 0.85 for autism; no dose-response. The individual-level evidence the record now rests on.
Documented Andrews et al., "Thimerosal exposure in infants and developmental disorders", Pediatrics 2004;114:584109,863 UK children; no evidence of neurodevelopmental harm except possibly tics. Abstract read via Europe PMC.
Documented Stehr-Green et al., Am J Prev Med 2003;25:101 · Schechter & Grether, Arch Gen Psychiatry 2008;65:19The Swedish, Danish and Californian trend comparisons, which the record now labels as the weakest form of this evidence. Abstracts read via Europe PMC.
Documented Institute of Medicine, Immunization Safety Review: Vaccines and Autism (2004)"The body of epidemiological evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism." The study previously quoted this report in wording it does not contain.
Disputed Coalition for Mercury-Free Drugs press release, 25 October 2011 · David Gorski, Science-Based Medicine, 25 April 2011The CDC emails released under Freedom of Information in 2006: the 2001 data left out, and "the incidence and prevalence are still decreasing in 2001". Both sides quote the same wording; they disagree about what it means, and the original documents were not retrieved.
Reported Anthony Colpo, "Vaccines, mercury and autism", 27 August 2025The article that prompted the correction. Its registry critique holds; several of its other claims do not.

The CDC's MMR timing study and the Thompson statement

Documented Statement of William W. Thompson, 27 August 2014 (Morgan Verkamp release, copy filed with the Vermont legislature)"I regret that my coauthors and I omitted statistically significant information"; the African American subgroup; the protocol not followed; and the passages campaigners omit, including "vaccines have saved and continue to save countless lives" and his statement that he faced no retaliation.
Documented Congressional Record, 29 July 2015Representative Posey reading Thompson's account of the meeting with "a big garbage can", and Thompson's statement that he kept copies.
Documented DeStefano et al., "Age at first measles-mumps-rubella vaccination in children with autism and school-matched control subjects", Pediatrics 2004;113:259624 cases, 1,824 controls; odds ratio 1.49 (1.04–2.14) before 36 months in the whole sample, 1.23 (0.64–2.36) in the birth-certificate subsample; the catch-up vaccination explanation. Abstract read via Europe PMC.
Documented Retraction notice, Hooker, Translational Neurodegeneration, October 2014Undisclosed conflicts of interest and concerns about the methods and statistical analysis.
Documented Taylor, Swerdfeger & Eslick, Vaccine 2014;32:3623 (DARE summary)1,256,407 children in cohort studies; pooled odds ratio 0.99; 1.00 for thimerosal; 0.84 for MMR.

Open question · vaccinated and unvaccinated children compared

Documented Retraction notice, Lyons-Weiler & Thomas, IJERPH, 2021Retracted over methodological issues; the authors did not agree.
Reported Snopes on Mawson (2017)The homeschool survey design, the provisional acceptance by Frontiers in 2016 and the reopened review.
Documented Hooker & Miller, SAGE Open Medicine 2020 · Science Feedback reviewThe paper carries a formal Expression of Concern; the review sets out the design problems.
Reported Respectful Insolence on the Control Group survey (2021)A critic's account of a litigation-driven survey of self-selected unvaccinated families. Listed as a source with a side, per the study's own rule.
Disputed Michigan Public on the Henry Ford draft (6 November 2025) · Henry Ford Health statement · Jeffrey Morris, The Conversation, 26 September 2025 · Lead Stories fact check · Madhava Setty's review of the filmAbout 16,500 vaccinated against about 2,000 unvaccinated children; the 2.5-fold chronic-disease claim; no autism association; median follow-up 2.7 years against 1.3; roughly seven clinic visits a year against two; "fatal flaws"; and the film's account, including the hidden-camera remarks attributed to Marcus Zervos, which this study has not viewed.
Reported Steve Kirsch, "Over 300 pages of evidence from the CDC", 18 November 2024The article assessed in this study. The documents it describes have not been published; the Thompson material it rests on is above.
Documented Wenger et al., "Underimmunization in Ohio's Amish", Pediatrics 2011;128:7968% of responding parents said all their children had at least one immunisation, 17% some, 14% none; 37% response rate.
Documented Robinson et al., "Prevalence rates of autism spectrum disorders among the Old Order Amish", IMFAR 2010 abstract1,899 children screened door to door; 25 screened positive; seven confirmed; about 1 in 271. Vaccination histories were collected; no analysis of them has been published.
Reported STAT, 2 October 2025 · FactCheck.org, September 2025 · Dan Olmsted, UPI, 19 April 2005Why Amish prevalence is hard to measure; the fact-checks of the claim; and the original newspaper series that began it.
Documented CNTNAP2 and cortical dysplasia-focal epilepsy syndrome (review citing Strauss et al., NEJM 2006)An inherited form of autism identified in an Amish family.

