[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                   ENSURING SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY AT OUR 
                      NATION'S PUBLIC HEALTH AGENCIES

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

             SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS

                                 OF THE

                   COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                             APRIL 29, 2022

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-80

                               __________

      Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform
      
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]      


                       Available on: govinfo.gov,
                         oversight.house.gov or
                             docs.house.gov
                             
                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
47-527 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2022                     
          
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                   COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM

                CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York, Chairwoman

Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of   James Comer, Kentucky, Ranking 
    Columbia                             Minority Member
Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts      Jim Jordan, Ohio
Jim Cooper, Tennessee                Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia         Jody B. Hice, Georgia
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois        Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Jamie Raskin, Maryland               Michael Cloud, Texas
Ro Khanna, California                Bob Gibbs, Ohio
Kweisi Mfume, Maryland               Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York   Ralph Norman, South Carolina
Rashida Tlaib, Michigan              Pete Sessions, Texas
Katie Porter, California             Fred Keller, Pennsylvania
Cori Bush, Missouri                  Andy Biggs, Arizona
Shontel M. Brown, Ohio               Andrew Clyde, Georgia
Danny K. Davis, Illinois             Nancy Mace, South Carolina
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida    Scott Franklin, Florida
Peter Welch, Vermont                 Jake LaTurner, Kansas
Henry C. ``Hank'' Johnson, Jr.,      Pat Fallon, Texas
    Georgia                          Yvette Herrell, New Mexico
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland           Byron Donalds, Florida
Jackie Speier, California            Vacancy
Robin L. Kelly, Illinois
Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan
Mark DeSaulnier, California
Jimmy Gomez, California
Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts

                      Russ Anello, Staff Director
        Jennifer Gaspar, Chief Counsel and Deputy Staff Director
                        Yusra Abdelmeguid, Clerk

                      Contact Number: 202-225-5051

                  Mark Marin, Minority Staff Director

             Select Subcommittee On The Coronavirus Crisis

               James E. Clyburn, South Carolina, Chairman
Maxine Waters, California            Steve Scalise, Louisiana, Ranking 
Carolyn B. Maloney, New York             Minority Member
Nydia M. Velazquez, New York         Jim Jordan, Ohio
Bill Foster, Illinois                Mark E. Green, Tennessee
Jamie Raskin, Maryland               Nicole Malliotakis, New York
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois        Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Iowa
                         
                         
                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Hearing held on April 29, 2022...................................     1

                               Witnesses

The Honorable Gene Dodaro, Comptroller General of the United 
  States, Government Accountability Office
Oral Statement...................................................     6

Candice Wright, M.P.P., Director, Science, Technology Assessment, 
  and Analytics, Government Accountability Office
(Speaking with Mr. Dodaro.)......................................

Sonja Rasmussen, M.D., M.S., Former Editor-in-Chief, Morbidity 
  and Mortality Weekly Report (2015 - 2018), Centers for Disease 
  Control and Prevention
Oral Statement...................................................     8

Anita Desikan, M.S., M.P.H., Senior Analyst, Center for Science 
  and Democracy, Union of Concerned Scientists
Oral Statement...................................................     7

Written opening statements and the written statements of the 
  witnesses are available on the U.S. House of Representatives 
  Document Repository at: docs.house.gov.

                           Index of Documents

                              ----------                              

The following document entered into the record during this 
  hearing is available at: docs.house.gov.

  * Report, ``Top FDA Officials Resigned Over Biden's Booster 
  Plan;'' submitted by Rep. Miller-Meeks.

 
  ENSURING SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY AT OUR NATION'S PUBLIC HEALTH AGENCIES

                              ----------                              


                         Friday, April 29, 2022

                   House of Representatives
                  Committee on Oversight and Reform
              Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis
                                                   Washington, D.C.

