{"id":43748,"date":"2022-03-08T12:30:45","date_gmt":"2022-03-08T17:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalcenter.org\/?p=43748"},"modified":"2022-09-21T15:55:13","modified_gmt":"2022-09-21T19:55:13","slug":"cdcs-performance-during-pandemic-sparks-calls-for-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalcenter.org\/ncppr\/2022\/03\/08\/cdcs-performance-during-pandemic-sparks-calls-for-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"CDC\u2019s Performance During Pandemic Sparks Calls for Reform"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The federal government\u2019s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the urgency of reforming federal health research agencies, say critics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"Bonner<\/a>

Bonner Cohen<\/p><\/div>\n

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); the CDC\u2019s parent agency, the National Institutes of Health (NIH); and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are not serving the country well, says Jay Bhattacharya, a coauthor of The Great Barrington Declaration (see article, opposite page).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe CDC has failed in deep ways during the pandemic,\u201d said Bhattacharya, on\u00a0The Heartland Daily Podcast<\/i>. \u201cI think we\u2019re going to need reform of all three agencies.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u2018Obvious Blunders\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

In the latest skirmish involving the CDC, House Republicans want to investigate the CDC\u2019s withholding of certain COVID-19, reported in\u00a0The New York Times<\/a><\/i>\u00a0on February 20.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u00a0\u00a0Days after the report, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Rep. James Comer (R-KY) sent a letter to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky demanding release of the information by March 11, stated the\u00a0Washington Examiner<\/a>\u00a0<\/i>on February 25.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The lack of data from the CDC is not surprising, says Doug Badger, senior fellow for domestic policy at the Heritage Foundation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cAmong the CDC\u2019s most obvious blunders is its failure to collect and disseminate data,\u201d said Badger. \u201cSince 2006, Congress has passed multiple bills requiring the agency to implement real-time data collection. They still have not complied.<\/i>\u00a0The CDC has been a disservice to public health agencies, the medical profession, and the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

CDC Weighs Public Health, Politics<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The CDC has divided loyalties to the worlds of science and politics, says Vinay Prasad, a hematologist-oncologist and associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California San Francisco, in an essay titled \u201cHow the CDC Abandoned Science<\/a>,\u201d published at tabletmag.com on February 14.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cThe CDC is, in part, a scientific agency\u2014they use facts and principles of science to guide policy\u2014but they are also fundamentally a political agency: The director is appointed by the president of the United States, and the CDC\u2019s guidance often balances public health and welfare with other priorities of the executive branch,\u201d writes Prasad.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There are numerous examples of flawed, politically driven CDC research on COVID-related policy, says Prasad.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0A CDC study published in November 2020 that sought to prove mask mandates slowed the spread of the coronavirus found counties in Kansas that implemented mask mandates saw COVID case rates start to fall, while counties that did not mandate masks saw rates continue to climb, says Prasad. However, the CDC\u2019s findings narrowly focused on trends from July and August 2020 and ignored trends over the following months that showed practically no difference in COVID case rates in counties with and without mask mandates.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cIn short, the CDC\u2019s study was not capable of proving anything and was highly misleading, but it served the policy goal of encouraging cloth mask mandates,\u201d writes Prasad.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u2018Science as Political Propaganda\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The CDC\u2019s goal of vaccination regardless of age or medical condition has led it to promote vaccination of kids between the ages of 12 and 15. The FDA granted emergency use authorization (EUA) for this cohort to receive the Pfizer vaccine on May 10, 2021. On June 11, 2021, the CDC published a study in the\u00a0Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report<\/i>\u00a0(MMWR)<\/i>claiming to demonstrate rising hospitalizations among this age group that received widespread coverage in the media.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cBut the absolute rates for this age group were, in reality, amazingly low: less than 1.5 per 100,000, which was lower than it had been the previous December,\u201d writes Prasad.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cThe CDC was undeterred, and in recent weeks the agency\u2019s director has started to push for more doses at these ages,\u201d writes Prasad. \u201cAgainst the advice of an FDA advisory committee, Rochelle Wolensky has moved forward with recommending boosters for 12- to 15-year-olds.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThis is not science as such, but science as political propaganda,\u201d writes Prasad.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

President Dwight Eisenhower anticipated the problems plaguing government management and funding of science in his Farewell Address in January 1961, advising vigilance against the \u201cdanger that public policy itself could become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bonner R. Cohen, Ph.D.<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research. This was first published by Health Care News<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The federal government\u2019s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the urgency of reforming federal health research agencies, say critics. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); the CDC\u2019s parent agency, the National Institutes of Health (NIH); and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":43235,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[664,35,24,655],"tags":[675],"yoast_head":"\nCDC\u2019s Performance During Pandemic Sparks Calls for Reform - The National Center<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nationalcenter.org\/ncppr\/2022\/03\/08\/cdcs-performance-during-pandemic-sparks-calls-for-reform\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Bonner Cohen\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalcenter.org\/ncppr\/2022\/03\/08\/cdcs-performance-during-pandemic-sparks-calls-for-reform\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalcenter.org\/ncppr\/2022\/03\/08\/cdcs-performance-during-pandemic-sparks-calls-for-reform\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Bonner Cohen\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalcenter.org\/#\/schema\/person\/9f84b84866aa3b5923ce7496ac27407f\"},\"headline\":\"CDC\u2019s Performance During Pandemic Sparks Calls for Reform\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-03-08T17:30:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-09-21T19:55:13+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalcenter.org\/ncppr\/2022\/03\/08\/cdcs-performance-during-pandemic-sparks-calls-for-reform\/\"},\"wordCount\":715,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalcenter.org\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalcenter.org\/ncppr\/2022\/03\/08\/cdcs-performance-during-pandemic-sparks-calls-for-reform\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/nationalcenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/CDCHQ.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Commentary\"],\"articleSection\":[\"COVID-19\",\"Featured\",\"Health\",\"Published Commentaries\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalcenter.org\/ncppr\/2022\/03\/08\/cdcs-performance-during-pandemic-sparks-calls-for-reform\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationalcenter.org\/ncppr\/2022\/03\/08\/cdcs-performance-during-pandemic-sparks-calls-for-reform\/\",\"name\":\"CDC\u2019s Performance During Pandemic Sparks Calls for Reform - 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