HHS nixes publication of study showing effectiveness of COVID vaccines

The acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) blocked the publication of a study on the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines, a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spokesperson confirmed. 

The research was set to be published in the agency’s flagship Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) on March 19, but Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes of Health who has also been serving as acting CDC director, objected to the methodology used by the study authors.  

“Scientific reports are routinely reviewed at multiple levels to ensure they meet the highest standards before publication,” HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement. “The MMWR’s editorial assessment identified concerns regarding the methodological approach to estimating vaccine effectiveness and the manuscript was not accepted for publication.” 

Bhattacharya reportedly had concerns about using observational data to calculate vaccine effectiveness — meaning calculating effectiveness based on whether patients admitted to a hospital or emergency department with a positive COVID-19 test were vaccinated. 

But experts have said that methodology has long been used to assess the effectiveness of vaccines against respiratory viruses, including in a study published on the effectiveness of the flu vaccine in the March 12 MMWR.  

Bhattacharya was not named acting director until after that study had been submitted and accepted for publication. 

The news of the rejected study, first reported by The Washington Post, comes as the Trump administration has been seeking to downplay efforts by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to roll back federal vaccine policies ahead of the midterm elections. 

Kennedy once called the COVID-19 shot “the deadliest vaccine ever made.” Last year, he said the CDC would no longer recommend it for pregnant women and healthy children.  

An HHS official said Bhattacharya met with the authors of the study, but they declined to change their methodology. The official argued that prior infection, behavior and differences in who seeks care can affect results when studying respiratory viruses.

The CDC has been without a confirmed director since Susan Monarez was fired last August after clashing with Kennedy over vaccines. She had been on the job only a month. President Trump recently nominated Erica Schwartz as his third pick to lead the agency.

On Thursday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) sent a letter to Bhattacharya accusing him of politicizing science.

Blumenthal also demanded documents and information about the CDC scientific review process, including a list of all studies that have cleared the CDC’s scientific review process but have yet to be published in MMWR beginning on the first day of the Trump administration.