According to a bombshell report, CDC and FDA officials have “changed” Covid guidance and even “suppressed” findings related to the virus due to political pressure.
Investigators with the watchdog Government Accountability Office (GAO) spoke to more than a dozen directors and managers who worked at the agencies behind the country’s pandemic policy.
They uncovered allegations of “political interference” in scientific reports and fueled fears that the research was being rigged.
In its 37-page report, GAO warned that neither agency has a system for reporting allegations of political interference. It also said they had failed to train staff to recognize and report it.
Whistleblowers said they did not speak out at the time for fear of retaliation, not being sure how to report the issues, or believing leaders were already aware.
This is just the latest in a growing patchwork of reports suggesting politicians have been manipulating “scientific” papers for their own ends during the pandemic.
Just last night, the Biden administration’s chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci said the US is now “out of the pandemic phase” of Covid, citing low cases and hospitalizations.
However, health experts were quick to question the claim – buried at the end of an interview with PBS’ NewsHour – and suggested he botched his words and should have just said the nation was going through a “low hospitalization period”.
In the early stages, the White House was accused of waging a war on science, with then-President Donald Trump repeatedly urging that Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports be changed to support his views on how e-mails released by congressional investigators last April.
The CDC faces allegations that it changed and suppressed Covid guidance intended to save lives. (Stock image of the headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia)
The FDA is facing the same allegations after approving a blood plasma treatment earlier in the pandemic. Hospitals no longer offer blood plasma to most patients because it is of “little benefit”. (stock image of their headquarters in White Oak, Maryland)
The Biden administration’s chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has stated that the United States is now “out of the pandemic phase” of Covid-19 as cases and hospitalizations related to the disease remain low
‘A few respondents from CDC and [Food and Drug Administration] The FDA said it felt the potential political interference it observed resulted in the alteration or suppression of scientific evidence,” GAO investigators wrote in the report.
“Some of these respondents felt that this potential political interference could have resulted in a politically motivated change in public health guidance or a delay in the release of scientific evidence related to Covid.”
The GAO report, released last week, examined the two agencies alongside the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – America’s premier research organization – and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), which is responsible for natural disaster response.
All are part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which federal investigators classified as “high risk” for fraud, mismanagement and abuse in February.
US Department of Health and Human Services report at “high risk” of fraud and mismanagement
The US Department of Health and Human Services is at “high risk” of fraud and mismanagement, according to a report released in February.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) – which conducted the investigation – also said it faced financial waste and abuse.
They pointed to a lack of leadership at the agency during the Covid pandemic, the Zika outbreak and when natural disasters like hurricanes and wildfires sweep the US
The department is also responsible for the CDC and FDA, which have “altered” findings during the pandemic due to political pressure, another report released this month suggests.
It is based on interviews with senior agency officials.
They defined “political interference” as political influences intended to “undermine impartiality … and professional judgement.”
Investigators said they also set up an anonymous hotline for two months to allow staff to report cases that had received “a few calls.”
For reasons of confidentiality, no concrete cases of advice changes were known.
But GAO footnoted a report last April that revealed an email chain between Trump officials and CDC staffers that suggested the agency was giving in to pressure and making changes to its weekly morbidity count and Mortality Reports – a weekly bulletin from the agency documenting current trends in mortality in the United States.
Former scientific adviser to then-president Paul Alexander wrote in a 2020 email that he had managed to change the header in a report. He said: ‘Small win, but still a win, woo-hoo!!!’
In the first year of the pandemic, the FDA was also accused of “grossly misrepresenting” the effectiveness of a blood plasma transfusion in hospitalized Covid patients.
His press release thundered that the treatment was 35 percent effective against death, a number Trump called “enormous.”
A recent report found that these types of transfusions were actually useless in the fight against the virus, as patients treated in this way had little clinical benefit.
However, scientists were surprised by the number, which was not mentioned in either the official approval letter or the scientist’s 17-page memo.
A state health official also claimed he was reassigned after refusing to invest federal money in hydroxychloroquine, which Trump had previously touted as a possible Covid treatment.
However, other health experts were quick to blast his comments, and Dr. Louise Ivers, a global health expert at Harvard University, replied: “There is a pandemic”.
The chief medical adviser has doubled down on his personal policy of mask-wearing and general isolation, despite his comments yesterday.
He declined an invitation to the prestigious White House Correspondents Association dinner this Saturday “based on my individual assessment of my personal risk.”
The GAO report made seven recommendations to the four agencies it was investigating for “political interference.”
This included the authorities putting in place a system for reporting potential disruptions and training employees to notice and respond to them.
For the report, they spoke to two former CDC directors and four former FDA directors, as well as 17 employees.
GAO pointed out that it did not investigate the allegations to confirm whether political interference led to changes in the science.
HHS said in response, “It is important to distinguish scientifically trained political officials concerned with the legitimate conduct, administration, communication, and use of science from political officials who improperly violate scientific integrity for political reasons.”
They also “agreed with the recommendations that [HHS] should ensure that procedures for reporting and dealing with potential political interference in scientific decision-making are developed and documented.’
It agreed that staff “should be trained on how to report allegations of undue political interference in scientific decision-making”.
It follows a February report by GAO that branded HHS — which all four agencies report to — as “high risk.”
They warned of a “lack of leadership and preparedness” in the department to deal with Covid or the Zika virus outbreak alongside natural disasters such as hurricanes and wildfires.
HHS is at risk of financial waste, fraud, abuse, mismanagement and other serious shortcomings at times when it needs to, they said.