Eugenic sterilisation and Buck v Bell

Documented Encyclopedia Virginia, Buck v Bell (1927)The 8–1 judgment of 2 May 1927; "three generations of imbeciles are enough"; Laughlin's model law behind Virginia's statute; Paul Lombardo's finding that the case was a sham and that there is little evidence Carrie Buck had any cognitive disability; the citation of the case at Nuremberg.
Documented Laughlin's letter accepting the Heidelberg honorary degree, 1936 (US Holocaust Memorial Museum)"To me this honor will be doubly valued because it will come from a nation which for many centuries nurtured the human seed-stock which later founded my own country."
Documented Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases, 14 July 1933 (USHMM)The German statute modelled on Laughlin's model law.
Documented Eugenics Record Office collection, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory archivesFounded 1910 on Mary Harriman's gift, taken over by the Carnegie Institution, closed 1939.
Reported NPR, 7 March 2016The usual range for US sterilisations, given as up to 70,000; other sources say more than 60,000.
Reported Hartheim killing centre, including the cost ledger · Times of Israel on Aktion T4The 70,273 figure is an accounting entry for money saved, not a death toll; T4's total is usually given as 275,000 to 300,000. Tertiary sourcing; the underlying documents are held at the Hartheim memorial.

What happened after eugenics was discredited

Documented California State Auditor, report 2013-120, June 2014144 female inmates sterilised between 2005 and 2013; consent not lawfully obtained in 39 cases; competence certification missing in 27; waiting periods apparently breached in 18; records for seven destroyed.
Documented A.P., Garçon and Nicot v France, European Court of Human Rights, 6 April 2017 · Registrar's press releaseConditioning legal gender recognition on an operation carrying a high probability of sterility violated Article 8, by six votes to one.
Reported CNN, 4 July 2024 · JURISTJapan's Supreme Court holding the Eugenic Protection Law unconstitutional and rejecting the twenty-year limitation; about 16,500 acknowledged victims against lawyers' estimate of 25,000; the compensation law in force from January 2025.
Reported Center for Reproductive Rights on Peru · The ConversationMore than 280,000 sterilised in 1996–2000 under Fujimori's programme, with higher health ministry figures; prosecutions repeatedly stalled.
Reported European Disability Forum on Sweden · RFSL on the 2018 compensationAbout 63,000 sterilised between 1935 and 1996, around half under compulsion; 175,000 kronor each in 1999; the sterilisation requirement for gender recognition from 1972 to 2013 and 225,000 kronor voted in 2018.

