When it comes to public health, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is, a Covid-19 vaccine was made available to Americans last year, and according to research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it made a significant difference in helping people avoid serious illness.
The bad news is, the Trump administration’s political appointees at the CDC don’t want you to know about the good news. The Washington Post reported:
A report showing the efficacy of the covid-19 vaccine that was previously delayed by the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been blocked from being published in the agency’s flagship scientific journal, according to three people familiar with the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
The report showed that the vaccine reduced emergency department visits and hospitalizations among healthy adults by about half this past winter.
Some of this might sound vaguely familiar, because we learned a couple of weeks ago that the findings about the efficacy of the Covid vaccine were supposed to be published in mid-March, but Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes of Health who is also the acting CDC director, delayed the release.
Two weeks later, however, the delay is over. Now the CDC isn’t formally releasing the findings at all.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed to The New York Times that Bhattacharya intervened because of “concerns” about the research’s “methodology.”
Part of the problem with this is that there was no reason to question the methodology. The other part of the problem is that Bhattacharya doesn’t exactly have a track record on the issue that inspires confidence in his credibility. In October 2020, as the pandemic continued to claim the lives of thousands of Americans per day, the public was confronted with a highly controversial joint statement called the “Great Barrington Declaration,” which, among other things, argued that public health officials should pursue a radical version of “herd immunity” by allowing Covid to spread untrammeled through the population.
When Donald Trump effectively stopped trying to deal with the Covid crisis, White House officials said it was because he liked the policy indifference recommended by this “declaration.”
Bhattacharya, who has no formal training in public health, was one of the signatories.
Looking ahead, it’s important to emphasize that Bhattacharya is likely to be replaced soon at the CDC by Dr. Erica Schwartz, whose nomination was announced last week and who has a track record of actually supporting vaccines.
That said, the last time the CDC was led by someone who supported vaccines, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a notorious conspiracy theorist and anti-vaccine activist, fired her just 27 days into her tenure.
On Capitol Hill this week, Democratic Rep. Raul Ruiz of California asked the secretary, “If Dr. Schwartz is confirmed, will you commit on the record today to implement whatever vaccine guidance she issues without interference?”
Kennedy replied, “I’m not going to make that kind of commitment.”
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