    The select subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:04 
a.m., remotely; Hon. James Clyburn (chairman of the 
subcommittee) presiding.
    Present: Representatives Clyburn, Maloney, Velazquez, 
Foster, Raskin, Krishnamoorthi, Scalise, Jordan, Green, 
Malliotakis, and Miller-Meeks.
    Mr. Clyburn. Good morning. The committee will come to 
order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a 
recess of the committee at any time. I now recognize myself for 
an opening statement.
    For more than two years, the scientists who serve at our 
Nation's public health agencies have been on the frontlines of 
our battle against the Coronavirus. Thanks to their tireless 
efforts and the leadership of President Biden, the worst of the 
pandemic appears to be behind us.
    Before President Biden took office, public health officials 
had to contend with more than just a deadly virus. As Americans 
were dying by the thousands, then President Trump and his 
political appointees made the calculation that his reelection 
would be more likely if the seriousness of the pandemic were 
downplayed.
    Pursuing this political strategy, Trump administration 
officials criticized and interfered with the work of the 
scientists at our Nation's public health agencies because the 
science of the Coronavirus showed a grave threat to the 
American people.
    These actions made our country sicker and did immense 
damage to our public health work force and to public trust in 
our scientific institutions.
    Last week, Congress' independent and nonpartisan watchdog 
issued a detailed report finding that government scientists 
observed incidents of political interference in the pandemic 
response that undermined the scientific integrity and 
independence of our Nation's public health agencies.
    The Government Accountability Office found in their report 
that CDC and FDA employees believed this quote that you see on 
the screen at the moment. Scientists who spoke to the GAO said 
they felt that the political--potential political interference 
they observed resulted in the alteration or suppression of 
scientific findings.
    Some believe that political interference may have resulted 
in the politically motivated alterations of public health 
guidance or delayed publication of COVID-19-related scientific 
findings.
    Career scientists across government agencies told GAO that 
they did not report incidents of political interference that 
they observed because they feared retaliation, thought 
leadership was already aware or were unsure how to report 
issues.
    GAO's findings confirm what the Select Subcommittee has 
always known--the Trump administration engaged in a persistent 
pattern of political interference in the Nation's pandemic 
response.
    Through our investigation, the Select Subcommittee has 
documented nearly 90 instances of this dangerous conduct. When 
scientific reports did not align with their political message, 
Trump administration officials tried to alter their findings, 
delay their release, or suppress them entirely.
    Career scientists were blocked from speaking to the 
American public about the risks posed by the virus and how to 
mitigate its spread. They feared retaliation from political 
appointees simply for doing their jobs.
    The Select Subcommittee continues to find new evidence 
detailing Trump administration officials' obstructions of the 
CDC's efforts to provide the American people with health 
guidance based on sound science.
    New documents released today show that after the CDC 
drafted nonbinding guidance for safely gathering in religious 
settings, senior Trump White House officials forced the 
deletion of recommendations that they found. I quote 
``offensive,'' even though they had no scientific basis on 
which to object.
    Fortunately, President Biden has made restoring scientific 
integrity a priority. The Biden administration has taken steps 
to restore the independence and integrity of our Nation's 
public health institutions, ensuring that every aspect of its 
response to the Coronavirus is based on sound science.
    President Biden created an interagency scientific integrity 
task force under the Office of Science and Technology, which 
has issued key recommendations.
    As noted by the GAO, agencies such as the CDC plan to align 
their scientific integrity trainings with these recommendations 
from the Biden administration.
    While the Biden administration has made significant 
progress in its first 15 months to restore scientific 
integrity, more work remains.
    GAO identified steps to improve longstanding institutional 
policies and procedures governing scientific integrity.
    We must work together to ensure that any attempts at 
political meddling in science by political appointees in any 
future administration are unsuccessful. The lifesaving work of 
scientists at our public health agencies must never be 
corrupted for the perceived political benefit of the President 
or for any other reason.
    No matter who sits in the Oval Office and no matter what 
public health emergencies arise in the future, the work of 
these scientists and their ability to speak to the American 
public must proceed without interference.
    We are joined today by representatives from the Government 
Accountability Office and experts who can help us look back at 
the harm to scientific integrity and chart a path to reduce the 
threat as we move forward.
    Thank you, and I will now yield to the ranking member for 
his opening statement.
    Mr. Scalise. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and also I would like 
to thank our witnesses who we will be hearing from shortly, and 
I especially want to thank Mr. Dodaro for his almost 50 years 
of continued service over at the GAO.
    This hearing should be about the political interference 
with science that is well documented under the Biden 
administration.
    Unfortunately, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
continue to use this subcommittee for political purposes as a 
poorly failed attempt to continue attacking the Trump 
administration, which, by the way, has been out of office for 
more than 15 months.
    The American people have serious questions about what is 
happening in the Biden administration. But the Democrats on 
this subcommittee continue to ignore these concerns or are 
simply shielding their political allies from accountability.
    During his campaign, President Biden promised repeatedly 
that his administration would follow the science on COVID. He 
also said he would, quote, ``shut down the virus.''
    Sadly, we have seen these hollow promises broken over and 
over again, including dramatically more deaths from COVID under 
President Biden's tenure with also three proven and effective 
vaccines that he had when he walked in the door.
    Democrats on this subcommittee, time after time, called for 
a national plan but have allowed this President to punt his 
responsibility to the states. Where are the voices on the left 
calling out this hypocrisy?
    America's parents and House Republicans spent the last year 
calling on the Biden administration to follow the science by 
issuing up reopening orders on schools, doing things like 
lifting mask mandates.
    The Biden administration continued to allow schools to be 
shut down and forced kids to be masked against the science. 
Surely, if our Democrat colleagues took their oversight 
responsibilities more seriously, we would uncover more examples 
of political influence by the Biden administration.
    But I do want to highlight what, in my view, at least, is 
the most harmful and alarming interference that we have seen 
with the science from this Biden administration. It has been 
uncovered that the Biden administration officials injected 
political interference into the CDC's school reopening guidance 
in 2021.
    Documents and testimony prove that, contrary to the CDC's 
longstanding practice of keeping draft guidance documents 
confidential, senior agency officials, including the CDC 
director herself, shared secretly draft documents of school 
guidance with the American Federation of Teachers, a political 
union with no scientific expertise but with a history of 
donating tens of millions of dollars to Democrat campaigns.
    After reviewing the draft, the union staff asked Director 
Walensky to install a trigger, as they put it, in the guidance 
to make it easier for union bosses to shut down schools. The 
CDC obliged. They went along with the union bosses' request by 
changing the science.
    And what happened? Thousands of schools across the country 
remained closed throughout the 2020 and 2021 school year. The 
damaging edits by union bosses effectively locked millions of 
children out of their classrooms, causing serious long-term 
academic and mental harm to millions of children, and this has 
been well documented, too.
    The science has been very clear about the damage done to 
our young children by shutting down schools because, in part, 
the CDC threw out the science and catered to the wishes of 
union bosses.
    On February 18, 2022, committee staff interviewed Dr. Henry 
Walke, a career CDC scientist and medical doctor. Dr. Walke 
testified this level of coordination between the CDC and an 
outside organization was, quote, ``uncommon.''
    In fact, according to Dr. Walke, the CDC does not typically 
share advance draft guidance outside the agency for any reason, 
even with other Federal partners.
    This was reaffirmed during a staff-level briefing with the 
CDC on March 2, 2022. This is political interference with the 
science, plain and simple.
    The Biden administration abandoned medical science and 
replaced it with political science, all to give one of their 
largest donors unprecedented influence, which ended up harming 
millions of young children in the process.
    This happened despite the fact that we learned way back in 
the summer of 2020 that many schools did follow the science and 
safely reopened. The evidence is clear. Keeping schools closed 
harmed kids.
    Now we can see that student learning loss due to remote or 
hybrid learning is astronomical. In addition, the impact on 
their social and emotional well-being is incredibly alarming as 
well. The child suicide rates are surging, and the Surgeon 
General has declared a youth mental health crisis.
    This is just one example of how President Biden has failed 
to follow the science relating to COVID. Playing politics with 
public health policy, as the Biden administration has done, 
harmed millions of American kids and seriously undermined 
America's trust in our public health institutions.
    It is interesting to note that Democrat examples that we 
have seen regarding political interference by the Trump 
administration involve things like looking to the First 
Amendment to protect free speech in our churches. Yes, that was 
something the administration looked at because even during a 
pandemic, the Bill of Rights is not discarded, though we have 
seen many in the Biden administration try to discard the Bill 
of Rights, including just recently, two weeks ago, when the 
courts overturned the Biden administration on their illegal 
mask mandate on planes.
    You can be at a football game with 100,000 people screaming 
without a mask, but the Biden administration was still and 
still is trying to force people on planes to have to wear 
masks.
    The option is there. They can wear two, three, or four 
masks if they want. It shouldn't be mandatory, and a Federal 
judge just made that clear. The Biden administration, by the 
way, is trying to reverse that.
    But when you look at an example that I gave of what the 
Biden administration did to go around science, it involved 
catering to union bosses to undermine the learning ability of 
our children, and we have got well documented at hearings on 
this committee over and over again from science that talked 
about how much damage has been done both academically and 
emotionally to our young kids because of that kind of political 
interference by the Biden administration.
    So I hope that Democrats on this subcommittee will stop 
trying to sweep these Biden administration interferences that 
have been documented under the rug and finally start demanding 
transparency and accountability and have hearings on that.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to hearing from our 
witnesses, and I yield back.
    Mr. Clyburn. Thank you, Mr. Scalise.
    I would now like to introduce our distinguished witnesses.
    First, I welcome back Gene Dodaro, the Comptroller General 
of the United States. Mr. Dodaro is no stranger to the members 
of the Select Subcommittee, and we appreciate his dedicated 
efforts to study and improve the Federal Government's response 
to the Coronavirus pandemic at the General Accountability 
Office. Thank you for being with us again.
    Appearing alongside Mr. Dodaro and available to answer 
members' questions about the report is Candice Wright. Ms. 
Wright is the director of science, technology assessment, and 
analytics at the Government Accountability Office. She led the 
team that conducted the GAO's recent scientific integrity 
review.
    Next, I want to welcome Dr. Sonja Rasmussen. Dr. Rasmussen 
served at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention for 20 
years, where she held various leadership positions, including 
editor in chief of CDC's flagship publication, the Morbidity 
and Mortality Weekly Report series, director of this division 
of public health information dissemination, and deputy director 
of Influenza Coordination Unit, where she worked on pandemic 
preparedness issues. At CDC, she worked on several emergency 
responses, including 2009 H1N1, Zika, and Ebola.
    Finally, I would like to welcome Anita Desikan. Ms. Desikan 
is a senior analyst for the Center for Science and Democracy at 
the Union of Concerned Scientists.
    She investigates the role of science in public policy, 
focusing on topics like scientific integrity at Federal 
agencies and political interference in the scientific 
rulemaking process.
    Will all the witnesses please raise their right hands?
    Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to 
give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, 
so help you, God?
    [Witnesses are sworn.]
    Mr. Clyburn. Let the record show that the witnesses 
answered in the affirmative. Without objection, your written 
statements will be made part of the record.
    Mr. Dodaro, you are recognized for five minutes for your 
opening statement.

  STATEMENT OF GENE DODARO, COMPTROLLER GENERAL OF THE UNITED 
            STATES, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

    Mr. Dodaro. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good morning 
to you, Ranking Member Scalise, members of the committee.
    Candice and I are very pleased to be here today to talk 
about our recent report on scientific integrity, procedures, 
and training at certain public health agencies.
    We looked at the Center for Disease Control, the Food and 
Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the 
Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response.
    Now, the focus of our review was to look at how prepared 
these key public health agencies are in order to deal with 
allegations of potential political influence in scientific 
decisionmaking.
    What we found was that each of the agencies, to some 
degree, had broad statements about trying to make sure that 
they guarded scientific integrity from such political 
pressures. However, none of them had any detailed procedures in 
place in order to report or address any allegations of 
political influence.
    This is problematic from a number of perspectives, 
including the fact people did not know how to report if they 
believed there was something inappropriate. People didn't 
understand how they would be protected from retaliation, 
similar to such protections and whistleblower legislation that 
Congress has created.
    So we recommended that all four agencies develop policies 
and procedures in order to report and address any allegations 
of potential political influence in scientific decisionmaking.
    The agencies agreed with these recommendations, and actions 
are underway to the creation of a task force and, as was 
mentioned by the chairman, the implementation of the new 
Presidential directive on scientific procedures in order to 
address GAO's recommendations.
    Now, similarly, we looked at the training that was provided 
to the scientists and other individuals within these agencies 
to see if there was a clear definition of what was meant by 
political interference, how to report, how to discuss these 
issues, what kind of safeguards they would be protected by if 
they raised these type of issues, and, again, here we found 
significant shortcomings in all the training that is provided 
to the individuals in the CDC and FDA, NIH. However, NIH had a 
little bit in their training program, but it still needed to 
be--needs to be bolstered. The Assistant Secretary for 
Preparedness and Response follows the HHS procedures, which we 
found need to be improved, both from a policy level and at the 
training level.
    Again, the agencies agreed to implement these 
recommendations. They are expected to produce new policies that 
comport with the GAO recommendations by this summer.
    Now, last, I would say, in conclusion, we are also 
continuing our work to look at how these agencies are 
structured and whether or not there are some other 
recommendations that we might make to the Congress to make some 
modifications that might better safeguard from any allegations 
of political influence.
    So I thank you for the opportunity to talk about our report 
today, and Candice and I will be happy to respond to questions 
at the appropriate time, Mr. Chairman.
    Thank you very much.
    Mr. Clyburn. Thank you, Mr. Dodaro.
    We will now hear from Ms. Desikan.
    Ms. Desikan, you are recognized for five minutes.

