Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Michael Caputo and one of his advisors, HHS political appointee Paul Alexander, deliberately interfered with and altered independent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports in order to downplay the severity of the coronavirus pandemic and bolster President Donald Trump’s image in the midst of this crisis.
Their actions represent a pattern of interference by the Trump Administration with independent agencies and the undermining of expert advice in order to place the President’s political considerations ahead of the health and safety of the American people.
This dangerous skewing of priorities is one of the key reasons President Trump and his administration has failed to contain the virus that has killed nearly 200,000 Americans. These brazen attempts to mislead the American people are making the situation worse, not better.
In light of these shocking revelations, Assistant Secretary Caputo and Alexander are no longer fit to serve the public and Protect Our Care is joined by the organizations signed below in calling for their immediate resignation.
Signed,
Protect Our Care
American Family Voices
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
American Federation of Teachers
Center for American Progress Action Fund
Committee to Protect Medicare
Community Catalyst
DemCast USA
For Our Future Pennsylvania
Health Care Voices
Health Care Voter
Indivisible Lincoln Square/Chicago Alliance
Indivisible Georgia Coalition
Little Lobbyists
Mainers for Accountable Leadership
National Partnership for Women & Families
National Women’s Health Network
People for the American Way (PFAW)
R2H (Right to Health) Action
Raising Women’s Voices for the Health Care We Need
Save My Care
Save My Country Action Fund
Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
BACKGROUND: Trump Political Appointees Are Interfering With The Independence Of The CDC
- Trump Officials Have Been Interfering With Reports On COVID-19 From The Centers For Disease Control By Demanding The Right To Review Reports And Seek Changes. “The health department’s politically appointed communications aides have demanded the right to review and seek changes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly scientific reports charting the progress of the coronavirus pandemic, in what officials characterized as an attempt to intimidate the reports’ authors and water down their communications to health professionals… CDC officials… have increasingly agreed to allow the political officials to review the reports and, in a few cases, compromised on the wording, according to three people familiar with the exchanges. The communications aides’ efforts to change the language in the CDC’s reports have been constant across the summer and continued as recently as Friday afternoon.” [Politico, 9/12/20]
- Since Michael Caputo Joined HHS As Its New Spokesperson, There Have Been “Substantial” Efforts To Align Nonpartisan Scientific Reports WIth Trump’s Messaging, Or To Stop Them Completely. “The CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports are authored by career scientists and serve as the main vehicle for the agency to inform doctors, researchers and the general public about how Covid-19 is spreading and who is at risk. Such reports have historically been published with little fanfare and no political interference… But since Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign official with no medical or scientific background, was installed in April as the Health and Human Services department’s new spokesperson, there have been substantial efforts to align the reports with Trump’s statements, including the president’s claims that fears about the outbreak are overstated, or stop the reports altogether.” [Politico, 9/12/20]
- Michael Caputo Tried To Prevent The Release Of A CDC Report That Highlighted The Dangers Of Hydroxychloroquine, Which Was Favored By Trump As A Treatment Despite Little Evidence Of Its Effectiveness. “Caputo’s team also has tried to halt the release of some CDC reports, including delaying a report that addressed how doctors were prescribing hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug favored by Trump as a coronavirus treatment despite scant evidence. The report, which was held for about a month after Caputo’s team raised questions about its authors’ political leanings, was finally published last week. It said that ‘the potential benefits of these drugs do not outweigh their risks.’” [Politico, 9/12/20]
- Caputo Aide Paul Alexander Falsely Claimed That Scientists Were Using The Reports Simply To “Hurt The President.” “In one clash, an aide to Caputo berated CDC scientists for attempting to use the reports to ‘hurt the President’ in an Aug. 8 email sent to CDC Director Robert Redfield and other officials that was widely circulated inside the department and obtained by POLITICO. ‘CDC to me appears to be writing hit pieces on the administration,’ appointee Paul Alexander wrote, calling on Redfield to modify two already published reports that Alexander claimed wrongly inflated the risks of coronavirus to children and undermined Trump’s push to reopen schools. ‘CDC tried to report as if once kids get together, there will be spread and this will impact school re-opening . . . Very misleading by CDC and shame on them. Their aim is clear.’” [Politico, 9/12/20]
- Alexander Called On The CDC To Change Its Publication Process So He Could Personally Review Reports Prior To Publication. “Alexander also called on Redfield to halt all future MMWR reports until the agency modified its years-old publication process so he could personally review the entire report prior to publication, rather than a brief synopsis. Alexander, an assistant professor of health research at McMaster University near Toronto whom Caputo recruited this spring to be his scientific adviser, added that CDC needed to allow him to make line edits — and demanded an ‘immediate stop’ to the reports in the meantime.” [Politico, 9/12/20]
- Alexander Attacked The Timing Of A Report About The Spread Of The Virus At A Georgia Summer Camp As A Deliberate Effort To Undermine The Push To Reopen Schools. “The close scrutiny continued across the summer with numerous flashpoints, the individuals added, with Caputo and other HHS officials particularly bristling about a CDC report that found the coronavirus spread among young attendees at an overnight camp in Georgia. Caputo, Alexander and others claimed that the timing of the August report was a deliberate effort to undermine the president’s push on children returning to schools in the fall.” [Politico, 9/12/20]
