Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News Editorials & Other Articles General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

LetMyPeopleVote

(181,688 posts)
Wed May 6, 2026, 06:40 PM Wednesday

MaddowBlog-It's not just the CDC: The FDA also blocked evidence in support of Covid-19 vaccines

A medical professor at Harvard University who studies FDA regulations said, “At any other time in history, this would be a major scandal.”



https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/its-not-just-the-cdc-the-fda-also-blocked-evidence-in-support-of-covid-vaccines

The bad news, however, was emblematic of a larger problem: The Trump administration’s political appointees at the CDC decided they didn’t want the public to know about the good news, and they blocked the research from being published to the agency’s flagship scientific journal.

As it turns out, the problem isn’t limited to the CDC. The New York Times reported:

Officials at the Food and Drug Administration have blocked publication of several studies supporting the safety of widely used vaccines against Covid-19 and shingles in recent months, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed.

The studies, which cost millions of dollars in public funds, were conducted by scientists at the agency, who worked with data firms to analyze millions of patient records. They found serious side effects to be very rare.


The Times’ report added that the developments dovetail with related administration efforts, including sharp cuts to research funding for vaccine development and releasing unvetted information intended to cast doubt on vaccines.....

Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, a former high-ranking National Institutes of Health official and chief executive of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, told the Times that FDA leaders withdrawing papers from publication is a “pretty active act of sabotage.

Similarly, Dr. Aaron S. Kesselheim, a Harvard University medical professor who studies FDA regulations, told the Times that he had worked with the FDA on a number of research papers and found its work to meet “the highest standards of scientific investigation.” He went on to argue that the request to pull the papers looked like an act of “censorship.”

Kesselheim added, “At any other time in history, this would be a major scandal that would lead to congressional hearings and resignations of leadership, and I hope that’s what happens next.”
1 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
MaddowBlog-It's not just the CDC: The FDA also blocked evidence in support of Covid-19 vaccines (Original Post) LetMyPeopleVote Wednesday OP
MaddowBlog-Latest evidence on mRNA vaccines exposes the folly of Team Trump's opposition LetMyPeopleVote 4 hrs ago #1

LetMyPeopleVote

(181,688 posts)
1. MaddowBlog-Latest evidence on mRNA vaccines exposes the folly of Team Trump's opposition
Mon May 11, 2026, 04:56 PM
4 hrs ago

The more evidence we get of what’s possible with mRNA vaccines, the more we’re reminded of the administration’s drastic mistake.

Latest evidence on mRNA vaccines exposes the folly of Team Trump’s opposition www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

Norm Borden (@normbord.bsky.social) 2026-05-11T18:46:17.528Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/latest-evidence-on-mrna-vaccines-exposes-the-folly-of-team-trumps-opposition

For those eager for news about potential medical breakthroughs, there have been some encouraging headlines lately. Last month, for example, NBC News reported on an mRNA pancreatic cancer vaccine that’s shown promise in an early trial. More research is needed, but as the report added, “nearly all of the patients who responded to the personalized vaccine are still alive six years later.”

Less than a month later, the public received another round of good news directly related to mRNA research. NBC News also reported last week:

Messenger RNA technology, or mRNA, is widely seen as a promising way to improve the effectiveness of flu shots, partly because it can be updated more quickly to match circulating strains.

New results published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine found Moderna’s mRNA flu vaccine gave more protection against illness than the standard flu shot in a Phase 3 clinical trial
.


The report quoted Dorit Reiss, a vaccine policy expert at the University of California Law San Francisco, who said, “These are strong results, and would likely make it hard for the FDA to refuse in a way that withstands arbitrary and capricious review.”....

Dr. Jerome Adams, who served as the surgeon general during Trump’s first term, added via social media, “I’ve tried to be objective & non-alarmist in response to current HHS actions — but quite frankly this move is going to cost lives.”

The president tried to defend the shift, but he failed. Kennedy tried, too, and he fared about as well. When Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Trump’s handpicked director of the National Institutes of Health and acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post making his best case, it collapsed rather quickly.

The more the public is confronted with evidence of what’s possible with mRNA vaccines, the more we’re reminded of how drastic a mistake the administration made and why it remains incumbent on Team Trump to reverse course.
Latest Discussions»General Discussion»MaddowBlog-It's not just ...