STATEMENT OF ANITA DESIKAN, SENIOR ANALYST, CENTER FOR SCIENCE 
          AND DEMOCRACY, UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS

    Ms. Desikan. Thank you, Chairman Clyburn, Ranking Member 
Scalise, and members of the subcommittee, for holding this 
important hearing.
    My name is Anita Desikan. I am a senior analyst for the 
Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned 
Scientists, or UCS for short.
    For nearly a decade, I have worked as a public health 
researcher and have acted as a leading subject matter expert 
for a strong science-based and equitable response to the 
pandemic. I am thrilled to talk to you today about the need for 
strong scientific integrity protections across the government 
and especially at our Nation's public health agencies.
    Scientific integrity refers to a process by which 
independent science can fully and transparently inform policy 
decisions free from inappropriate political, financial, 
ideological, or other undue influences.
    UCS has played a leading role in researching scientific 
integrity and its role in science-based policymaking since 
2004. Scientific integrity is integral to protecting the health 
and safety of communities across the Nation, especially 
underserved communities. The pandemic has shown in the starkest 
terms possible why scientific integrity matters.
    The COVID-19 pandemic was and continues to be a public 
health crisis of unimaginable scale and devastation. The number 
of people in the U.S. who have died from COVID-19 is expected 
to soon reach 1 million.
    There is likely no person--no person--who is untouched by 
the fear, the loneliness, the hardships that the spread of this 
virus has wrought. This is especially true for Black, 
indigenous, people of color, low income, and rural communities 
throughout the U.S. for which the pandemic has--for which they 
have faced disproportionate harm and heartache during this 
pandemic.
    Science has been pivotal to protecting the health and 
safety of people during the pandemic. But the role of science 
in decisionmaking goes far beyond vaccines and lifesaving 
treatments.
    The use of the best available science is required by 
numerous public health laws and policies to protect the public 
from serious threats such as air pollution, toxic chemicals, 
and climate change impacts. Science, in other words, has played 
a major role in safeguarding the lives of millions over 
generations.
    However, science at Federal agencies has long faced a 
serious problem. Since at least the 1950's, some in government, 
often those with power and influence, have politicized Federal 
science in service of their political agendas. Such tactics 
have included varying studies, censoring scientists, and 
halting data collection.
    These attempts can have enormous consequences. For 
instance, the Trump administration's numerous attempts during 
the pandemic to silence experts from speaking to the public and 
line editing, delaying or blocking the release of scientific 
documents deeply eroded public trust in scientific 
institutions, and the lack of clear scientific information 
coming from Federal scientists opened the door to the enormous 
spread of online misinformation and disinformation, the effects 
of which we are still dealing with to this day.
    And these were not isolated incidents. According to our 
research, the Trump administration attacked science 204 times, 
which averages to an attack on science occurring once a week 
every week for four years.
    Since 2005, UCS has conducted periodic surveys on 
scientific integrity to thousands of Federal scientists across 
the government and across the past three Presidential 
administrations.
    In every survey we have conducted, we have found a 
connection between workplace morale and scientific integrity. 
When Federal scientists felt that they could do their jobs and 
communicate about their work without undue political 
interference, they were more likely to report personal job 
satisfaction and that their agency was effective in carrying 
out its mission.
    The only way to prevent current and future administrations 
from engaging in politically motivated attempts to crush 
science is to put strong guardrails in place.
    Most science-based agencies have scientific integrity 
policies, but they can vary wildly in the rights and 
protections they have for their scientists. For instance, few 
agencies specify that political appointees are required to 
follow scientific integrity guidelines and fewer agencies 
appear willing to investigate a scientific integrity violation 
when a political appointee is involved.
    While the current system is functioning, it is full of 
holes. It is like water going through a leaky hose. Therefore, 
we need stronger and more comprehensive measures like the 
Scientific Integrity Act to plug these holes.
    This would help ensure that agency decisions are informed 
by the best available science to protect people from the 
effects of the pandemic and other public health threats. The 
public needs and deserves a government that is willing to 
strengthen scientific integrity policies for the public good.
    Thank you very much.
    Mr. Clyburn. Thank you very much, Ms. Desikan.
    Finally, we will hear from Dr. Rasmussen.
    Dr. Rasmussen, you are recognized for five minutes.

     STATEMENT OF SONJA RASMUSSEN, FORMER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, 
  MORBIDITY, AND MORTALITY WEEKLY REPORT, CENTERS FOR DISEASE 
                            CONTROL

