The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ‘altered’ COVID-19 guidance in response to political pressure and in fact, reports are out that the one-time trustworthy apex federal health agencies ‘suppressed’ findings associated with SARS-CoV-2 in a new bombshell report associated with investigators from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Apparently, GAO investigators probed for such actions conducting a series of interviews with managers and higher-up officials employed with the agencies. Now, evidence mounts for what TrialSite has been reporting on for a couple of years now: ‘political interference’ associated with scientific reports and possibly even tampered with study results to skew or bias the results.
The 37-page GAO report issued a warning that these American federal agencies don’t have any mechanism to stop or even report whistleblower allegations involving political interference. The U.S. government inspectors discovered in interviews with whistleblowers that they didn’t raise any concern due to fear of retaliation. Additionally, because there was no way to raise such concerns systematically and objectively, they kept quiet.
Although TrialSite has reported over 40% of the FDA’s revenues derive from pharmaceutical fees, they apparently have no way to address political interference in scientific decision-making. This seems very odd to us here at TrialSite. For example, TrialSite reported on very overt and seemingly unacceptable behavior involving social media attacks on the repurposed drug ivermectin. Top officials at the FDA were involved in what appeared to look like a disinformation campaign backed possibly by industry and the Biden administration. To be fair, TrialSite called out politicization problems associated with the Trump administration and both the FDA and CDC.
The NIH went on the record that they do not have existing procedures addressing political interference because they have never experienced such interference before. Yet an interview at NIH reported an instance of political interference.
Recommendations
The GAO is preparing seven (7) recommendations to the various agencies including the CDC, FDA, as well as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Health and Human Services itself. New procedures must be developed for reporting and addressing these bombshell allegations of political interference, and staff must be trained on how to report such whistleblower allegations. While the HHS concurred, TrialSite has reported throughout the pandemic patterns of heavy bias in favor of the pharmaceutical industry and high-priced vaccines and drugs versus low-cost repurposed generic therapies despite the fact that the conditions were urgent. Pfizer forecasts at least $50 billion from the vaccines in the first two years since the vaccine was controversially approved (the FDA essentially split the BNT162b2 and Comirnaty products in two--one remained an emergency use authorized (EUA) product and the other a fully approved product. Only the EUA product would be used yet it was approved. Many critics suggest the FDA accelerated the approval to back Biden administration's moves to introduce vaccine mandates at the federal level while encouraging them at the local government level.
TrialSite suggests more than policies and procedures must be put in place as a culture of politicization has become clearly apparent during the pandemic, regardless of administration—they are all complicit in this unfortunate emerging dynamic.
Call to Action: Follow the link to read the GAO report. These agencies need to be fully investigated by Congress.