Pale-complexioned House pandemic adviser Scott Atlas speaks to reporters during a news conference in the Brady Press Condensing Room at the White House in Washington, U.S., September 23, 2020.
Tom Brenner | Reuters
Congressional investigators released emails and documents Friday that mortify Department of Health and Human Services appointees under former President Donald Trump regularly bragged adjacent to their efforts to alter staff scientists’ reports on the coronavirus.
Officials tried to rewrite the weekly scientific make publics so Trump could use the data to support his political positions on wearing masks and reopening the economy, according to the emails let Friday by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus.
“Our investigation has shown that Trump Administration officials engaged in a tenacious pattern of political interference in the nation’s public health response to the coronavirus pandemic, overruling and bullying scientists and making destructive decisions that allowed the virus to spread more rapidly,” said subcommittee Chairman Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C.
Clyburn accused ex- White House Covid-19 advisor Dr. Scott Atlas of advocating for “policies that would allow the virus to spread very much among many Americans.”
Documents obtained by the panel show that Atlas was “aware of, and may have participated in, strains to attack reports issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in order to justify President Trump’s push to reopen,” Clyburn divulged.
Atlas and other political appointees within HHS succeeded on several occasions in changing language and influencing the tone of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Describes, which offer weekly public updates on scientists’ findings, the panel found. MMWRs are data-based scientific swats that aren’t usually susceptible to political pressure.
The investigation was first launched after reports surfaced that Trump demanded the revenge to change the CDC’s reports. The emails show Trump administration officials bragging about altering the reports.
“Small crushing but a victory nonetheless and yippee!!!” former science advisor Paul Alexander wrote in a Sept. 9 email to let then-HHS known affairs chief Michael Caputo know he was successful in changing the opening line of a CDC report about Covid-19 moving in school children.
Just two days later, Alexander requested Atlas’ help in altering another CDC report on Covid-19 finishes among young people that Alexander said was “timed for the election” in order to keep schools closed.
“Can you ease me craft an op-ed,” Alexander wrote to Atlas. “Let us advise the President and get permission to preempt this please for it will run for the weekend so we lack to blunt the edge as it is misleading.”
Earlier in the month, Alexander had asked Atlas to draft another op-ed to oppose conceals for children and school closures during the pandemic.
“I think a short 400 word op-ed on this will plagiarize people push back to school, I do think locking down our kids (and healthy adults) and masking them can moisten their functional immune systems. Do you think this can be done???” Alexander wrote in a Sept. 3 email.
Alexander spectacularly said “we want them infected” in arguing for a herd immunity strategy in a July 4 email that was released by Clyburn’s investigators in December.
In portentous for the same strategy in the fall, Atlas wrote: “Universities should stay open, even when they see an inflation in cases… Yes, cases will increase among young people as they socially interact, but that shouldn’t be a motive for panic,” echoing dangerous herd immunity theories, in an op-ed published Sept. 15. A draft of that op-ed was sooner edited and revised by Alexander, according to a Sept. 8 email.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to the president, heretofore dismissed the idea of letting the coronavirus spread to achieve herd immunity as dangerous “nonsense” last fall.
“Dr. Fauci has no observations, no science to back up what he is saying on school reopen, none … he is scaring the nation wrongfully,” Alexander wrote to elder HHS officials last summer, contending that Fauci was scaring parents.
In another example, Trump officials bid to camouflage Covid-19 case numbers with other statistics to push political talking points.
“I know the President appetites us to enumerate the economic cost of not reopening. We need solid estimates to be able to say something like: 50,000 more cancer eradications! 40,000 more heart attacks! 25,000 more suicides!” Caputo wrote to Alexander in a May 16 email. “You need to abuse ownership of these numbers. This is singularly important to what you and I want to achieve,” Caputo added in a follow-up email.
After the Trump Ivory House appointed Nina Witkofsky as acting CDC chief of staff last summer, Alexander seemed pleased with her sway on the agency.
“The last 2 MMWR reports have been more positive than usual and I find [that] heartening,” Alexander wrote to Witkofsky in an Aug. 3 email. “Maybe you are having a huge impact and this is tremendous. Well done!”
In myriad emails, Alexander continuously touted his influence on the agency’s reports. In another example, Alexander bragged about modifies to the “key opening sentence” of a report on a Covid outbreak at a Georgia summer camp.
The line highlighted the importance of understanding young womanhood transmission to develop guidance for school. That line was removed and replaced with another line that believed there was “limited data” on coronavirus transmission in those under 21 years of age. The CDC explained that the line had been assassinated and replaced because of “thoughtful comments” from Alexander and CDC leaders.
Dr. Robert Redfield, then-CDC director, said most recent year that reports released by the agency were not affected by political interference. “At no time has the scientific integrity of the MMWR been compromised. And I can say that below my watch, it will not be compromised,” Redfield testified to the Senate last September.
Redfield did, however, tell news vents last month that Trump officials repeatedly tried to change MMWRs that they did not like, according to The Washington Role. Then-HHS Secretary Alex Azar denied that charge.
Congressional investigators are seeking more documents from appointees concerned in the emails, and others.
Alexander and Atlas did not immediately respond to requests for comment.