    Dr. Rasmussen. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Clyburn, 
Ranking Member Scalise, and distinguished members of the 
committee. Thank you for the invitation to testify on the 
importance of ensuring the scientific integrity of our Nation's 
public health agencies.
    I am Dr. Sonja Rasmussen, a pediatrician, clinical 
geneticist, and epidemiologist. For 20 years, from 1998 to 
2018, I worked at the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention.
    During this time, I served in a variety of leadership roles 
in birth defects, infectious diseases, pandemic planning, 
emergency preparedness, and response, and as editor in chief of 
CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, or MMWR.
    I am an author of over 270 publications and lead editor of 
the CDC Field Epidemiology Manual, the guide used by the CDC to 
train epidemic intelligence service officers on how to 
investigate and respond to acute public health events.
    I am honored to come before this committee.
    Since early 2020, when we first heard reports of a novel 
Coronavirus, I have closely followed the CDC's response to 
COVID-19. I had served during several CDC responses to 2009 
H1N1, Ebola, and Zika, so I knew what my former colleagues were 
facing.
    Working on a CDC response to a public health emergency is 
challenging. The situation is rapidly evolving, and decisions 
need to be based on limited data. The stakes are high, people 
are sick and dying, and the situation is highly visible. 
Americans want answers now on how to protect themselves and 
their loved ones from the emerging public health threat.
    Developing interim guidance is a difficult process to weigh 
the benefits of an intervention against the potential risks, 
often while the information in which you are basing those 
decisions is constantly changing.
    With a new pathogen like the virus that causes COVID-19, 
guidance development is particularly difficult. Many questions 
are coming up. How is this new pathogen transmitted? Is it an 
aerosol or blood? How important is the transmission from 
surfaces? Can infected persons transmit the virus before they 
show symptoms? Just to name a few.
    You need to consider logistical issues. For example, if you 
are recommending that people wear masks, are there enough 
available, or are they needed for frontline health workers who 
can mitigate the impact of the pandemic's effects?
    Feasibility is a critical consideration. Thus, you obtain 
input from key stakeholders, people who will be implementing 
the guidance that you are developing. Then you need to 
communicate that guidance and emphasize that it will change as 
additional information becomes available.
    Fortunately, I knew that the CDC scientists have the 
expertise, knowledge, and experience to guide these public 
health decisions and are dedicated to maintaining their 
scientific rigor and integrity throughout the process.
    As the former editor-in-chief of the MMWR, I was also 
closely following their publications. MMWR has long been 
considered to be the voice of the CDC with a focus on 
communicating timely, authoritative, accurate, objective 
scientific reports to guide public health action.
    It is a well-respected publication, highly cited, and has a 
broad readership in the public health and medical communities. 
MMWR has served a critical role in providing up-to-date 
information during previous health crises.
    For example, in 1981, cases of what later became known as 
AIDS were first reported in the MMWR, which prompted reporting 
of additional cases and subsequent identification of the 
disease.
    One of the most difficult situations for me to hear about 
during the pandemic has been reports of political interference 
with the development of COVID-19 guidelines and demands to 
review and make changes to MMWR articles.
    These reports threatened the credibility of the CDC and 
MMWR, essential sources of information to guide us through the 
pandemic.
    Watching CDC, an institution that is highly revered around 
the world and to which I had dedicated my life's work, lose the 
trust of so many Americans was painful, and to watch that lack 
of trust lead to more deaths from COVID-19 has truly been a 
tragedy.
    We know that we will be challenged by future public health 
threats, whether another emerging infection, a bioterrorist 
attack, or a radiation emergency. It is essential that 
safeguards be put in place to protect the scientific integrity 
of public health agencies so that the American people know that 
they can trust the guidance that is coming from them.
    To maintain that trust, these agencies need to be free of 
political influence. Our ability to protect the health of 
Americans during future public health threats depends on it.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Clyburn. Thank you very much, Ms. Rasmussen.
    We will now go into five minutes of questions for each 
member, and before I ask my question, I want to respond to the 
ranking member. I see he is off the screen. I am going to 
reserve until he gets back up because I really would--well, I 
see----
    Mr. Scalise. Hi, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Clyburn. OK. Well, thank you because I really wanted to 
respond to something you said in your ranking statement before 
we get to the questions. I want to do it with you present and 
give you an opportunity to respond to this.
    You mentioned the Biden administration's interference as it 
relates to school safety protocols when we were trying to get 
schools reopened. I do consider this as an attempt to distract 
from what we are trying to get to here in terms of interfering 
with the work of our scientists.
    You know, we have had multiple CDC officials to come before 
this committee, and they have made it very clear to us that it 
is not--I want to emphasize it is not improper for CDC to 
engage with stakeholders. Engaging with stakeholders is 
something totally different from trying to discredit the work 
of scientists.
    In fact, if you recall, Dr. Robert Redfield, director of 
the CDC under President Trump, told us. I am quoting him here, 
``It wasn't unusual for the CDC, when they were developing 
guidance, to reach out for discussion purposes to groups that 
may be affected by the guidance. That is what CDC did,'' end of 
quote.
    Now, that is totally different from trying to discredit the 
work of scientists.
    Mr. Scalise. Mr. Chairman, can I respond to that?
    Mr. Clyburn. I yield to you for your response.
    Mr. Scalise. I appreciate it.
    We had a hearing on this, and, in fact, I brought this up 
to CDC Director Walensky herself, and as you recall--and I 
mentioned this in my opening statement--Dr. Walke, who is over 
at the CDC, is somebody that we interviewed. He said it was 
unprecedented to give that kind of access weeks in advance of a 
report coming out to then make line-by-line edits, and this is 
what I pointed out to Dr. Walensky.
    It wasn't just that she was sharing it with people as the 
process was going on. It was that she allowed an outside 
group--a political union--to make complete wholesale changes to 
a scientific document before it came out and didn't afford 
other people that opportunity.
    And by the way, Mr. Chairman, at that hearing, I 
specifically asked Dr. Walensky for names of other 
organizations. I said, were there any parent organizations that 
were afforded that same VIP access that the unions had? And she 
implied there were, and I said, give me specific examples. And 
to this day, Mr. Chairman, I have not gotten a single example 
back from Dr. Walensky to the question, and she said in this 
hearing while she was under oath that she would send me 
specific examples and said there were some, and she has yet to 
send me a single one.
    The only one we know of is the union, and it was very well 
documented that the union got VIP access that even Dr. Walke 
says was not afforded to other people in other settings for CDC 
guidance.
    That is what I brought up to Dr. Walensky herself. Even 
when she said there were other examples, she has yet to provide 
me with a single one, and that hearing was weeks ago.
    Mr. Clyburn. Well, I appreciate that, and I don't want to 
be argumentative here, but, you know, I do not wish to let 
stand unchallenged any attempts to discredit the efforts of 
authorities to engage with those people who are going to be 
affected by the decisions that we make irrespective of----
    Mr. Scalise. Well, when it is selective--no, Mr. Chairman, 
this was one-sided. Only one group was given that opportunity, 
and others weren't, and, again, even in the examples--I haven't 
seen real examples from the majority regarding the Trump 
administration. There sure are a lot of accusations against the 
Trump administration. But if accusations can be made against 
President Trump's administration without what I have seen as 
documented examples--I have given documented examples, and we 
even had a hearing on it where the CDC director herself 
acknowledged it happened. Someone else at CDC said it was 
unprecedented for that to happen.
    So within the CDC, you don't have unanimity, and this is 
why science matters. But scientists, just by putting on a lab 
coat, don't go above the law because not all scientists agree. 
Even within the CDC, we had a disagreement at that hearing.
    And so, let us get the facts out there. I documented my 
example and stand by it. I am still waiting for a response from 
Director Walensky. She said before all of us on this committee 
that she would give us more examples. She has yet to give me 
one.
    Mr. Clyburn. Well, I can appreciate that. But I seem to 
recall, if you remember, we had some hearings here--this 
committee did--regarding the meatpacking industry--the 
meatpacking industry, and I assure you that we are aware that 
the previous administration engaged with and allowed the 
meatpacking industry to review their work.
    Now, this is not unprecedented, and I will gladly get this 
to you after the meeting if you don't remember it. I do.
    OK. With that, I will go to--I am sorry? OK.
    Mr. Scalise. No, I said this will continue and----
    Mr. Clyburn. OK.
    Mr. Scalise [continuing]. We will wait for more information 
from CDC as well.
    Mr. Clyburn. Very good. Well, I now yield myself five 
minutes for the questions.
    I am kind of troubled about the GAO findings. The CDC and 
FDA scientists--and I am quoting them here--felt that potential 
political interference they observed resulted in the alteration 
or suppression of scientific findings, including findings 
related to the Coronavirus.
    Dr. Dodaro, what led GAO to make these findings?
    You are muted. Please unmute yourself.
    Mr. Dodaro. I am sorry, Mr. Chairman.
    I will ask Candice to elaborate on this. But our first 
report here that we are talking about today wasn't really 
intended. One of the objectives was not to document individual 
examples of political interference in scientific 
decisionmaking.
    What we focused on is what some of the institutional 
processes were that needed to be addressed in order to deal 
with accusations that might come during any administration.
    But while we were doing that, some of the people that we 
talked to identified these concerns that they had, and when we 
asked them why they didn't report, they didn't know how to, or 
they feared retaliation, rather, and that is how we got to this 
documentation. So, you know, the result of our recommendations 
was to, you know, have better procedures in place for reporting 
and addressing this issue.
    Candice, can you elaborate, please?
    Ms. Wright. Certainly.
    So, Chairman Clyburn, with regard to that issue, employees 
told us as we were conducting our interviews with them that 
they had these concerns. They had these observations. And so 
the information was provided and included in the report, 
really, to be able to set up where there are gaps in the system 
and where there are areas to strengthen with regard to having 
procedures in place to be able to report and also address any 
concerns about potential political interference.
    So that information, really, was just included in the 
report to set up those recommendations to show that there are 
these gaps, and these are some things that the agencies can do 
to continue to strengthen their scientific integrity policies 
and processes with the goal of achieving their desired effort 
to maintain a culture of scientific integrity.
