EXCLUSIVE: Watchdog Urges Investigation of CDC, NIH Misinformation

Watchdog Urges Biden Administration to Investigate Scientific Integrity Violations

False Claims About COVID-19 and Other Matters

A watchdog group, Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT), has called on President Joe Biden’s administration to investigate scientific integrity violations committed by officials who made false or misleading claims about COVID-19 and other matters. The group has sent a letter to the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OTSP) urging them to take action on past violations and ensure that future violations don’t happen.

• Multiple officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) falsely claimed that COVID-19 was a top-five cause of death for children and have not corrected the information to date.
• A top National Institutes of Health official cited a non-peer-reviewed CDC paper, claiming that COVID-19 vaccines provided better protection than the immunity enjoyed after recovering from COVID-19, even though many other studies show the opposite.

The misinformation violates scientific integrity guidelines in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and its offices, which include the CDC and the NIH, according to PPT.

Years-Long Refusal to Uphold President Biden’s Scientific Integrity Mandates

PPT has sent documentation of the violations to administration officials in recent months, including evidence that Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director, and other CDC officials falsely told the public that COVID-19 was a top cause of death for children. The preprint study they were citing has since been corrected, but the officials have not notified the public that the information they conveyed was not accurate.

“Despite the thorough documentation and evidence in PPT’s complaints, there is no indication that HHS has taken appropriate action to either correct past violations or prevent future violations from occurring,” said Michael Chamberlain, PPT’s director. “Accordingly, PPT brings the HHS’ years-long refusal to uphold President Biden’s scientific integrity mandates to your attention so that the American public can be reassured that these issues will be corrected and that their public institutions will live up to the high standards they profess.”

PPT describes itself as a nonpartisan watchdog with the goal of helping the government become impartial and free from conflicts of interest.