{"id":1117974,"date":"2023-01-25T17:10:58","date_gmt":"2023-01-25T22:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/cdc-officials-who-spread-misinformation-apologized-to-source-of-false-data-but-not-to-public-emails\/1117974\/"},"modified":"2023-01-25T17:10:58","modified_gmt":"2023-01-25T22:10:58","slug":"cdc-officials-who-spread-misinformation-apologized-to-source-of-false-data-but-not-to-public-emails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/cdc-officials-who-spread-misinformation-apologized-to-source-of-false-data-but-not-to-public-emails\/1117974\/","title":{"rendered":"CDC Officials Who Spread Misinformation Apologized To Source Of False Data But Not To Public: Emails"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

CDC Officials Who Spread Misinformation Apologized To Source Of False Data But Not To Public: Emails<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times<\/a> (emphasis ours),<\/em><\/p>\n

U.S. health officials who spread inflated COVID-19 child death data in public meetings apologized to the source of the false data but not to the public,<\/strong> newly obtained emails show.<\/p>\n

Drs. Katherine Fleming-Dutra and Sara Oliver, with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), offered the false data<\/a> in 2022 while U.S. officials weighed granting emergency authorization to COVID-19 vaccines for children as young as 6 months.<\/p>\n

The study they cited for the data was published ahead of peer review by a group comprised primarily of British authors<\/strong>. The study was corrected<\/a> after the public meetings.<\/p>\n

Emails obtained by The Epoch Times showed<\/a> that Fleming-Dutra and Oliver were alerted that they had spread misinformation<\/strong>. Neither the officials nor the CDC have informed the public of the false information. Newly obtained emails<\/a> showed the officials apologized to Seth Flaxman, one of the study\u2019s authors, and even offered to see whether the study could be published in the CDC\u2019s quasi-journal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel \u2026 that we owe you an apology,<\/strong>\u201d Oliver wrote to Flaxman on June 27, about 10 days after she and Fleming-Dutra falsely said there had been at least 1,433 deaths primarily attributed to COVID-19 in America among those 19 and younger.\u00a0\u201cWe draw the attention of a variety of individuals with the ACIP meetings, and apologize that you got caught in it this time.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am also sorry that you got pulled into the attention around the VRBPAC and ACIP meetings,\u201d Fleming-Dutra added. She had presented the data to the\u00a0Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, which advises the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the\u00a0Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises the CDC.<\/p>\n

Fleming-Dutra, Oliver, and Flaxman did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Inflated Death Toll<\/h2>\n

Using data from the CDC, Flaxman and his co-authors claimed that there were at least 1,433 deaths primarily attributed to COVID-19 among those aged 0 to 19 in the United States. The actual number was 1,088, the authors acknowledged in the corrected version of the study.<\/p>\n

Fleming-Dutra presented the false data as rankings to VRBPAC on June 14, 2022 and ACIP three days later. <\/strong>It\u2019s not clear why the CDC didn\u2019t examine its own database rather than relying on a preprint study.<\/p>\n

Oliver also cited the study while speaking during the ACIP meeting.<\/p>\n

The data had an impact. It showed \u201cthat this is not a minor illness in children,\u201d\u00a0Dr. Katherine Poehling, one of the ACIP members, said at the time.<\/p>\n

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC\u2019s director, later appeared to cite the inflated death toll and ACIP still cites the preprint<\/a>, though it was later updated with the correct data.<\/p>\n

Flaxman updated the study after receiving an email from\u00a0Kelley Krohnert, a Georgia resident who has become a fact-checker of suspect COVID-19-related claims.<\/p>\n

Krohnert\u2019s concerns also made their way to Fleming-Dutra and Oliver, but the CDC officials have never publicly acknowledged promoting misinformation.<\/p>\n

\u2018We Had an Error\u2019<\/h2>\n

Flaxman acknowledged in emails to Krohnert, and in a June 27 message to Fleming-Dutra and Oliver, that he did not fully understand how the CDC\u2019s death database works.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks for your work, and your great presentations to VRBPAC and ACIP. You cited our preprint. We\u2019ve just updated it (see attached; it should appear on medrxiv in the next day). While none of the substantive conclusions change, we had an error which you may have seen was picked up very prominently by a blogger,\u201d Flaxman wrote. \u201cI am writing first to say sorry\u2013I really regret that this happened. It was my mistake in misunderstanding the [death certificate] data, and not realizing about CDC Wonder\u2019s provisional database.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flaxman also asked for feedback on the updated study and whether the officials could help with submitting the paper to the\u00a0Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), a quasi-journal the CDC publishes that only includes articles (pdf<\/a>) vetted and shaped by top CDC officials to align with the agency\u2019s policies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve never tried to publish there, so I don\u2019t know the process or how often they consider manuscripts from non-CDC authors<\/strong>,\u201d Flaxman said. \u201cIf you do think this would be a possible route, perhaps one or both of you would want to help us revise the manuscript and join as an author?\u201d<\/p>\n

Oliver wrote back first, saying that she wanted to apologize to Flaxman and that \u201cwe will absolutely review and provide feedback,\u201d as well as context.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are more than happy to do that without formally being co-authors. That way you can avoid formal CDC clearance,<\/strong>\u201d Oliver wrote.<\/p>\n

Fleming-Dutra then chimed in with her apology, adding, \u201cI\u00a0am glad to hear that you and your team are continuing to do this important work.\u201d She recommended Flaxman and his team review studies published in the MMWR to get a sense of the format of the digest. A large portion of her email was redacted under an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act for \u201cinter-agency or intra-agency records.\u201d The Epoch Times has appealed that and other redactions.<\/p>\n

Flaxman then notified the CDC officials that the corrected study had been made public. Fleming-Dutra replied, but the email was redacted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks, very useful feedback. Small update: we\u2019re hoping to submit to JAMA Pediatrics in the next week or so, and [redacted],\u201d Flaxman answered. He indicated that the CDC had provided feedback and questioned on how to cite it in the submission.<\/p>\n

Read more here…<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nWed, 01\/25\/2023 – 21:00<\/span><\/p>\n

From:Zerohedge<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CDC Officials Who Spread Misinformation Apologized To Source Of False Data But Not To Public: Emails Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1117974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1117974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1117974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1117974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1117974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}