    Mr. Clyburn. Well, thank you. I know--I wanted you to 
expand on that a little bit. But if that is all you care to say 
about it, that is fine.
    But let me to go to Ms. Desikan.
    Ms. Desikan, how would you characterize the Trump 
administration's record on scientific integrity and 
independence?
    Ms. Desikan. Thank you for the question, Chairman Clyburn.
    The Trump administration--so we at the Union of Concerned 
Scientists have been watchdogging administrations since 2005 on 
scientific integrity violations, and during the Trump 
administration, what we noticed was a spike in comparison to 
prior administrations.
    So one aspect of our research was scientific integrity 
violations occur at all administrations, at least since the 
1950's and probably before then. But we documented 204 attacks 
on science by the Trump administration, 29 of which were 
related to COVID-19 directly.
    These impacts had enormous consequences. This would include 
a culture of fear within the agencies. This would include a 
lack of scientific information being shared with the public, an 
inability to communicate during a crisis situation like COVID, 
and an inability to use science to protect people's health and 
safety.
    So thank you for that question.
    Mr. Clyburn. Well, thank you. I don't have but a few 
seconds left. So I am going to open with another question. Let 
me yield to the ranking member five minutes for questions.
    Mr. Scalise. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And, you know, as we talked about earlier, we did have a 
hearing in this committee regarding, among other things, 
interference that was well documented by the Biden 
administration where the CDC was getting ready to come out with 
guidance for reopening schools.
    They, weeks in advance, shared it with the head of the 
largest teachers union in the country. There were back and 
forth emails that we uncovered where the CDC director was 
asking what they thought of it.
    The union expressed concern because they said it doesn't 
give them enough power to close down schools. They actually 
gave specific suggestions of changes and, lo and behold, within 
the final guidance, almost word for word, the union's changes 
were included in the scientific guidance so that it would be 
easier to shut down schools.
    And as I mentioned to the chairman when I asked the CDC 
director about it, she acknowledged it happened, and I said, 
were there any other groups afforded this opportunity. She said 
there were. I asked her to send me those specific names, and I 
have yet to receive a single one.
    So I would ask Mr. Dodaro, as you are talking about 
concerns about political interference, when we have that well-
documented example of guidance from scientists getting ready to 
come out on opening up schools and then a union that wants to 
have an ability to make it easier to shut schools down says, 
wait, we would like you to make these changes and those changes 
are made verbatim, have you seen examples like that in other 
cases and would you consider that specific example political 
interference in the science?
    Mr. Dodaro. Yes. We have not looked at this particular 
example that you are mentioning, Congressman Scalise, and I 
will ask Candice if there are other examples that we ran across 
that are on a comparable basis.
    But I would say before I turn to her, though, the concern 
that I have had on this whole issue is that there is not a 
process in place to thoroughly address these issues within CDC 
to investigate it, to be reported, screened, investigated, 
responded to. These are allegations that could be made by 
Congress as well as by people within the agencies, and I think 
that is a significant shortcoming regardless of what type of 
allegation it is.
    Candice, can you help in responding here?
    Ms. Wright. Certainly.
    So, Ranking Member Scalise, on this particular issue, we 
have not identified other instances of involvement by external 
parties in the work that we have done. In other discussions 
that we have had with former agency heads, we have heard that 
sometimes there is a practice to engage with stakeholders.
    However, it is really not clear to us from the procedures 
that are in place what requirements are in place in terms of 
who is consulted for input when that happens.
    Mr. Scalise. And if I could--I am sorry, because I am going 
to come back to this because I do think this is an important 
point in--this broad issue of what is political interference 
with the science.
    The first assumption is that the science is all unanimous, 
and we have seen in many examples scientists themselves 
disagree on a lot of these big questions. Even within the CDC 
example, Dr. Walensky said she does this all the time. Dr. 
Walke said they never do it. And so scientists within CDC had 
very big disagreement even on how outside influence is even 
allowed.
    So that question, I think, is important. But then as we get 
to--we have had a lot of debates over scientists coming and 
saying we should be opening up schools. Many scientists have 
said that.
    So the idea that there is a consensus amongst science, I 
think, is something we have got to be very careful about 
because, in many cases, we find out there is wide disagreement 
amongst scientists. If one scientist doesn't get their way, 
they say there is political interference when it is not 
political interference. Maybe they are just wrong.
    There was a recent example just a week and a half ago. A 
Federal court ruled that President Biden's mandate that planes 
have to require people to wear masks was thrown out by a 
Federal judge, and quickly, that same day, almost every major 
airline dropped the mask mandate. Biden is now appealing that.
    But in response, Dr. Fauci said quote, ``We are concerned 
about the courts getting involved in things that are 
unequivocally a public health decision. This is a CDC issue. It 
should not have been a court issue.''
    I am not sure if he realizes there are three branches of 
government and that the courts are one. Do you believe that any 
agency, including the CDC, is above the law if the law says 
something differently than an agency does?
    If anybody wants to answer that I would be happy to open 
it.
    Mr. Dodaro. I think that the courts have a role here in our 
system of government and that, you know, it is an issue that 
people can pursue whether or not--Congress always has the 
prerogative to change the law if the courts disagree.
    So, you know, our system of government should be allowed to 
work as intended with the proper checks and balances.
    Mr. Scalise. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I see I am out of time. 
I yield back.
    Mr. Clyburn. I thank the ranking member for yielding back.
    The chair now recognizes Mrs. Maloney for five minutes.
    Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding 
this important hearing.
    More than two years ago, the Oversight Committee held one 
of the first hearings with Dr. Fauci and other top health 
officials regarding the Trump administration's response to the 
Coronavirus pandemic. Since that first hearing, the Select 
Subcommittee's investigations have found that the Trump 
appointees retaliated against public health officials for 
sharing accurate information about the Coronavirus with the 
public.
    For instance, multiple CDC officials confirmed that the 
Trump White House blocked CDC from conducting any public 
briefings for more than three months during the early months of 
the pandemic because President Trump was angry about truthful 
information that had been shared.
    This morning, the Select Subcommittee released new evidence 
that former CDC Director Robert Redfield called this decision 
quote ``one of the greatest disappointments,'' end quote.
    Ms. Desikan, what kind of damage does it cause when 
scientists are blocked from speaking out during a crisis?
    Ms. Desikan. Thank you for the question, Congresswoman.
    So the example that you gave here about the CDC being 
unable to speak to the public during the Coronavirus pandemic 
in 2020 is one that we have been deeply concerned about 
ourselves.
    So I was--I have emphasized in my written testimony I was 
the lead author of a report that we released in May 2020 to 
look specifically at whether the CDC was holding press 
briefings in comparison to previous epidemics like the H1 
epidemic--influenza epidemic--and the SARS epidemic. We found 
was that they were silenced for months on end, and that is also 
confirming findings from this very House subcommittee too.
    Chairwoman Maloney. Reclaiming my time because I have 
limited time.
    I am very troubled by the revelation in GAO's report that 
career scientists did not report incidents of political 
interference to any agency or any external officials because 
they, quote, ``feared retaliation,'' end quote, or thought, 
quote, ``thought leadership was already aware,'' end quote.
    So, Mr. Dodaro, what did GAO find about why career 
officials were reluctant to speak up about political 
interference that they observed?
    Mr. Dodaro. I will ask Candice to elaborate. But one of the 
reasons was that they were unsure who to report to in these 
cases. One of the things--we looked back over 10 years, 
Congresswoman Maloney. There was not one formal complaint filed 
during that period of time, and that spanned multiple 
administrations.
    But I think the--it was not part of the institutional norms 
to help people identify how to report, and so if you don't know 
how to report your concern about retaliation, then these things 
will not get surfaced in a systematic way that they could be 
dealt with thoroughly.
    Candice, any other thoughts on this?
    Ms. Wright. Certainly. Thank you.
    I would also just add on this point that part of the reason 
that scientists didn't report it is because they feared 
retaliation. However, we have called for agencies to implement 
procedures, and as part of the procedures that, they would also 
include protections for CDC, FDA, and NIH employees--other HHS 
employees--to highlight for them the protections that might be 
in place or could be afforded to them if they were to report.
    And the other piece I would also like to touch on is with 
regard to leadership being aware is that in some cases, 
employees thought leadership was aware and, therefore, didn't 
think that they needed to report it.
    But we did also hear of instances where they weren't sure 
if they did report it, even though leadership was aware whether 
they were actually going to take any action.
    Chairwoman Maloney. OK. Mr. Dodaro, did your report find 
that our public health agencies have adequate anti-retaliation 
policies in place to protect scientists?
    Mr. Dodaro. We didn't--and I will ask Candice to clarify--
but I don't think we focused on that particular issue. But we 
felt that there weren't procedures in place that needed to be 
put in place, including protections of people against 
retaliation. Clearly, the employees we talked to weren't aware 
of anything if it was there, and we didn't find anything in the 
training.
    Chairwoman Maloney. Can you expand on what respondents from 
CDC, FDA, and NIH told you or told GAO about why they feared 
retaliation? Why did they fear retaliation? Was anyone 
threatening them? Or why did they fear retaliation?
    Mr. Dodaro. Yes. Candice, would you respond, please?
    Ms. Wright. The employees did not elaborate specifically on 
why they feared retaliation. I think some of it had to do with 
media reports that they were seeing of other incidents, and 
that could have affected their thinking on that issue.
    Chairwoman Maloney. My time has expired. Mr. Chairman, we 
have to learn from this dark chapter and take steps that this 
never happens again and that our scientists are protected and 
speaking truthfully about what they know.
    I yield back. Thank you.
    Mr. Clyburn. Thank you very much, Mrs. Maloney, for 
yielding back.
    The chair now recognizes Mr. Jordan for five minutes.
    Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Desikan, how many 
scientific integrity violations did you say you found during 
the Trump administration?
    Ms. Desikan. Two hundred and four.
    Mr. Jordan. And how many were relative to COVID?
    Ms. Desikan. Twenty-nine.
    Mr. Jordan. Have you found any scientific integrity 
violations with the Biden administration?
    Ms. Desikan. The Biden administration, obviously, is still 
ongoing, but yes, we have found at least one.
