A U.S. senator and his team say they have uncovered additional evidence that federal officials worked to evade requests made under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Several emails obtained by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) showed personnel with the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were aware of FOIA requests and sought to evade them. FOIA enables people to request records from the government. It requires officials to retain and produce requested records, subject to certain exemptions.
In a Nov. 26, 2022, missive, Allison Lale, a medical officer with the CDC, asked a colleague about receiving safety analyses of COVID-19 vaccination from the FDA.
Pedro Moro, a CDC epidemiologist, responded. “I think that because of the FOIAs we may have asked FDA to stop sending these weekly data mining outputs,” Moro wrote.
“Oh interesting,” Lale said. She added that during calls for a CDC-managed program, “we used to just verbally mention” that certain terms had not triggered safety signals, or signs vaccines were causing problems.
“But we could also leave it out if that [sic] this creates more hassle,” she added.
In a separate email chain, FDA officials were told by an FDA vaccine safety analytic expert, Dr. Ana Szarfman, that the approach they were using to analyze the safety of COVID-19 vaccines was faulty. The information sparked a long discussion, during which officials considered asking the expert to contact an outside expert on the matter.
“Before we potentially reach out to Ana, we should meet internally – many considerations not suited to email…” David Menschik, an FDA official who distributed the data mining reports, wrote on April 15, 2021.
“Sounds good,” Bethany Baer, another FDA worker, responded. “Happy to meet and discuss anytime open on my calendar.”
Hellbound and Down 