This is undeniably true. Frank DeStefano is now the Director of Immunization Safety at the CDC. Colleen Boyle is the Director of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities at the CDC. They were both co-authors on this study. Thompson was a Senior Researcher at the time.
"feel pressure to alter the results of their studies"
Boyle and DeStefano were also involved in another cover-up that happened a few years prior to this one. Obviously they feel pressure from somewhere, otherwise why would they continue to do it?
"whenever those results might indicate something negative towards vaccines"
Everything they've churned out has been positive towards vaccines other than the two studies they've attempted to cover up (that we know of). So this statement is empirically true.
"I think it matters"
Is this a hysterical statement?
"more than the zero mentions it has received in the mainstream news."
I can't find a mention of Bill Posey's statements anywhere in a mainstream source other than the CSPAN archives of Congressional speeches that nobody watches, so this is also empirically true.
I find nothing there that is hysterical or incorrect.
Ben Swann was given the relevant CDC documents that were provided by Dr. Thompson and has released a video summary of the available evidence, as well as a dump of the documents that you can download and view at your convenience.
Truth in Media: CDC, Vaccines and Autism
These files include the original results of the study, before the other authors decided to manipulate it to suit the CDC's agenda.
In addition to confirming the facts presented in this thread, it also supplies some new information in the form of several letters written to and from Dr. Thompson.
These are the confirmed facts to date:
The CDC performed a study beginning in 2001 to determine if there was a correlation between the MMR vaccine and autism diagnoses.
Because of the previous CDC fraud regarding thimerosal in vaccines, protocols were put in place and were to be vetted outside the CDC before the study took place.
The study showed significant results indicating a correlation between the MMR vaccine in black children and autism diagnoses.
The study also showed significant effects for 'isolated autism' cases with a 24-month threshold
In the fall of 2002, the coauthors met and decided not to report the race effects. They were able to achieve this by eliminating sample data that had no birth certificate information available, violating their original study protocol.
In the fall of 2002, the coauthors met and put all of their documents showing this race effect into a 'large garbage can'.
Dr. Thompson brought this to his superiors and his branch chief was reprimanded.
Dr. Thompson then brought this to the attention of the head of the CDC, Dr. Julie Gerberding. He was suspended from his work for doing so.
Later in 2004, at the time of the final study publication, Dr. Thompson was given a $24,000 bonus.