    Mr. Jordan. One. And how many are in COVID?
    Ms. Desikan. None related to COVID.
    Mr. Jordan. None? So when Dr. Walensky said that the 
vaccinated can't get the virus, that wasn't a scientific 
integrity violation?
    Ms. Desikan. So my----
    Mr. Jordan [continuing]. False.
    Ms. Desikan. Yes, thank you, Congressman. So my 
organization has a specific definition for how we define an 
attack on science. You can see more in my written testimony on 
that and----
    Mr. Jordan. She is the head of the CDC, and she said a 
statement that is absolutely 100 percent positively false. She 
said the vaccinated could not get the virus. She actually said 
the vaccinated couldn't transmit the virus. We know those--both 
of those statements are false, and you haven't found those as a 
scientific integrity violation?
    Ms. Desikan. Again, we can get back to you in writing to 
discuss this more.
    Mr. Jordan. You also said in your opening statement that 
misinformation erodes trust in public institutions. Did it 
erode trust in a public institution--did it erode trust in the 
CDC when the head of the CDC said that the vaccinated cannot 
get the virus?
    Ms. Desikan. Again, I can't speak on this specific issue.
    Mr. Jordan. It is a simple question. When the head of the 
CDC, a pretty important public institution, when we are talking 
about COVID--and you have pointed out the Trump administration 
supposedly did scientific integrity violations--when the head 
of the CDC says something that is absolutely false and, yet, 
that is not any--the simple question, does that erode trust in 
public institutions?
    Ms. Desikan. Again, we can get back to you in writing to 
describe this answer in more detail.
    Mr. Jordan. I will forward to it.
    Did it erode trust in a public institution and would it be 
a scientific integrity violation when the head of the CDC 
allowed the teachers union to edit the guidance on school 
reopenings, which is exactly what Dr. Walensky did? Would that 
be a scientific integrity violation?
    Ms. Desikan. That is an investigation that--I can't comment 
on the specific details. But we do agree that the process of 
investigating scientific integrity violation is important. 
There needs to be investigations to examine the evidence.
    Mr. Jordan. How about when Dr. Fauci said that this virus 
didn't start in a lab? Is that a concern? Does that erode 
trust? Because it sure looks like it did. All the evidence 
points there. Is that something you are going to investigate?
    Ms. Desikan. We can describe this more in writing. I am 
not----
    Mr. Jordan. What about when he said it wasn't gain of 
function research done at the lab in Wuhan, China? Are you 
going to investigate that? Because that--it sure looks like it 
was gain of function research.
    Ms. Desikan. Again, I can't specifically talk on this 
particular incident.
    Mr. Jordan. What about when Dr. Fauci said American tax 
dollars were not used at the Wuhan Institute of Virology when, 
in fact, we know they were? Was that a scientific integrity 
violation?
    Dr. Fauci, the smartest guy on the planet, the highest-paid 
guy in our government, the head of the--of NIAID, when he said 
that was that a scientific integrity violation that you guys 
should be looking into?
    Ms. Desikan. Again, I can't speak on specifics that you are 
raising here, but I can bring it up in our written testimony to 
you responding. I am here to talk about how scientific 
integrity----
    Mr. Jordan. Joe Biden said he would not impose a vaccine 
mandate. When Jen Psaki said, they weren't going to impose a 
vaccine mandate, when Jeff Zients, the White House COVID-19 
response coordinator, said, quote, ``That is not an authority 
we are exploring at all,'' and then just a few months later 
they actually did that, did that erode trust in public 
institutions?
    When they said, three different occasions--the top people 
in the administration said they would not impose the mandate 
and then turn around and did. Does that erode trust in public 
institutions?
    Ms. Desikan. Again, some of these--some of these issues 
that you bring up are actually in the policy realm and not in 
the science realm. The policy can use nonscientific information 
to guide its processes. Scientific integrity is more specific 
on the process of researching, on data collection----
    Mr. Jordan. This scientific integrity issue, when the head 
of CDC says that the vaccinated cannot get the virus, is that 
something that science--that you should look into?
    Ms. Desikan. Again, I can't comment on the CDC procedures 
in depth.
    Mr. Jordan. I just--I would just--I just think it is 
important we understand the inconsistencies here. This is--you 
know, you have 20 some violations--scientific integrity 
violations of the Trump administration, and yet you haven't 
looked at anything relative to the Biden administration where 
they said things that were absolutely positively 100 percent 
false, and when they let an outside political organization edit 
the school reopening guidance--they let them edit that--that 
has to be eroding trust in public institutions. I am just using 
the words from your testimony.
    And I see I am over time, Mr. Chairman, so I will yield 
back.
    Mr. Clyburn. Thank you for yielding back, Mr. Jordan.
    The chair now recognizes Ms. Velazquez for five minutes.
    Ms. Velazquez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this 
important hearing.
    Mr. Dodaro--and I am going to give you ample opportunity to 
respond to my questions without interrupting--the GAO's new 
report says that to maintain public trust and credibility, 
agencies must ensure their decisions are, and I quote, 
``evidence-based and free from political interference.'' How 
will GAO's recommendations help agencies like CDC and FDA 
achieve that goal?
    Mr. Dodaro. Well, first of all, it will--if they follow our 
recommendations, they will have instituted institutional 
protections to be able to respond thoroughly to any allegation 
that comes up because they should have a process of how it gets 
reported. It gets screened. It gets investigated. They respond 
to the allegation in writing and then discuss anything if 
necessary that needs to be done.
    So right now, you don't have a good process, so there is a 
lot of anecdotal information. But there is not a systematic 
evaluation of the allegations. So it should enhance public 
trust if implemented properly.
    Ms. Velazquez. Thank you.
    And, Mr. Dodaro, will the recommendations made by the GAO, 
if properly implemented, help protect against any future 
administration attempts to discourage the sharing of 
information in an open and transparent manner?
    Mr. Dodaro. Yes. Well, I don't think anything would be 
necessarily a panacea to ensure that any future administrations 
don't try things or other parties. But what it will ensure is 
that nothing that is alleged goes uninvestigated and dealt with 
properly, either defended or making a change.
    I think it could also have a salutary benefit by empowering 
employees to feel more protected in raising this issue so, 
thereby, it may have a deterrent effect as well to help people 
not, you know, move in this direction to try to interfere with 
the process, knowing that there is a well established process 
for investigating such matters and the employees are trained to 
recognize this. So I think it will help a great bit.
    Ms. Velazquez. Thank you.
    Dr. Rasmussen, during your time at the CDC you helped the 
agency respond to other outbreaks like Zika, swine flu, Ebola, 
under both Republican and Democratic administrations. So can 
you please explain why public trust in the CDC and the 
information it publishes during a public health emergency is so 
important?
    Dr. Rasmussen. Yes. I do think that CDC has been and should 
be seen as the experts on public health emergencies. People 
there have spent their lives working to learn the best ways to 
protect the American people from emerging infections and other 
threats, and so I think it is really important that people at 
CDC have the ability to speak to the American people and 
present their results and talk about the best way, what is 
known, what is unknown.
    You know, we learn--as I tried to give in my testimony, we 
learn as responses go along and we learn more information. But 
to give people this is what we know, this is what we don't 
know, this is what we are trying to find out, I think that is 
also important.
    Thank you.
    Ms. Velazquez. Thank you.
    And, Ms. Desikan--sorry if I am mispronouncing your name--
the Trump administration's undermining of science and experts 
led many of the scientists working in this institution to leave 
public office. What steps have been taken to rebuild this work 
force to ensure that there are qualified experts in these 
positions?
    Ms. Desikan. Yes. Thank you for the question, 
Congresswoman. There really is a tie to whether Federal 
scientists feel comfortable working in the agency and political 
interference steps to undermine that process.
    So when scientists feel like they can't, they don't know 
who to go to when they are seeing a potential scientific 
integrity violation. They don't know who to talk to. They don't 
know what procedures--and they don't even know whether that 
enforcement of that--if they are finding a correct violation 
whether that will actually go through.
    This will lead to why be here, my work isn't meaningful, 
and just the--a decrease of the ability to--for scientists to 
actually be able to do work to help all of us across the 
Nation.
    Ms. Velazquez. Thank you. Thank you for that answer.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Clyburn. I thank the gentlelady for yielding back.
    The chair now recognizes Dr. Green for five minutes.
    Mr. Green. Thank you, Chairman Clyburn and Ranking Member 
Scalise, and I want to thank our witnesses for being here 
today.
    You know, today is another missed opportunity for us to 
investigate issues that deserve the attention of this 
subcommittee, and one of the critical failures of the Federal 
Government's pandemic response, in my view, was the outsized 
focus on vaccines as the primary answer to COVID while 
therapeutics took a backseat.
    Tests and vaccines are crucial tools but effective 
therapeutics are indispensable for saving the lives of COVID 
patients. The FDA and the CDC sidelined their expert advisory 
committees for booster shots, prompting two senior FDA vaccine 
officials to leave the agency in protest, all during the Biden 
administration, I might add.
    At the same time, the FDA showed little urgency in 
authorizing drugs that had well-documented efficacy in 
mitigating the severity of COVID. Along those lines, where was 
the priority for investigating treatments such as combination 
therapies?
    Congressman Foster and I wrote a letter demanding that this 
be addressed--a bipartisan letter, I might add. Was there a 
bias that led the FDA and its senior leaders to emphasize 
vaccines and downplay therapeutics? These are serious questions 
that we should be investigating so we can improve our 
preparedness for future pandemics.
    The Biden administration's mixed messages demonstrate that 
behind their, quote, ``follow the science'' slogan their true 
guiding light is political. The administration believes that 
public health requires forcing everyone to wear a mask on well-
ventilated planes though not in stadiums packed with thousands 
of fans screaming at the top of their lungs.
    But the same officials have determined that lifting the 
Title 42 at the border is not a public health risk. That makes 
no sense. It is hypocrisy. It is not science.
    The science applies differently depending on what radical 
progressive priorities really are. Public health requires 
public trust and, unfortunately, the CDC and other public 
health agencies have seriously damaged their credibility with 
the public during this pandemic by avoiding transparency and 
acting in accordance with political aims while pretending to 
justify these actions were science.
    In early 2021, the CDC outsourced the Biden 
administration's school guidance to the American Federation of 
Teachers, also known as AFT, a teachers union that endorsed Joe 
Biden in the Democratic primary, donated millions of dollars to 
liberal candidates and PACs in the 2020 election cycle. 
Teachers unions gave more than $40 million to Democrat and 
liberal PACs in the 2020 election.
    In fact, according to Open Secrets, Democrats made up 99 
