How the CDC Abandoned Science

the CDC’s guidance often balances public health and welfare with other priorities of the executive branch.

Throughout this pandemic, the CDC has been a poor steward of that balance, pushing a series of scientific results that are severely deficient.

Case 1 (JD)
In November 2020, a CDC study sought to prove that mask mandates slowed the spread of the coronavirus.
the CDC’s study was not capable of proving anything and was highly misleading, but it served the policy goal of encouraging cloth mask mandates.

Case 2 (JD)
When it comes to promoting mask mandates in school, in October 2021 the CDC famously offered a comparison of masked and unmasked schools in Arizona’s Pima and Maricopa counties in their own journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).
the analysis did not adjust for rates of vaccination among either teachers or students.
The paper also looked at two counties in Arizona with different political preferences, and thus did not separate mask mandates from other patterns of behavior that fall within partisan lines.
These were only a few of the CDC paper’s problems.

Case 3 (JD)
Consider the case of vaccination for kids between the ages of 5 and 11.
vaccinating kids between 5 and 11 is disputed globally.

Case 4 (JD)
the January 2022 study claims that kids below the age of 18 who get diagnosed with COVID are 2.5 times more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes.
First, it does not adjust for body mass index.
Second, the absolute risks the study finds are incredibly low.
Third, the CDC’s analysis uses billing record diagnoses as a surrogate for COVID cases, but many kids had and recovered from COVID without seeking medical care.
“The CDC erred in taking a preliminary and potentially erroneous association and tweeting it to specifically create alarm in parents.”

Case 5 (JD)
On June 11, the CDC published a study in MMWR claiming to demonstrate rising hospitalization among this age group.
But the absolute rates for this age group were, in reality, amazingly low: Less than 1.5 per 100,000, which was lower than they had been in the previous December.

Case 6 (JD)
a safety signal was being investigated—myocarditis for the 12- to 15-year-old cohort.
Against the advice of an FDA advisory committee, Rochelle Walensky has moved forward with recommending boosters for 12- to 15-year-olds.

Case 7 (JD)
the CDC’s near-total dismissal of natural immunity.


So why does the supposedly impartial CDC push weak or flawed studies to support the administration’s pandemic policy goals?

The cynical answer is that the agency is not in fact impartial (and thus not sufficiently scientific), but captured by the country’s national political system.