{"id":13325,"date":"2025-09-15T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=13325"},"modified":"2025-09-09T20:43:38","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T00:43:38","slug":"cdc-downplayed-covid-vaccine-efficacy-concerns-newly-released-emails-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=13325","title":{"rendered":"CDC downplayed COVID vaccine efficacy concerns, newly released emails show"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By\u00a0Josh Christenson<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) discussed how to downplay concerns about COVID-19 vaccine efficacy<\/a> and avoid \u201ctoo precise\u201d comparisons between the benefits of the jab and natural immunity, according to explosive emails obtained by The Post Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The messages reveal agency leaders frequently met to discuss public relations strategies that failed to communicate full information about the safety and efficacy of vaccines combatting SARS-CoV-2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a Sept. 22, 2023, email, members of the agency\u2019s COVID Coordination Unit brainstormed how to make Americans \u201cmore easily visualize their relative risk of getting very sick\u201d based on whether they were vaccinated or used other protective measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDon\u2019t want it to be too precise of a visualization such that people can infer an exact risk or protection score,\u201d reads the message from the address \u201ccovidtransition@cdc.gov.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nearly 600 pages of internal documents<\/a> were uncovered by the Public Health Reform Alliance pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The disclosures come on the heels of several public reversals by the CDC on public health measures during the pandemic \u2014 including\u00a0the efficacy of masks<\/a>, whether the virus was airborne, whether natural immunity provided the same protection, or better protection, as vaccination and whether post-jab infections were occurring.<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A\u00a0House Republican panel report<\/a>\u00a0released in October found that the\u00a0US\u00a0Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)<\/a>, which oversees the CDC, spent $911 million on a COVID vaccine promotion campaign that misrepresented the effectiveness of masking, vaccines and boosters \u2014 and\u00a0\u201cconsistently overstated\u201d the risk of the virus to children<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The emails have also been made public after the high-profile firing of Trump-appointed CDC Director Susan Monarez by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over vaccine policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The COVID Coordination Unit ultimately produced a graphic indicating that cloth face masks, ventilation, outdoor air, and respirators offered at least some protection from infection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The visualization aid was developed more than a year and a half after a January 2022 CDC study<\/a> cited evidence that natural immunity was better at warding off repeated infection than vaccination alone by late 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It marked a shift in the CDC\u2019s approach to handling the pandemic, emphasizing the vaccine\u2019s ability to curb more serious illness rather than prevent infections altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By January 2024, CDC communications professionals were crafting responses to questions about mRNA in the COVID jabs \u2014 without answering any of the questions raised in state-level inquiries about the safety and effectiveness of the technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo cautioned against using mRNA COVID-19 vaccines due to the possibility of small DNA fragments contained in them posing a risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDNA integration poses a unique and elevated risk to human health and to the integrity of the human genome, including the risk that DNA integrated into sperm or egg gametes could be passed onto offspring of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine recipients,\u201d Ladapo said in a Jan 3 statement that year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf the risks of DNA integration have not been assessed for mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, these vaccines are not appropriate for use in human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Illustration<\/a>
In a virtual meeting on Jan. 9, 2024, CDC public relations officials \u2014 including Health Information Integrity Team Lead Christopher Voegeli \u2014 labeled concerns about the DNA fragments \u201cmisinformation.\u201dPhralliance<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In a virtual meeting on Jan. 9, 2024, CDC public relations officials \u2014 including Health Information Integrity Team Lead Christopher Voegeli \u2014 labeled concerns about the DNA fragments \u201cmisinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShould people believe online claims that doctors have already verified negative impacts from these DNA fragments in their patients?\u201d a potential question posed to a CDC rep reads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn these uncertain times,\u201d an agency-approved response states, \u201cremember misinformation can prey on our fears; let\u2019s focus on facts to keep our communities healthy and informed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The meeting did not appear to result in the CDC initiating any further studies \u2014 despite an internal chart pointing out that the CDC hadn\u2019t looked into any safety concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe CDC wasn\u2019t acting like a scientific body. It was operating as a PR arm of the vaccine manufacturers and federal policy agenda,\u201d PHRA Director Martin Hoyt said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt reflexively and unprofessionally ignored legitimate safety concerns raised by another public health official, dismissed them without inquiry, and actively worked to prevent the public from knowing the truth. That\u2019s not science. That\u2019s propaganda.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under Ladapo, Florida became the first state to not recommend the COVID jabs for healthy children<\/a> in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration has since made the same recommendation for children and pregnant women<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Monday, the president suggested that the CDC\u2019s refusal to disclose information about the efficacy of COVID vaccinations<\/a> had \u201cripped apart\u201d the agency itself and lost it the trust of the American public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is very important that the Drug Companies justify the success of their various Covid Drugs,\u201d Trump wrote in a lengthy Truth Social post. \u201cMany people think they are a miracle that saved Millions of lives. Others disagree! With CDC being ripped apart over this question, I want the answer, and I want it NOW.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have been shown information from Pfizer<\/a>, and others, that is extraordinary, but they never seem to show those results to the public. Why not???\u201d he asked. \u201cThey go off to the next \u2018hunt\u2019 and let everyone rip themselves apart, including Bobby Kennedy Jr. and CDC, trying to figure out the success or failure of the Drug Companies Covid work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reps for the CDC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Josh Christenson WASHINGTON \u2014 Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) discussed how to downplay concerns about COVID-19 vaccine efficacy and avoid \u201ctoo precise\u201d comparisons between the benefits of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[669,761,836,890,972,973,974,608],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adenovirus-vector-vaccines","category-concerns","category-immune-system","category-natural-immunity-immune-system","category-vaccine-enhanced-disease","category-vaccine-failure","category-vaccine-long-term-safety","category-vaccine-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13325"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13326,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13325\/revisions\/13326"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}