percent of AFT's donations. No single action has done more to 
undermine the trust and the integrity in the CDC than this 
decision to place the political interests of the Biden 
administration over the interests of millions of children.
    This is a political interference at the highest order. The 
CDC went far beyond the usual practice, as been said already, 
of soliciting input from various groups. The White House and 
the CDC allowed the AFT to edit and rewrite the guidance line 
by line.
    The guidance was then presented with the full weight of the 
CDC's medical credibility behind it, not once disclosing that 
the language was written by AFT, a partisan political entity 
with no scientific experience and, clearly, a financial donor. 
The CDC never disclosed the extent of AFT's involvement.
    In medicine, we have well established professional 
guidelines around the proper attribution of sources and the 
disclosure of conflicts of interest. Yet, such standards of 
integrity were completely tossed aside by the CDC when they 
allowed an outside political player favored by the Biden 
administration to rewrite the guidance to suit its own needs. 
The problem is that significant parts aren't CDC guidance at 
all. They are teacher union guidance to keep schools closed, 
and they chose not to disclose any of this.
    Why does it matter? Well, this wasn't reopening guidance. 
Thanks to the efforts of union bosses, the CDC guidance made it 
more likely schools would close. At the same time the CDC was 
collaborating with a left-wing political group to keep schools 
closed we had abundant evidence of severe harm school closures 
inflict upon our children and the clear need to reopen.
    The CDC knew that students were falling behind 
academically. They knew there was a mental health crisis 
spiraling out of control amongst our youth. The CDC knew all 
this, but thousands of schools remained closed for months 
because they chose to place political allies of President Biden 
above the well being of our students.
    If we want to investigate partisan political corruption in 
Federal agencies, why don't we start there?
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Clyburn. I thank the gentleman for yielding back.
    The chair now recognizes Mr. Foster for five minutes and, 
hopefully, you have got a question.
    Mr. Foster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    First, I would like to thank Dr. Rasmussen for the really 
excellent description of the challenges of providing real-time 
guidance in times of scientific uncertainty, and to the GAO for 
their emphasis on the need for a consistent process in 
resolving the tradeoffs that--and to adhere to this consistent 
process in an emergency.
    I think one of the big difficulties we are having in this 
discussion today is the difficulty of separating the scientific 
process from the resolution of policy tradeoffs. You know, for 
example, in the tradeoffs involved in schools opening, the 
scientific part of this is to quantify, as best you can, if you 
decide to open schools under certain conditions how many more 
people will die or get long COVID and, on the other hand, how 
the educational performance of our children will suffer.
    And then the political part--the appropriately political 
part--is to make the policy decisions that balance those 
tradeoffs, recognizing that some groups will be hurt or helped 
by those policy decisions and that all stakeholders, you know, 
should justifiably be consulted in that.
    Now, once the political decisions on those policy tradeoffs 
have been made, there is a huge incentive on the part of any 
policymaker to distort the scientific inputs ex post facto or 
to interfere with the ongoing scientific process, including 
actual or threatened retaliations on scientists, to justify 
their political policy decisions, and that is unacceptable.
    One of the most glaring examples of this was the emergency 
approval of hydroxychloroquine absent any real scientific 
evidence for its effectiveness. Not only did the previous 
administration put undue pressure on scientific professionals, 
it also championed hydroxychloroquine and other drugs long 
after there was strong evidence that they were ineffective, 
going against the recommendations and the data and the results 
presented by scientists.
    GAO's report details that a senior HHS official claimed 
that the Trump administration retaliated against him for 
disclosing concerns about inappropriate political interference 
to make hydroxychloroquine available to the public in May 2020, 
absent any scientific evidence for it, and this is a reference 
to former BARDA director Dr. Rick Bright, who filed a 
whistleblower complaint after he was pushed out of his position 
by the Trump administration.
    Now, Mr. Dodaro, what did the GAO recommend that public 
health agencies do to protect government scientists from 
potential retaliation such as was faced by Dr. Bright?
    Mr. Dodaro. We recommended a number of things. One was that 
there be a proper institutional-approved process for how to 
report these concerns, how they will be investigated, how they 
will be disposed of, and how there will be an official 
response.
    So it would give the employees--in this case, Dr. Bright--a 
place to go to, basically, raise the allegations, have it 
thoroughly investigated, and the need to be some independent 
investigation and then dealt with, and they should--part of our 
recommendation would be to explain what procedures there would 
be for protecting the confidentiality or any anti-retaliatory 
efforts made against the employee who made the allegation. That 
has to be there.
    Secondarily, there would be training so people understand 
what the process is, what the protections are that they have, 
who to report to, how it will be treated.
    These are very similar to how allegations are treated--
whistleblower situations--throughout the government. But they 
are absent here and I think it is a key deficiency. Our 
recommendations, if properly implemented, should remedy it, 
Congressman Foster.
    Mr. Foster. Thank you.
    Ms. Desikan, you presciently wrote in 2020 that the Trump 
administration's promotion of unproven treatments like 
hydroxychloroquine, quote, ``will likely compromise the health 
of thousands of people in the middle of the most deadly 
pandemic experience in our lifetimes.''
    So sitting here today, can you say a little bit about how 
harmful the previous administration's attempts to promote 
unproven treatments as Coronavirus cure-alls against the advice 
of its own scientists--what the harm from those was?
    Ms. Desikan. Yes. Thank you, Congressman, for the question.
    The public depends on Federal agencies to promote good 
science. People are wondering, where do I go? What treatments 
do I take? How do I get vaccinated?
    They need answers to these questions, and it is very 
difficult when you have political officials stating don't 
listen to our Federal scientists--don't listen to the expert 
opinions and, instead, listen to something else that is 
unproven.
    It provides--it forces the public to be confused about what 
to do. It promotes misinformation in so many different ways and 
it undermines the ability of scientists to feel that their work 
is actually--will help in the pandemic and in other situations.
    Mr. Foster. Thank you. My time is expired and I yield back.
    Mr. Clyburn. I thank the gentleman for yielding back the 
time.
    The chair now recognizes Dr. Miller-Meeks for five minutes.
    Ms. Miller-Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I would like to 
thank all of our witnesses for taking time to come to testify 
before the committee today.
    Ms. Desikan, in the report that is filed with us today, I 
found it interesting that you used an example or you cite an 
example of what you think or what the Union of Scientists think 
is political interference through agencies and you cite that an 
HHS scientific expert filed a whistleblower complaint stating 
that in January and February 2020 HHS officials sent HHS 
workers to Wuhan, China, without any proper infectious disease 
training or personal safety equipment.
    So do you recall at the time when the WHO declared COVID-19 
a pandemic?
    Ms. Desikan. I don't know the exact date. I think it was 
February or March.
    Ms. Miller-Meeks. Let me give you the exact answer. The 
exact answer is March 11. So I find it interesting that there 
would be a whistleblower complaint, and it is probably why it 
didn't go anywhere, that at the time, the WHO was still denying 
that there was human-to-human transmission of COVID-19 and, in 
fact, when many of us, I, as a physician and former director of 
the Department of Public Health, thought the pandemic should 
have already been called didn't even consider it a pandemic or 
an epidemic--pandemic or epidemic--until March 11.
    Mr. Dodaro, I would like to take a moment to make sure we 
have clarified specifically what your report does and does not 
lay out. To conduct your work for this report, how many 
individuals from HHS did GAO interview?
    Mr. Dodaro. I will ask Ms. Wright to respond to that, 
please.
    Ms. Wright. Congresswoman, we had a multi-part methodology. 
So we spoke with 16 employees, either managers or staff, and 
conducted semi-structured interviews with them, and that is how 
we got information about what, if any, observations they had 
with regard to scientific integrity violations.
    In addition to that, we had several other interviews where 
we spoke with former agency heads of FDA, CDC, for example, and 
we also spoke with current agency officials in various program 
offices across those four agencies.
    Ms. Miller-Meeks. Great.
    Mr. Dodaro. We also--excuse me. Candice, you might want to 
explain the confidential hotline that we had as well.
    Ms. Wright. Thank you for that. So I should mention with 
regard to the managers and--the 16 managers and employees whom 
we spoke with we did provide them confidentiality assurances 
that information that they shared with us would be 
appropriately protected. And so with regard to the examples 
that we have in the report, it is at a high level because of 
any specificity about those observations could risk disclosing 
their identity.
    Ms. Miller-Meeks. Thank you. And so does your report make 
any specific findings regarding whether these complaints did or 
did not constitute political interference?
    Mr. Dodaro?
    Mr. Dodaro. No, that was not part of our objective. No, so 
no. No.
    Ms. Miller-Meeks. So what I am hearing is that you didn't 
find for certain that there was political interference. What 
you found was that the absence of specific procedures may 
explain why the agencies did not have formally reported 
internal allegations.
    Is that correct?
    Mr. Dodaro. That is correct. That is correct.
    Ms. Miller-Meeks. Well, thank you for clarifying that. I 
think we can all agree--and I am a physician and a former 
director of public health--that political interference of any 
kind should not be tolerated.
    Mr. Chairman, that is why I wish we could hold a hearing on 
clear political interference we saw during this administration 
wherein the CDC went directly to the teachers union with 
guidance.
    We should also be discussing this administration's choice 
to create confusion and bypass the CDC and the FDA's long-
established vaccine advisory committee process for boosters.
    The GAO found that from 2010 to 2021 none of the four 
agencies within HHS--CDC, FDA, NIH, or ASPR--had a report of 
political interference. Do you recall if anyone--Mr. Dodaro, if 
anyone at the CDC was--had felt and was so concerned about 
political interference that they resigned?
    Mr. Dodaro. I don't recall that. Candice, do you?
    Ms. Wright. I am not aware of anything like that.
    Ms. Miller-Meeks. Yes. Well, this administration announced 
the availability for vaccine boosters for all adults before the 
CDC and the FDA finished reviewing the data to determine if 
this was necessary and, in fact, in contrast to fueling 
political interference that has been brought up, two FDA 
officials left the agency amid reports of political 
interference saying that they were concerned about politics 
interfering with the process, and I have a report that I would 
ask for unanimous consent to be submitted to the committee.
    Mr. Clyburn. Without objection.
    Ms. Miller-Meeks. So I will submit that to you. Thank you 
so much, Mr. Chair. I yield back my time.
