CDC officials were bullied and findings were manipulated by officials within the Trump administration, according to a new House report.
allegedly attempted to bury findings that discredited drugs unproven to cure COVID, according to a congressional report released Monday. The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis headed by Democratic Representative Jim Clyburn reported that scientific integrity was compromised by Trump and his White House"to serve the former president's political goals.
" Centers for Disease Controls and Prevention officials were allegedly bullied by the Trump administration and disallowed to conduct updated briefings on the COVID-19 pandemic. That included the alleged uncovering of"extensive evidence of efforts" by senior Department of Health and Human Services officials to interfere with the publication of a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report that detailed the significant growth of hydroxychloroquine prescriptions during the pandemic—increasing about 80-fold between March 2019 and March 2020, even while data was lacking regarding its efficacy and showing potential negative side effects. In one instance, a full-length, pre-print MMWR was uncharacteristically shared with Michael Caputo, then-assistant secretary for public affairs at HHS, and Dr. Paul Alexander, an adviser to Caputo, both of whom allegedly sought to edit and prevent publication of the forthcoming report discouraging hydroxychloroquine use by the public. Nina Witkofsky, initially appointed as a senior communications adviser to former CDC Director Robert Redfield and later the acting chief of staff, bucked long-standing CDC protocol not to share drafts outside the agency. A draft document that appeared never to have been published allegedly argued that the MMWR"presents factual information with an agenda" and could"prevent the news from giving the proper coverage of a true 'miracle cure.'" It also referred to CDC officials as"a disgrace to public service" and accused them of being"self-aggrandizing, looking to grab headlines" and"ignoring and [sic] the Americans currently dying from COVID-19." Former President Donald Trump speaks to the press during the renewed briefing of the Coronavirus Task Force in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on July 22, 2020. A third congressional report as part of an investigation into how the Trump administration handled the pandemic highlighted alleged abuse of CDC officials and encouragement of unproven drugs to cure the virus.That MMWR, which was originally scheduled for release on June 30, 2020, was not published until September 4. Dr. Charlotte Kent, editor-in-chief of the MMWR, told the select subcommittee as part of a transcribed interview that she was unaware of the rebuttal made by Trump officials and that HHS documents in that format were"not typical" and"could undermine confidence in CDC and in the quality of science that is in MMWR.""Donald Trump hired me to communicate the seriousness of the pandemic, that's what I was hired for, I ran a team of 400 people to do that," Caputo told. He also said the select subcommittee never bothered to interview him, even though he claimed he made himself available. "I don't care what they say, or how they say it, whether it's in a political document written pre-election by the
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