Open question · where eugenics is now

Documented American Society for Reproductive Medicine, 2026Polygenic embryo screening "not ready for clinical use" and not to be offered as a reproductive service.
Disputed HOPE not hate, "Race Science Inc.", October 2024 · case file on the renaming to Polygenic Scores, 2025 · Emil Kirkegaard's reply · Pioneer FundThe undercover investigation, the $50,000 quotation to rank embryos by "IQ and the other naughty traits", the $1.3m from Andrew Conru, the 2025 renaming, and the denials. The renamings and dates are documented; the continuity of purpose is alleged and denied.
Disputed Associated Press on Xinjiang, June 2020 · Global Times rebuttalSterilisations rising roughly seven-fold from 2016 to 2018 to more than 60,000, on Adrian Zenz's reading of Chinese official statistics; Beijing's objection to the method. A state source is quoted as a party, not as a check.
Reported ABC News on Iceland, May 2024 · Snopes on how the figure is misquotedTermination after a Down syndrome diagnosis close to 100% in Iceland and about 95–98% in Denmark, as shares of those who test and receive a diagnosis.
Documented Adelphi Genetics Forum, own history page · interview in The BiologistEugenics Education Society 1907, Eugenics Society 1924, Galton Institute 1989, Adelphi Genetics Forum December 2021; renaming rather than refounding preserved charitable status, members and assets; the stated rejection of coercive eugenics.
Documented American Eugenics Society (Embryo Project) · journal lineage · The Eugenics Review to Journal of Biosocial ScienceThe American society's renamings and dissolution in 2019; Eugenics Quarterly to Social Biology to Biodemography and Social Biology; the British journal's continuation from 1969.
Documented UCL denaming, June 2020 · inquiry and apologyThe inquiry of February 2020, the removal of Galton's and Pearson's names, and the formal apology of January 2021.

Other Pillar I records checked in this session

Documented Toole v Richardson-Merrell, California Court of Appeal, 1967MER/29: about 400,000 patients; 490 reported cataract cases; the falsified rat data; the indictment of the two companies and three executives; pleas of no contest; fines of $60,000 and $20,000; suspended sentences and probation.
Documented National Cancer Institute, Laetrile/Amygdalin (PDQ)Legalised in more than 20 states during the 1970s; the Moertel trial and its findings.
Documented Weintraub, "Long-term weight control study" I–VII, Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics 1992Fen-phen: 121 participants; double-blind and placebo-controlled for 34 weeks, open-label thereafter, running to week 210. Abstracts read via Europe PMC.
Reported Fleming's Nobel lecture of 11 December 1945, as quoted with citation in a 2025 PMC article"The time may come when penicillin can be bought by anyone in the shops…" The Nobel Foundation's own site refused automated access.
Documented HSE, Mesothelioma statistics for Great Britain, 20262,146 deaths in 2024; 2,255 in 2023; an average of 2,508 a year over 2011–2020.
Documented Institute of Medicine, Adverse Events Associated with Childhood Vaccines (1994)The Urabe-strain MMR released in Canada in 1986 and suspended there in May 1990, which corrected the record's earlier claim about the sequence.

Pillars II and III

Not retrieved NAPAP, 1990 Integrated Assessment ReportPillar II's acid-rain record carries figures circulated from this report. The report itself was not obtainable online, and the record says so.
Not retrieved Gavin Atkins, Asian Correspondent, on the UNEP climate-refugee mapPillar III's record relies on secondary accounts of his census figures; the original post was not found.
Documented National Academy of Sciences, Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment (1979)Pillar III's Charney record: the 3°C central estimate with a probable error of ±1.5°C, and the panel's statement that it had been unable to find an overlooked physical effect. Verified in an earlier session; a link is pending.

Sources that could not be obtained

Listed so the gaps are visible. Where a page rests on one of these, it says so.

Not retrieved Paul Rheingold, "The MER/29 Story", California Law Review 56 (1968)The source for roughly 5,000 injured and about 1,500 lawsuits. Both figures are given on the page as cited by others.
Not retrieved The CDC's 2006 Freedom of Information release on the Danish studiesKnown through the groups that published it and through their critics, who quote the same wording.
Not retrieved The Guardian's October 2024 investigation of embryo screeningRead through HOPE not hate's own publication of the investigation and secondary summaries.
Not retrieved Letter from Kathryn Zoon, FDA/CBER, on ecological associationsDescribed in David Kirby's book. No primary copy found, so it is not used on any page.
Not retrieved Bayer's tender filings for the Conceptus acquisitionThe $1.1bn price and the 29 April 2013 announcement were verified in an earlier session; the filing link was not recorded.

Pass one, compiled 13 October 2026, covering the records checked between 13 September and 13 October 2026.

Pass two will work back through the records marked Verified 8 Sep, re-obtaining each source and adding it here, pillar by pillar, starting with Pillar I.

Where a source is graded Reported or Disputed, the study's claim is written to match: attributed, and limited to what the source can carry.