    Mr. Clyburn. I thank the gentlelady for yielding back her 
time.
    The chair now recognizes Mr. Raskin for five minutes.
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling this 
crucial hearing. You know, the great astrophysicist Neil 
deGrasse Tyson said that the good thing about science is that 
it is true whether or not you believe in it, and we have 
recently seen attacks on scientific truth by corporations that 
find it financially inconvenient or government actors who find 
the truth politically inconvenient.
    In the opioid crisis, we saw a rich, powerful corporation 
use its wealth and power to influence government to ignore real 
scientific realities and that exposed our people to terrible 
addiction and suffering and death, and in the COVID-19 crisis 
we saw administration officials in the Trump administration 
systematically deny the reality of COVID-19.
    We saw them hawk quack medical cures like 
hydroxychloroquine and we saw them systematically undermining 
the ability of scientists to do their work.
    We have documented 88 separate incidents of political 
interference in the pandemic response by Trump officials, 
including attempts to suppress or change scientific reports 
based on research, implementing public health policies without 
any credible scientific basis at all, and penalizing scientists 
for sharing accurate science with the public.
    The emails released today show that Trump White House 
officials wanted to tell the CDC that its ability to publish 
its scientific guidance to faith communities was, quote, 
``contingent'' on CDC removing public health recommendations 
that the White House found, quote, ``offensive.''
    Now, Dr. Rasmussen, in your 20-year career at CDC have you 
ever witnessed political officials instructing CDC scientists 
before to change science-based public health guidance because 
certain administration officials found the scientific findings 
and guidance offensive?
    Dr. Rasmussen. No, I never saw that in my time at CDC.
    Mr. Raskin. OK. So I want you to just talk about the 
strangeness of that and tell us how that does, in fact, collide 
with the work that scientists do.
    Dr. Rasmussen. Yes. As I tried to give some background of 
how hard it is to make these recommendations and that you are 
basing your science on changing data, CDC scientists take those 
recommendations very seriously.
    And so coming to some recommendations and then having them 
altered--having political interference I can only imagine must 
have been really devastating.
    Mr. Raskin. Well, after this incident, Dr. Jay Butler, who 
is a senior CDC official, wrote to his colleagues at CDC about 
the faith community's guidance saying, and I quote--and thank 
you for putting this up on the screen--``this is not good 
public health. I am very troubled on this Sunday morning that 
there will be people who will get sick and, perhaps, die 
because of what we were forced to do. Our team has done the 
good work only to have it compromised.''
    And I heard in that an echo of what Dr. Birx has been 
saying. Dr. Birx was Donald Trump's own appointee to be the 
COVID-19 coordinator for his administration and she has been 
saying that because of political decisions that were made 
interfering with the scientific effort and blockading the 
ability to maintain the scientific and social cohesion, we need 
to effectively address a public health crisis, hundreds of 
thousands of people died or were injured because of that 
political interference with science.
    So, Dr. Dodaro, I would like to ask you that--according to 
the GAO report, there were multiple science officials at the 
CDC and FDA who believed that political interference may have 
resulted in the alteration of public health guidance related to 
COVID-19.
    Is that right?
    Mr. Dodaro. That is what our report says. That is correct.
    Mr. Raskin. OK. And, Ms. Wright as the lead investigator, 
can you elaborate on what GAO's investigations found with 
respect to interference with scientific-based public health 
guidance during the pandemic?
    Ms. Wright. So we did hear from a few respondents with whom 
we collected information that they felt that they had observed 
what could--what they thought was potential political 
interference and that that may have resulted in alteration of 
guidance.
    I am not able to provide any more specifics on the type of 
guidance or publications because, again, doing so might 
compromise the confidentiality assurances that we provided to 
individuals we spoke with.
    What I can say, however, is that for a number of the 
individuals with whom we did speak is that there was concern 
about the effects on morale within their agencies. There were 
also concerns around the sort of hectic environment in which 
they were working and how that might then contribute to, you 
know, lack of understanding, lack of clarity, about what the 
appropriate procedures are.
    And so some of those things are the basis for why we made 
the recommendations that we did to enhance--provide procedures 
as well as to offer training.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you. Yielding back.
    Mr. Clyburn. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Clyburn. Thank you very much. The chair now recognizes 
Mr. Krishnamoorthi for five minutes.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to 
all of you for appearing today.
    I guess my first question to Mr. Dodaro--and thank you for 
your five decades of service, a half a century of service to 
the country.
    My question is what are the lingering effects of this 
political interference that happened with these health 
agencies?
    Mr. Dodaro. I think there is, you know, concerns about the 
public trust that could be placed in these institutions. You 
know, one of the things that we did earlier this year, because 
I had been concerned about this for a while, is we identified 
HHS leadership and coordination as a high-risk area because we 
had concerns that we are not really prepared to deal with 
public health emergencies in the future because there is 
unclear roles and responsibilities.
    There has been problems with clear and consistent 
communications with the public. There hasn't been a lot of good 
data collection. There is deficiencies in transparency and 
accountability.
    So I am very concerned about this and that is why we 
elevated it to this select group of high-risk areas that we 
keep across the government. So I think the lingering effects 
here are that, you know, I am not sure we are better prepared 
now than we were in the beginning even though----
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. What is a--let me just jump in because 
I have limited time. Can you point to, like, one specific thing 
that we need to do in Congress or otherwise to prevent this 
going forward?
    Mr. Dodaro. Well, I think there needs to be a good plan 
that gets developed that identifies--responds to all the 
deficiencies that we pointed out in this area.
    You know, I have also recommended--I recommended in 2015, 
for example, that there be a national aviation security plan to 
deal with communicable diseases. That is still not developed 
and in place. So I have a lot of open recommendations to the 
Congress I will be happy to share with the committee.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Let me--let me jump in. I am sorry. I 
just had to reclaim my time here. The GAO conducted the review 
that is the basis for this report after the Biden 
administration came into office. Is that right?
    Mr. Dodaro. Yes. The report covers what happened during the 
pandemic and it----
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Why didn't you--why didn't you begin 
this during the Trump administration?
    Mr. Dodaro. Well, we actually did begin it then. It began 
in October 2020, as I recall, and it concluded in the Biden 
administration. So it----
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. But let me ask you this. Have you 
conducted a review of the GAO with regard to any officials at 
the GAO feeling any pressure from the Trump administration with 
regard to its own activities during the pandemic?
    Mr. Dodaro. I am not aware of any examples of that that has 
occurred.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Because I am concerned that--I am 
concerned that this political interference that happened with 
regard to these agencies, perhaps, happened with regard to a 
number of agencies, including institutions like the GAO.
    Mr. Dodaro. Well, we are not--well, a couple of things. We 
have unique safeguards. First, we are in the legislative branch 
of government. I don't report to the President. The President 
can't remove me.
    I report to the Congress. I have a 15-year term. I can only 
be impeached by the Congress. So we have at GAO very good 
safeguards to prevent us from being subject to political 
interference.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Because we could----
    Mr. Dodaro. So we are in a totally different situation than 
executive branch agencies.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. I think that the issue, though, is I 
wish that we had heard about this during the Trump years when 
we could have done something about it or there would have been 
more public pressure on the Trump administration to stop doing 
what it was doing.
    I am not saying that you were actively interfered with, Mr. 
Dodaro, but I think that there is pressure to almost be silent 
about some of these things, and I think that had we had this 
information earlier, we could have actually, perhaps, altered 
the way in which this political interference happened during 
the Trump years.
    So I would just urge you to, please, you know, call the 
balls and strikes at any time regardless of who is in office or 
whether there is any pressure.
    So thank you for that, and I will yield back.
    Mr. Clyburn. I thank the gentleman for yielding back, and I 
thank all of you for your participation here today.
    I understand that the ranking member has opted not to make 
a closing statement. So I am going to refrain from part of what 
I wanted to close with today and go straight to my prepared 
closing statement.
    But before we close, I would like to enter into the record 
a letter the committee has received from the Brennan Center for 
Justice at the New York University School of Law with respect 
to the importance of ensuring scientific integrity in our 
Nation's public health agencies.
    I ask unanimous consent that this letter be entered into 
the official hearing record and, without any objections, so 
ordered.
    Mr. Clyburn. In closing, I want to thank the witnesses for 
testifying before the Select Subcommittee today. We appreciate 
your insight, your expertise, and your advice on how to 
safeguard the scientific independence and integrity of our 
public health institutions.
    Today's hearing has revisited a dark chapter in the history 
of our Nation's public health agencies. Adding to the 
incredible burdens they had to shoulder during the pandemic, 
career scientists had to contend with an administration that 
continually undermined their scientific independence, 
integrity, and decisionmaking.
    The Government Accountability Office, in a nonpartisan and 
independent review, has now documented how political 
interference affected the work of our Nation's scientists.
    The Select Subcommittee's investigations, which have 
revealed this same pertinent pattern of interference, are 
ongoing. I applaud the Biden administration's efforts to 
restore scientific integrity and independence.
    The Biden administration has placed its trust in our 
country's best doctors, scientists, and public health experts, 
and they have guided us out of the chaos and confusion we faced 
early in the pandemic, allowing us to move safely forward 
beyond the crisis. We must never again allow politics to 
interfere with processes of public health.
    I thank our witnesses for testifying today and I look 
forward to working closely with you to safeguard scientific 
integrity at our Nation's public health agencies.
    With that and without objection, all members will have five 
legislative days within which to submit additional written 
questions for the witnesses to the chair, which will be 
forwarded to the witnesses for their response.
    This hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 10:44 a.m., the select subcommittee was 
adjourned.]

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