“The subpoenas were necessary because… efforts to interfere with scientific work at CDC were far more extensive and dangerous than previously known,” asserted Rep. James Clyburn.
by Brett Wilkins, staff writer
Monday, December 21, 2020
Accusing top Trump health officials of “extensive and dangerous” political interference in the coronavirus pandemic response, House Democrats on Monday subpoenaed the heads of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to compel them to produce documents concerning the alleged meddling.
“The subpoenas were necessary because the select subcommittee’s investigation has revealed that efforts to interfere with scientific work at CDC were far more extensive and dangerous than previously known,” Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), the subcommittee chairman, wrote in a letter (pdf) explaining the action. “HHS has made clear that it will not provide a timely and complete response to the… subcommittee’s requests on a voluntary basis.”
#NEWS: Chair @WhipClyburn issues subpoenas to @HHSgov @SecAzar and @CDCDirector Redfield on political meddling in CDC’s coronavirus response; new documents reveal months-long campaign to alter scientific reports and bully career employees. #EndTheInterference
Read more ⬇️⬇️
— Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis (@COVIDOversight) December 21, 2020
The letter alleges that “over a period of four months, as coronavirus cases and deaths rose around the country, Trump administration appointees attempted to alter or block at least 13 scientific reports related to the virus.”
Furthermore, it states that “documents show that HHS officials also attempted to muzzle CDC scientists by retaliating against career employees who provided truthful information to the public and targeting CDC staff with what one employee described as a ‘pattern of hostile and threatening behavior.'”
The letter continues:
These unprecedented efforts to influence CDC’s reports and bully its staff occurred at the same time HHS officials were privately advocating for a ‘herd immunity’ strategy to spread the coronavirus widely among Americans, as the select subcommittee revealed in a December 16, 2020 staff memorandum. The select subcommittee needs to obtain all the documents sought… to understand who in the Trump administration was responsible for this political pressure campaign, whether it was intended to cripple the nation’s coronavirus response in a misguided effort to achieve herd immunity, and what steps must be taken to end this outrageous conduct and protect American lives.
Paul Alexander, a Trump appointee at HHS and formerly a science adviser to HHS assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo, is a leading proponent of the herd immunity strategy. On July 4 he sent an email to colleagues asserting that “kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle-aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk… so we use them to develop herd [immunity]… We want them infected.”
Kent said the email concerned an effort to interfere in a CDC report detailing Covid-19 youth risks during the period when President Donald Trump was pressuring school districts across the nation to reopen.
“I was instructed to delete the email,” Kent testified. She also said she was told the order to destroy the evidence came from Redfield.
Both Alexander and Caputo have left their positions amid the controversy.
This article published by Common Dreams on December 21, 2020, here…
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