The CDC promoted the paper online while encouraging people, even those who recovered from COVID-19, to get vaccinated.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) never reviewed the raw data underpinning a study the agency claimed bolstered the position that naturally immune people should receive COVID-19 vaccines.
The raw data for the study “is owned by external partner organizations and was maintained by a contractor,” the CDC’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) office told a requester recently. “CDC subject matter experts did not receive copies of the raw data prior to the contract termination.”
The data underpins a study published in October 2021 by the CDC’s quasi-journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Catherine Bozio, a CDC official, and other authors said that unvaccinated adults with prior infection, or natural immunity, were more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people with no prior infection.
“All eligible persons should be vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as possible, including unvaccinated persons previously infected with SARS-CoV-2,” Ms. Bozio and her co-authors wrote at the time.
The CDC promoted the paper online while encouraging people, even those who recovered from COVID-19, to get vaccinated.
“Get vaccinated as soon as possible,” the CDC stated.
A slew of other papers, including several from the CDC, have found that people with natural immunity are better off, or as protected, than the vaccinated.
“The CDC repeatedly downplayed the role of natural immunity and used this salami slice of data to suggest that vaccinated immunity was more durable than natural immunity. Subsequent studies revealed they got it backwards,” Dr. Marty Makary, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine who was not involved with the study, told The Epoch Times via email. “Public health officials grabbed any study conclusions that fit their narrative, regardless of the quality of the data source.”
The CDC’s quasi-journal did not respond to emailed questions, including whether it’s normal for the journal not to review raw data underpinning studies it publishes.
The Epoch Times has submitted a FOIA request for the name of the contractor and other information on the study.
By Zachary Stieber
