In May, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky admitted that the agency had “underperformed” and vowed to “rebuild public trust.” Those efforts took a big hit on Tuesday when the agency admitted they shared false information to the public regarding COVID vaccine safety monitoring.
The director made the startling admission in a written statement made public on Monday.
According to the Epoch Times, the statement acknowledges that the CDC “did not analyze certain types of adverse event reports at all in 2021, despite the agency previously saying it started in February 2021.”
An excerpt from the statement from Walensky reads:
“CDC performed PRR analysis between March 25, 2022, through July 31, 2022. CDC also recently addressed a previous statement made to the Epoch Times to clarify PRR were not run between February 26, 2021, to September 30, 2021.”
Walensky’s admission stands in stark contrast to repeated promises to perform regular analysis of reports submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
In June, the CDC announced they did not perform analysis of reports submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (so-called PRRs), noting that such reviews were “outside th[e] agency’s purview.”
In July, the Epoch Times asked Dr. John Su, a CDC official, to address the glaring contradiction. Dr. Su stated the CDC “started performing PRRs in February 2021 and continues to do so to date.”
However, in August, a CDC official retracted the statement, telling The Epoch Times that Dr. Su’s statement was not accurate, noting that no PRR review work was done in 2021 and only commenced in March of this year.
“CDC performed PRRs from March 25, 2022 through July 31, 2022,” a CDC spokeswoman told The Epoch Times.
Walensky’s revised statement is dated Sept. 2 and reportedly was sent on to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) on Sept. 6. The statement acknowledges that Walensky was aware that her agency gave false information but includes no explanation as to why that happened.
Johnson, who serves on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Investigations, noted in a terse reply to Welensky that her letter “lacked any justification for why CDC performed PRRs during certain periods and not others.”
Johnson added: “You also provided no explanation as to why Dr. Su’s assertion … completely contradicts the CDC’s [initial] response … as well as your September 6, 2022, response to me.”
Johnson is now demanding answers from the CDC — asserting that the agency misinformed the public.
Johnson noted that the CDC’s “overall lack of transparency is unacceptable, particularly in light of CDC’s inconsistent statements on this matter.”
Neither the CDC nor Walensky responded to requests for comment but did point to the agency’s previous statement: “At no time have any CDC employees intentionally provided false information.”
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