A House committee is demanding interviews and documents from the Department of Health and Human Services regarding allegations that officials tried to silence the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the lethality of the coronavirus.
The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, which Democrats created earlier this year, wants to interview five officials from the CDC and two officials from HHS “to determine the scope of political interference with CDC’s scientific reports and other efforts to combat the pandemic, the impact of this interference on CDC’s mission, whether this interference is continuing, and the steps that Congress may need to take to stop it before more Americans die needlessly.”
Recommended Stories
The request comes after reports surfaced that claim CDC officials appointed by President Trump sought to alter or block the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which includes deaths and sickness caused by the coronavirus.
Democrats made the request on Monday in a letter to HHS Secretary Alex Azar and CDC Director Robert Redfield.
The news reports claimed former Trump campaign official Michael Caputo, who is now an HHS spokesman, attempted to change the wording or block the weekly reports about the virus to downplay its danger.
Democrats are seeking the interviews and documents a week after a new book by Bob Woodward revealed that Trump acknowledged he downplayed the virus to prevent the nation from panicking.
Democrats have requested transcribed interviews with Caputo, CDC Principal Deputy Director Anne Schuchat, and others.
Caputo has denied the allegations in the reports and told the New York Times, “Nobody has been ever ordered to do anything. Some changes have been accepted. Most have been rejected. It’s my understanding that that’s how science is played.”
Democrats suspect the Trump administration is seeking to manipulate the information for political gain.
“Political appointees’ attempts to interfere with CDC’s scientific reports, or MMWRs, risk undermining the scientific integrity of these reports and of the CDC itself,” Democrats said in the letter to Azar and Redfield. “MMWRs are drafted by career scientists and disseminate important information to physicians and public health officials around the country. During the pandemic, experts have relied on these reports to determine how the virus spreads and who is at greatest risk. Yet HHS officials apparently viewed these scientific reports as opportunities for political manipulation.”
