The CDC Doesn’t Want You To See A CDC Report On How Effective COVID Vaccines Are

One of the most remarkable staffing decisions of the second Trump administration has been to allow the anti-vaxxers to run America’s health agencies. While RFK Jr. and his cadre of lieutenants prattle on about how they’re going to be super transparent, data-driven stewards of American health, their actions have put the lie to all of it. Vague statements about diseases, disinformation about the cause and source of other diseases, missed appointment deadlines for key personnel are all combined to create an HHS full of chaos, confusion, and the storied practice of CYA.

But these are ideological people, with some of the stupidest possible ideologies governing their actions. That’s how you get a situation where the CDC produces a report on the efficacy of recent COVID vaccines, following commonly used methodology, only to have the acting CDC director bury the report because he doesn’t like what it finds.

CDC scientists and insiders told the Post that the COVID-19 vaccine study went through the agency’s standard scientific review process and was slated for publication on March 19 in the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). But acting CDC director Jay Bhattacharya blocked the scheduled publication and is holding the study, claiming he has concerns about its methodology.

According to a summary the Post obtained, the study concluded that between September and December of last year, healthy adults vaccinated with a 2025–2026 COVID-19 vaccine saw the risk of emergency department or urgent care visits cut by 50 percent, and the risk of COVID-19-associated hospitalizations cut by 55 percent, compared with healthy adults who did not get this season’s shot.

Bhattacharya reportedly took issue with the test-negative design of the study, which is a well-established method to examine real-world data on vaccine effectiveness. This type of observational study looks at people who have symptoms related to the disease of interest (in this case, COVID-19) and have the same test-seeking behavior. Those who test positive for the disease of interest become positive cases in the study, and those who test negative are test-negative controls. Researchers then compare the two groups based on vaccination status.

So there is no misunderstanding, Bhattacharya is completely full of shit here. He is not holding this CDC study back because he’s concerned about the test-negative methodology. I know that because the same CDC under the same acting Director published a study on the efficacy of flu shots that used the same test-negative method last month, a week before this same COVID vaccine study was to be published. If Bhattacharya had a problem with the method for the COVID study, why didn’t have the same problem with the flu shot study?

The answer is obvious: the methodology is not the issue here. Instead, the problem is the mRNA nature of most COVID vaccines. That, combined with Bhattacharya’s criticisms for COVID vaccines specifically, and his support for changing of the schedule and availability for them, means this study is at odds with his ideology and might be embarrassing for him personally.

Dan Jernigan, who headed CDC’s influenza division for six years and resigned last year in protest of Kennedy’s political interference at the agency, suggested to the Post that stalling the paper fits with Kennedy’s anti-vaccine agenda.

“The secretary has already taken steps to try and remove the availability of the vaccine from children and others, so if you’re putting out an MMWR that the vaccine is effective at preventing hospitalizations and medical care visits … that message is not in line with the direction you’ve been taking with the removal of the vaccine,” he said.

And there you have it: politics and personal CYA injected into matters of public health. Having those in charge of our health agencies prioritize their own personal stature over science, literally burying studies simply because they don’t like what they show, is certainly not going to lead to a more health America.