CDC director Rochelle Walensky told the Washington Post on Monday that “a vast minority” of the agency’s COVID-19 pandemic response guidelines were “politically influenced” by some officials appointed by former President Trump.
Driving the news: Walensky said the CDC’s deputy principal director, Anne Schuchat, was conducting a review on the matter and that the agency was updating the affected guidelines.
Between the lines: Although Walensky did not cite specific examples in his interview, the Post notes that CDC officials previously complained about the Trump administration’s political interference in the guidelines for wearing masks and reopening churches.
- In December, the chairman of the oversight subcommittee charged with examining the response to the United States pandemic accused then-CDC chief Robert Redfield of hiding evidence that a Trump nominee tried to influence the agency’s scientific case.
- The Politico reported in September that Trump-appointed health department advisers interfered with the CDC’s weekly COVID-19 reports “in what the authorities characterized as an attempt to intimidate the authors of the reports and mitigate their communications to healthcare professionals.”