Email Reveals Why CDC Didn’t Issue Alert on COVID Vaccines and Myocarditis
The nation’s top public health agency did not send an alert on COVID-19 vaccines and heart inflammation because officials were concerned they would cause panic.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2021 drafted an alert for heart inflammation, or myocarditis, and the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. Officials prepared to release it to the public, taking steps including having the agency’s director review the language, internal documents show.
The alert would have been sent through the CDC’s Health Alert System (HAN) network, which goes to state and local officials, as well as doctors, across the country.
The alert was never sent.
In the May 25, 2021, email, exclusively obtained by The Epoch Times, a CDC official revealed why some officials were against sending the alert.
“The pros and cons of an official HAN are what the main discussion are right now,” Dr. Sara Oliver, the official, wrote in the missive. “I think it’s likely to be a HAN since that is CDC’s primary method of communications to clinicians and public health departments, but people don’t want to appear alarmist either.”
Dr. Oliver was corresponding with an employee of either Pfizer or Moderna. The employee’s name and email were redacted in the copy obtained by The Epoch Times.
Dr. Oliver did not respond to a request for comment. Asked about the email, the CDC did not address Dr. Oliver’s statement.
The “CDC’s apparent decision to not immediately issue a formal alert to clinicians warning them about the increased risk of myocarditis and pericarditis in vaccinated individuals is not only inexcusable, it’s malpractice,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, told The Epoch Times in an email.
“CDC should never prioritize its own public perception over the public’s health, and those who made the decision to do so must be held fully accountable,” he added.
It remains unclear which official or officials decided not to send the alert at a time when doctors across the country were seeing patients with myocarditis report to emergency rooms with chest pain and other symptoms.
Kim Witczak, a drug safety advocate who helped convince regulators to add a suicide warning to antidepressants, said the CDC’s move to downplay heart inflammation fits into a longstanding pattern of transparency issues with agencies and drug companies.
“I can’t even believe that this was even a discussion where they’re like, ‘We don’t want to alarm them.’ We do need to alarm people. We need people to be aware that this is a real potential [problem] that could happen,” Ms. Witzcak told The Epoch Times.
Those kinds of choices have helped erode consumer confidence in public health, she added.
Dr. Tom Frieden, a former CDC director who now serves as president and CEO of the global health project Resolve to Save Lives, also reviewed the messages.
“It is important to carefully weigh the risk of COVID-19 against the risk and benefit of any treatment, including the vaccine. The vaccine safety systems worked—they found a very rare but real signal of myocarditis soon after distributing vaccines that were administered to adolescents,“ Dr. Frieden told The Epoch Times via email. ”When public health officials see a safety signal, they must investigate whether it is ‘true’ or ‘random.’ It is important to consider multiple data angles and gather evidence from partners on the ground, including clinicians. This needs to be done quickly but carefully and thoroughly.”
An internal CDC email. (The Epoch Times)
Moderna, Pfizer Given Heads Up
U.S. authorities identified myocarditis and a related condition, pericarditis, before the vaccines were cleared as events that could be caused by the vaccines. People who received the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines began reporting myocarditis and pericarditis to health authorities and the vaccine manufacturers shortly after the vaccines were rolled out in December 2020.
A signal in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which the CDC helps manage, triggered in February 2021, the same month Israel warned the CDC and U.S. drug regulators of a “large number” of cases, primarily among young males.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director at the time, first addressed the issue publicly in April 2021. She falsely said the agency had seen no reports and that no signal had triggered, while disclosing the CDC was in touch with U.S. military officials on cases among service members.
