[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
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.]
[all]