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US House panel says Trump officials attacked CDC COVID reports

SilentPanda

SilentPanda

Member
Nov 6, 2017
13,621
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US President Donald Trump's political appointees tried to block or change more than a dozen government reports that detailed scientific findings about the spread of the coronavirus, a House panel investigating the alleged interference said on Monday.

Representative James Clyburn, a Democrat from the US state of South Carolina, said his coronavirus committee investigators have found evidence of a "political pressure campaign" to "bully" professionals at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in what may have been an attempt to "cripple the nation's coronavirus response in a misguided effort to achieve herd immunity".
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The committee's topline findings so far were detailed in a 20-page letter to Azar and Redfield that centred on the actions of two political appointees earlier this year at HHS. New York political operative and Trump loyalist Michael Caputo was installed as the department's top spokesman during a period of high tension between White House officials and Azar. Caputo brought health researcher Paul Alexander with him as an adviser. Both men have since left the agency.
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But for months, the letter alleges, they waged a campaign to block or change articles on the COVID-19 pandemic in a CDC publication called the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), which is closely followed by the public health community.
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  • Sought to block or change more than a dozen MMWR articles, sometimes succeeding in getting changes to draft language and at other times delaying publication as internal arguments raged.
  • Intensely challenged articles that detailed scientific findings on the spread of COVID-19 among children. This came during a time when President Donald Trump was adamantly urging a return to in-person schooling in the fall. Those included reports about outbreaks in summer camps, data on hospitalization rates among children, and findings about a dangerous condition called "multi-inflammatory syndrome", which afflicts some children who get sick from the coronavirus.
  • Attacked a draft MMWR article showing a jump in prescriptions for hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug that Trump embraced early on as a "game-changer" only to ultimately learn it could do more harm than good. HHS even went so far as to draft an op-ed rebutting the CDC article, although it was never published. The op-ed accused the MMWR authors of trying to grab headlines, calling them a "disgrace to public service".
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www.aljazeera.com

US House panel says Trump officials attacked CDC COVID reports

Committee subpoenas documents from acting health secretary and CDC head accusing them of ‘stonewalling’ investigation.
www.aljazeera.com www.aljazeera.com
 

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Superman00

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Jan 9, 2018
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But for months, the letter alleges, they waged a campaign to block or change articles on the COVID-19 pandemic in a CDC publication called the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), which is closely followed by the public health community.
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Surprise fucking surprise. Earlier this year the numbers didn't add up and were confusing. But people refuse to believe that they may be tamper with.
 
entremet

entremet

You wouldn't toast a NES cartridge
Member
Oct 26, 2017
59,970
Yeah, the NYT and WaPO reported this already. But this is not official and on the record.
 
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