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Did the CDC, FDA “Alter” Covid Guidance and Suppress Findings?

May 4, 2022

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The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is a watchdog group for the legislative branch of the US government. It provides auditing, evaluation and investigative service for the United States Congress.

According to a 37-page report just produced by this group, the CDC and FDA ‘altered’ Covid guidance and ‘suppressed’ findings under political pressure. The GAO spoke with two former CDC directors, four former FDA directors and 17 employees who were involved with the US pandemic response in compiling their report.

The Daily Mail reports, “They unearthed allegation of ‘political interference’ in scientific reports, raising fears that research was tampered with,” and that “neither agency had a system in place for reporting allegations of political interference. It also said they had failed to train staff how to spot and report this”.

‘Political’ interference as defined by the report is ‘that which seeks to undermine impartiality…and professional judgement’.

The report actually investigated and reviewed four agencies and discovered they did not have procedures that define political interference in scientific decision-making or describe how it should be reported and addressed. These agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) are: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR).

“Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been various allegations of political interference affecting scientific decisions at several HHS offices and agencies. For example, in May 2020, a senior official from ASPR claimed HHS retaliated against him for disclosing, among other things, concerns about inappropriate political interference to make chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine available to the public as treatments for COVID-19.7 Additionally, in July 2021, for example, several members of Congress criticized CDC for allegedly revising its face mask guidance for political purposes”.

(GAO) -The four selected agencies did not identify any formally reported internal allegations of potential political interference in scientific decision-making between the years 2010 through 2021, but respondents we interviewed at CDC, FDA, and NIH told us they observed but did not report such issues. The respondents did not report their observations to any agency or external officials for various reasons, including:

Fearing retaliation. Respondents from CDC and FDA told us they did not report potential political interference in scientific decision-making because they feared retaliation.
Being unsure how to report issues. Respondents from CDC and FDA stated they were not sure how to report the potential political interference in scientific decision-making they observed. For example, a CDC respondent told us they were not aware of any existing internal procedures that could be used to report potential political interference in scientific decision-making.
Believing agency leaders were already aware. Respondents from CDC, FDA, and NIH stated they did not report potential political interference in scientific decision-making because they thought leadership was already aware of the issue.

To be clear, after reading through and reviewing the report, no actual instances of the altering of any scientific research data are cited. The report only addresses allegations. Nothing in the report leads to a conclusion other than there should be better training and clearer guidelines in place to allow individuals to voice concerns about possible political interference.

“A few respondents from CDC and FDA stated they felt that the potential political interference they observed resulted in the alteration or suppression of scientific findings. Some of these respondents believed that this potential political interference may have resulted in the politically motivated alteration of public health guidance or delayed publication of COVID-19-related scientific findings.” -GAO

The report continues;

“Through semi-structured interviews and a confidential hotline, employees at CDC, FDA, and NIH told GAO they observed incidents that they perceived to be political interference but did not report them for various reasons”.

On Tuesday, Biden’s top Covid adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, declared that the US is now ‘out of the pandemic phase’ of the disease…

…however, he quickly walked that statement back by telling the AP that the US is in a “different moment” but that the pandemic isn’t over yet.

“After a brutal winter surge, “we’ve now decelerated and transitioned into more of a controlled phase,” he said. “By no means does that mean the pandemic is over.”

What was all that about? Was Dr. Fauci perhaps bowing to political pressure to keep the pandemic alive despite the evidence of the reports which led him to declare the US is out of the pandemic phase’ of the disease? How much is political pressure affecting pandemic policy? Are political agendas being promoted at the expense of science and to the detriment of the public health?

According to The Mail report, The GAO report made seven recommendations to the four agencies it investigated for ‘political interference,’ which included establishing systems for whistleblowers to report potential interference, as well as training staff how to identify and respond to it.