Trump official pressured CDC to change report on Covid and kids
Amid Trump’s push to reopen schools, Michael Caputo’s science adviser asked that the health agency alter its warning about a study of pediatric coronavirus.
In early September, as many school districts were still deciding whether to hold in-person classes, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention altered the title of a scientific report on the coronavirus and removed words like "pediatric" from its text, days after a Trump administration appointee requested similar changes, according to emails obtained by POLITICO.
That request — issued by then-public affairs official Paul Alexander — came amid President Donald Trump's broader push to reopen schools, with the president issuing demands on Twitter the prior day that "Democrats, OPEN THE SCHOOLS ( SAFELY)," and holding a press conference that touted data on the relatively low risk of Covid-19 for children.
The Sept. 11 email exchange between Alexander and other officials centered on an embargoed CDC bulletin set to publish the following week and which Alexander — an unpaid assistant professor at Canada’s McMaster University who was recruited by longtime Trump operative Michael Caputo — said contained faulty science. For instance, defining teenagers aged 18 and older as "pediatric" patients was "misleading," Alexander wrote to Charlotte Kent, the editor-in-chief of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports. Alexander also said that the document wrongly conflated the risks of the coronavirus to young children and older adolescents, urging Kent to make multiple changes to the document.
Alexander's requests — the latest in a series of demands — set off new concerns inside CDC, which was already reeling from Alexander's efforts to retroactively alter several reports or halt the MMWR process altogether. The reports are sent to researchers, physicians and hospitals to update them on the latest medical guidance and findings. The study in question addressed the death rates of Covid-19 among the pediatric population; CDC has frequently used the CONTINUE READING: Trump official pressured CDC to change report on Covid and kids - POLITICO
