By CASEY HARPER | THE CENTER SQUARE
The Republican-led House Energy and Commerce Committee released a report Wednesday saying that the Biden-Harris Administration spent nearly a billion dollars promoting COVID-era messaging, much of which turned out to be untrue or misleading.
The Congressional report examines the $900 million spent by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on COVID-era messaging to the American people.
“Americans cannot afford another botched government response to a future pandemic,” the report said.
The report cites “errors and failures” in the U.S. Center for Disease Control’s “We Can Do This” advertisements and marketing materials.
The report said that much of that taxpayer-funded marketing included incorrect information about vaccines, the danger to children, masks and more, according to the report.
“Much of the scientific content directly featured in or alluded to in Campaign ads and other promotional material was drawn from CDC recommendations, guidance, and research, critical parts of which proved to be deeply flawed,” the report said.
For instance, the report cited the CDC telling Americans that taking the COVID-19 vaccine would prevent them from getting COVID, something that turned out to be false.
“This ultimately had a negative impact on vaccine confidence and the CDC’s credibility when proven untrue,” the report said.
In another instance, the report points out that federal health officials and the CDC initially downplayed the need and usefulness of masking only to later reverse course and strongly urge Americans to mask, even outdoors.
“Dr. Anthony Fauci, former head of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), advocated against mask wearing on February 5, 2020, stating ‘Masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection,’” the report said.
“By April 3, 2020, the CDC completely reversed course and announced new mask wearing guidelines, recommending that all people wear a mask outside of the home,” the report continued, adding that “In December of 2022, after leaving the Biden White House, former COVID-19 coordinator, Ashish Jha, freely admitted what many had been saying all along—’[t]here is no study in the world that shows that masks work that well.’”The report also pointed out that “The CDC had inconsistent and flawed messaging about the effectiveness of masks” and that “the CDC consistently overstated the risk of COVID-19 to children.”
“The CDC continues to recommend COVID-19 vaccines for all Americans ages six months and older, which has made the United States a global outlier in COVID-19 policy,” the report said.
That marketing was used by lawmakers and local and state officials to justify extended lockdowns on businesses, which hurt the economy and put many small business owners out of business or to justify school closures, from which research now shows students have still not recovered.
“While the Biden-Harris administration’s public health guidance led to prolonged closures of schools and businesses, the NIH was spending nearly a billion dollars of taxpayer money trying to manipulate Americans with advertisements—sometimes containing erroneous or unproven information,” Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., sain in a statement.
“By overpromising what the COVID-19 vaccines could do—in direct contradiction of the FDA’s authorizations—and over emphasizing the virus’s risk to children and young adults, the Biden-Harris administration caused Americans to lose trust in the public health system,” he added.
Reporting has shown that during the pandemic the federal government successfully pressured social media companies to censor Americans’ posts on COVID-related issues that did not toe the party line.
Meta CEO and Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg said earlier this year in a public letter that he regretted complying with those federal requests.
“Our investigation also uncovered the extent to which public funding went to Big Tech companies to track and monitor Americans, underscoring the need for stronger online data privacy protections,” McMorris-Rodgers said.
The lawmakers on the Republican-led committee pointed out that the federal government’s pushing of unproven or incorrect medical data has led to an overall distrust of federal health agencies and vaccines on the whole.
“The entire premise of the Biden-Harris ‘Stop the Spread’ campaign was that if you got vaccinated for COVID-19, you could resume daily activities because they said vaccinated people would not spread the disease,” Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chair Morgan Griffith, R-Va., said in a statement. “Despite lacking scientific basis, the administration bought into this CDC claim and misled the American public. As a result, vaccination coverage with other vaccines appears to have declined, I believe because of a growing distrust of information coming from our public health institutions.”
Gallup released polling data in August showing that fewer Americans now say childhood vaccines are important, “with 40% saying it is extremely important for parents to have their children vaccinated, down from 58% in 2019 and 64% in 2001.”
Kind of Monday morning quarterbacking on some of this. Some has yet to be proven.
And why do people want to vote for Kamala again?!
I can’t think of a single reason why anybody would want to vote for her, but I can think of many reasons not to vote for trump.
Would not expect anything less.
I wonder how much was taken to the political Elite
As Gomer Pyle used to say, ” well surprise, surprise, surprise…..
The Republicans always release reports and hold hearings on the very real and serious corruption in our government, as though they are powerless spectators.
Congress passes the thousands of pages each spending bills, including this $900 million covid propaganda messaging and never repeal any one category, ever.
They simply put on the sham of the threat of an imminent government “shut down” theater and cave in, approving continuing resolutions with their Democrat comrades.
This has been done instead of passing actual budgets, which is their job description duty, for decades now.
The cynisicism displayed by the GOP in their complicit cooperation in dismantling the Republic, while pretending to be “conservative” has become tiresome.
Republicans always claim they “fight” for Alaska or our country. But they constantly and continually lose and never win a fight.
Republicans can’t effectively fight or win against the Democrats in Juneau or Washington which proves they are pathetic and useless losers. Can’t win against a Democrat and you want to be elected? Seriously? For what?
There is nothing in this report any cogent person is not already aware of.
We, uh, gonna talk about the stunning waste of Trump’s Paycheck Protection Program or is only when Democrats waste money that we get worked up?
