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MaddowBlog-It's not just the CDC: The FDA also blocked evidence in support of Covid-19 vaccines
A medical professor at Harvard University who studies FDA regulations said, “At any other time in history, this would be a major scandal.”
Link to tweet
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/its-not-just-the-cdc-the-fda-also-blocked-evidence-in-support-of-covid-vaccines
The bad news, however, was emblematic of a larger problem: The Trump administration’s political appointees at the CDC decided they didn’t want the public to know about the good news, and they blocked the research from being published to the agency’s flagship scientific journal.
As it turns out, the problem isn’t limited to the CDC. The New York Times reported:
The Times’ report added that the developments dovetail with related administration efforts, including sharp cuts to research funding for vaccine development and releasing unvetted information intended to cast doubt on vaccines.....
Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, a former high-ranking National Institutes of Health official and chief executive of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, told the Times that FDA leaders withdrawing papers from publication is a “pretty active act of sabotage.”
Similarly, Dr. Aaron S. Kesselheim, a Harvard University medical professor who studies FDA regulations, told the Times that he had worked with the FDA on a number of research papers and found its work to meet “the highest standards of scientific investigation.” He went on to argue that the request to pull the papers looked like an act of “censorship.”
Kesselheim added, “At any other time in history, this would be a major scandal that would lead to congressional hearings and resignations of leadership, and I hope that’s what happens next.”
As it turns out, the problem isn’t limited to the CDC. The New York Times reported:
Officials at the Food and Drug Administration have blocked publication of several studies supporting the safety of widely used vaccines against Covid-19 and shingles in recent months, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed.
The studies, which cost millions of dollars in public funds, were conducted by scientists at the agency, who worked with data firms to analyze millions of patient records. They found serious side effects to be very rare.
The Times’ report added that the developments dovetail with related administration efforts, including sharp cuts to research funding for vaccine development and releasing unvetted information intended to cast doubt on vaccines.....
Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, a former high-ranking National Institutes of Health official and chief executive of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, told the Times that FDA leaders withdrawing papers from publication is a “pretty active act of sabotage.”
Similarly, Dr. Aaron S. Kesselheim, a Harvard University medical professor who studies FDA regulations, told the Times that he had worked with the FDA on a number of research papers and found its work to meet “the highest standards of scientific investigation.” He went on to argue that the request to pull the papers looked like an act of “censorship.”
Kesselheim added, “At any other time in history, this would be a major scandal that would lead to congressional hearings and resignations of leadership, and I hope that’s what happens next.”