- Caputo Has Accused The CDC Of “Sedition” And Is Pushing Conspiracy Theories That Left Wing Groups Are Plotting Against President Trump. “The top communications official at the powerful cabinet department in charge of combating the coronavirus accused career government scientists on Sunday of ‘sedition’ in their handling of the pandemic and warned that left-wing hit squads were preparing for armed insurrection after the election. Michael Caputo, 58, the assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, said without evidence that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was harboring a ‘resistance unit’ determined to undermine President Trump. Mr. Caputo, who has faced criticism for leading efforts to warp C.D.C. weekly bulletins to fit Mr. Trump’s pandemic narrative, suggested that he personally could be in danger. ‘You understand that they’re going to have to kill me, and unfortunately, I think that’s where this is going,’ Mr. Caputo, a Trump loyalist installed by the White House in April, told followers in a video he hosted live on his personal Facebook page.” [New York Times, 9/14/20]
BACKGROUND: The Trump Administration Has Spent The Pandemic Politicizing Independent Agencies
- Caputo Aide Paul Alexander Tried To Muzzle The Coronavirus Task Force’s Dr. Anthony Fauci On The Threat Of Coronavirus To Children, Contradicting Mainstream Science And Promoting Trump Political Positions. “A Trump administration appointee at the Department of Health and Human Services is trying to prevent Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, from speaking about the risks that coronavirus poses to children. Emails obtained by POLITICO show Paul Alexander… instructing press officers and others at the National Institutes of Health about what Fauci should say during media interviews. [Alexander] weighed in on Fauci’s planned responses to outlets including Bloomberg News, BuzzFeed, Huffington Post and the science journal Cell. Alexander’s lengthy messages, some sent as recently as this week, are couched as scientific arguments. But they often contradict mainstream science while promoting political positions taken by the Trump administration on hot-button issues ranging from the use of convalescent plasma to school reopening.” [Politico, 9/9/20]
- FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn Was Forced To Apologize For Bowing To Political Pressure On The Authorization Of Convalescent Plasma. “Just days earlier, [Stephen] Hahn publicly apologized for making misleading claims about the efficacy of convalescent plasma as a treatment for COVID-19. The FDA issued emergency use authorization for plasma the night before the start of the Republican National Convention, amidst accusations that it had been pressured to do so by the White House.” [NPR, 9/2/20]
- Trump Ordered The CDC To Adjust Testing Guidelines To Exclude People Without Symptoms. “A sudden change in federal guidelines on coronavirus testing came this week as a result of pressure from the upper ranks of the Trump administration… ‘I am concerned about the interpretation of these recommendations and worried it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern. In fact it is,’ [Dr. Anthony Fauci] said. The new guidelines raise the bar on who should get tested, advising that some people without symptoms probably don’t need it — even if they’ve been in close contact with an infected person.” [CNN, 8/27/20]
- Trump Strong-Armed The FDA Into Approving An Emergency Use Authorization For Convalescent Plasma, An Unproven Therapy, Against The Advice Of Experts. “The Food and Drug Administration on Sunday gave emergency approval for expanded use of antibody-rich blood plasma to help hospitalized coronavirus patients, allowing President Trump, who has been pressuring the agency to move faster to address the pandemic, to claim progress on the eve of the Republican convention. Mr. Trump cited the approval, which had been held up by concerns among top government scientists about the data behind it, as welcome news in fighting a disease that has led to 176,000 deaths in the United States and left the nation lagging far behind most others in the effectiveness of its response.” [New York Times, 8/23/20]
- The CDC Changed Its School Reopening Recommendations Just Days After Trump Bashed Them As “Very Tough” And “Expensive.” “After President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday that he disagreed with US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for safely reopening schools because they are ‘very tough’ and ‘expensive,’ the agency said it would issue new recommendations next week. The move came as the Trump administration makes a concerted push for schools to reopen by the fall, even as cases surge in some parts of the country. After Trump voiced displeasure at the CDC’s handling of the issue, the agency’s director said his recommendations shouldn’t be used as an excuse for not returning children to classrooms.” [CNN, 7/8/20]
- On July 15, The Trump Administration Ordered Hospitals No Longer Send Data To The CDC, A Move That Alarmed Health Experts Who Feared The Data Would Be Politicized Or Withheld From The Public. “The Trump administration has ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all Covid-19 patient information to a central database in Washington beginning on Wednesday. The move has alarmed health experts who fear the data will be politicized or withheld from the public.” [New York Times, 7/14/20]
- As Trump Championed The Drug, In March The FDA Issued An Emergency Use Authorization For Hydroxychloroquine, Which It Was Later Forced To Revoke. “After months of debate and intense research concerning hydroxychloroquine, FDA officials on Monday revoked their Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the antimalarial drug that President Donald Trump has promoted in the fight against Covid-19. When the EUA was issued in late March, no high-quality studies of the drug’s ability to prevent and treat Covid-19 were yet available. Now, a handful of randomized trials have failed to find any benefit associated with hydroxychloroquine use.” [WIRED, 6/17/20]