We gonna play whataboutism while this country goes down in flames?
I’d just like to see a little fair and balanced reporting. But, alas, I’ve come to the wrong place.
It’s funny, Trumpers love whataboutism – until it’s about their guy.
Stand up for your country or leave it!! Trump never took a dime during his presidency you knew that right? It’s time to stop the whatabouting!!! Jay is right!
I am standing up for my country, by not supporting Trump. That doesn’t make me a democrat, or even a liberal. It just makes me a conservative who doesn’t support whatever Trump is.
Or is supporting the USA only possible if you support Trump? Is his vision of the US the only acceptable vision?
OK.
Let’s talk about it? What do you have? Where did the waste happen, when did it happen, and who was in charge of ensuring waste and fraud did not happen? (And, the answer to the 3rd question is not Trump. it is the name of the Agency or Department head responsible for doling out the funds.)
Well, here’s a fox news article from 2022 about the fraud problems in the PPP. ‘https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/covid-relief-fraud-ppp-billions-taxpayer-funded-paycheck-protection-program-loans
The program was started under Trump (with bipartisan support), he owns it. You’re holding Biden responsible for wasted resources in the Covid messaging campaign, so why don’t you hold Trump responsible for his administration’s actions? But, then again, that’s always how it is. Trump never does anything wrong, just his underlings, he’s never responsible.
Here is the thing-President Trump pushed the vaccine through an effort to reduce the amount of dead bodies that were thrown upon each other like cord wood.
No one knew what to do.
President Trump said the biggest decision he would make was reopening America because this was unprecedented and he demonstrated he valued people first.
If he was the capitalistic billionaire puppet, I did not witness that.
Is he a loud mouthed, crass, annoying jerk that offends the masses? Holy f’g sheeetttt all the day long.
But is he an elitist that strokes our sensibilities to make us feel warm and fuzzy? Because I been in those situations where folks like Obama host Tribes in the Executive Office Treaty Rooms. Tribes walk away with a photo and forgotten sovereignty.
Instead they are proud of another executive order to honor tribal consultation-government to government. I.e. the next years junket trip to Alaska.
But what is the outcome? Opportunity (maybe) to apply for yet another re-branded grant – with the same or more reporting requirements with 10% G&A and a non- federal match requirement – which doubles the amount of work for reporting versus on-the-ground change making because you gotta go hustle for another funding source to leverage those federal funds.
The purest government to government funding distribution to indigenous people in the history of the United States was from President Trump.
He did several “put your money where your is” Respect to Tribes and more importantly tribal members.
He cut out all the federal agencies and the money went from the Department of Treasury to Tribes.
If you don’t know, every time there is a congressional appropriation siphoned through a federal agency-money gets depleted as it filters down.
We get what is left over.
Donald Trump disrupted that federal funding siphoning model.
And then, he did not give any mandates or guidance for how Tribes spent the money.
He said basically- you know what you need more intimately than anyone else. So go do that.
As a by-product of this Alaska Native Corporations (ANCSA) became included in the historically ambiguous definition of Tribe.
And guess what, that happened outside of the executive office rooms of broken treaties.
And without a junket, without a photo opportunity for a press release.
$900 million spent on incorrect messaging, and they said not one word about correct messaging of something I figured out on my own…..which is that if you get your A1-C down, and your vitamin D up, you would be fine.
I put my money where my mouth is, and did that, and I was and still am, just fine, even though I caught the Kung Flu several times.
Take charge of your own health people. Begin by knowing that our feral government will always lie to you, and that everything you need to know is free, you just need to look for correct information on your own.
This has all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation.
It sure does huh
Funny thing happened as I was visiting some Liberal relatives down south this last week. They apologized to me and said I was right all along about COVID. How did I know? I then started telling them the horrors of illegal immigration. They live in a gated community with security guards and later that night two homes were burglarized. There is an awakening.
I’m familiar with some of those gated communities You speak of and I wouldn’t trust those security guards as far as I could throw them. Every time I go through a particular security gate, the process is different each time depending on who’s there.
It was a PLANdemic, the government wanted to find out like God did when he told Gedion I believe to separate the men by having them drink water because the ones that fell on their face to drink had been falling prostrate to other Gods so they couldn’t be trusted, now the government knows who is for them and who isn’t
untrue or misleading… lies and damned lies would be more accurate, no?
OK, question for everyone who thinks the Government should take over healthcare.
.
After seeing this, do you seriously think the Federal Government will somehow be a fantastic steward of the Taxpayer dollar because it is healthcare? Be honest, do you?
Yes.
.
One has only to look at VA or Indian health care or Medicare or Medicaid to understand why our Federal Government must immediately assume control of America’s health-care industry.
I hope that is snark.
As someone approaching retirement, I do look at Medicare, and it scares the F out of me that I must use that as my primary insurance. And, VA? Really? Miss the news on that front?
.
And, let me ask you something. Take a look around your work place. Who, in that workplace, do you want making decisions about your healthcare? Which of your coworkers do you want to be making health decisions about the care your children, or parents receive? I will guess you will say none of them.
.
Now, tell me how you think the workers in the Federal Government are somehow so vastly different than the people you work with? They are somehow angels who will always place the health and welfare of your family first, and have an unlimited amount of money.