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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
Trump raises fresh questions about Covid-19 vaccines that he says have | |
‘ripped apart’ CDC | |
By Adam Cancryn, CNN | |
Updated: | |
5:08 PM EDT, Mon September 1, 2025 | |
Source: CNN | |
on Monday appeared to raise fresh questions about the Covid-19 vaccines | |
that were first developed on his watch, saying his top public health | |
agency is being “ripped apart” by debate over the success of the | |
shots. | |
While noting that he’s seen “great numbers and results” from some | |
drug companies, Trump demanded they prove publicly that vaccines are | |
effective in combating Covid and questioned whether unspecified data | |
was being withheld from the public. | |
“I want them to show them NOW, to CDC and the public, and clear up | |
this MESS, one way or the other!!!” Trump wrote on . “I hope | |
OPERATION WARP SPEED was as ‘BRILLIANT’ as many say it was. If not, | |
we all want to know about it, and why???” | |
The post represented Trump’s first public comments about the US | |
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since the agency’s former | |
director, Dr. Susan Monarez, was abruptly fired on Wednesday, less than | |
a month into her tenure amid a dispute over vaccine policy. | |
And it was yet another example of Trump trying to walk a narrow line | |
between touting what he has at times called his greatest accomplishment | |
— the rapid development of the Covid vaccine in 2020 during his first | |
term — and embracing the vaccine skepticism popular with his MAGA | |
base and promoted by his top health official, US Health and Human | |
Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. | |
“Many people think they are a miracle that saved Millions of lives. | |
Others disagree! With CDC being ripped apart over this question, I want | |
the answer, and I want it NOW,” Trump wrote of the vaccines. | |
Claiming that drug companies don’t share the “extraordinary” | |
information he’s seen, the president said those companies instead | |
“go off to the next ‘hunt’ and let everyone rip themselves apart, | |
including Bobby Kennedy Jr. and CDC.” | |
CNN has reached out to Pfizer and Moderna about the Truth Social post. | |
HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. | |
Drug companies regularly share information about effectiveness with the | |
public, investors and media through news releases and calls and with | |
scientists, regulatory and health agencies through presentations, | |
publications and a presence at scientific, government and advisory | |
meetings. | |
The CDC also regularly analyzes and communicates to physicians, public | |
health officials and the public about vaccine effectiveness and safety. | |
This information helps guide individual decisions about vaccination but | |
also provider conversations and official recommendations. | |
The White House declined to say on Monday what data Trump is seeking | |
from drug companies. But in a statement, spokesman Kush Desai said, | |
“The only driving principle of health decision-making in this | |
Administration is Gold Standard Science.” | |
“HHS, the FDA, and the CDC will continue to take an evidence-based | |
approach to evaluate pharmaceutical treatments and Make America Healthy | |
Again,” Desai said. | |
Trump’s comments came after the US Food and Drug Administration | |
announced that it would narrow its approval for the next Covid vaccine, | |
a move that prompted criticism from public health experts and | |
widespread confusion over who will be eligible to receive the shot. | |
On Monday, commissioner Marty Makary defended the decision in a Wall | |
Street Journal op-ed, arguing that drug makers haven’t justified the | |
need for people who are under 65 or who don’t have certain health | |
conditions to get the vaccine. | |
“No one knows how many shots a healthy person should get in his | |
natural life,” Makary wrote. “The FDA’s new framework preserves | |
vaccines for those who might most plausibly benefit, while generating | |
evidence for most Americans, who are voting with their feet (or their | |
upper arms) against an eternal annual booster campaign.” | |
During a Cabinet meeting last week, Trump called his Operation Warp | |
Speed “one of the greatest achievements ever in politics.” | |
But he has remained fully behind Kennedy’s effort to revamp the | |
government’s approach to vaccines, including signing off on the | |
firing of Monarez after she refused to pledge to back recommendations | |
made by a Kennedy-selected panel of outside advisers, some of whom have | |
previously questioned the safety of widely accepted vaccines. | |
The dramatic ouster plunged the CDC into crisis, prompting the | |
resignations of four other senior officials who have subsequently | |
accused Kennedy and his allies of sidelining agency scientists in | |
pursuit of policies they worry will restrict the availability certain | |
standard immunizations. | |
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