Dr. Robert Redfield, former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said that federal officials’ fears of an open debate about COVID-19 vaccines likely led to widespread public hesitancy to get the shots.
Speaking to Fox News this week, the former CDC director under the Trump administration made reference to a recent court ruling that found that the Biden administration violated the First Amendment in attempting to pressure social media firms to block content regarding COVID-19, including vaccines. Attorneys general in Missouri and Louisiana had filed a lawsuit that accused the administration of allegedly threatening Facebook, Twitter, and others with antitrust lawsuits or other legal changes targeting their liability.
Dr. Redfield, a longtime virologist, said that he knew of individuals within the federal government who were concerned about Americans not wanting to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
“I always said ... my position was just tell the American public the truth: There are side effects to vaccines. Tell them the truth, and don’t try to package it,” he told Fox News.
The former federal health official said that the concept of the COVID-19 vaccine providing “complete” immunization is a “false perception” that Dr. Redfield suggested was being pushed by other federal officials.
“There was such an attempt to not let anybody get any hint that maybe vaccines weren’t foolproof, which, of course, we now know they have significant limitations,” he said.
Dr. Redfield said that Americans likely perceived that there was no open or honest discourse about vaccines and vaccine safety, sparking some to be hesitant to take the shot. At the same time, vaccine mandates that were handed down by the government, schools, and some businesses eroded the public’s trust in them as well, he said.
“I think we should have, really, confidence and not be afraid to debate the issues that we think are in the public’s interest and just tell the public the truth,” the former CDC head said.
During the pandemic, a number of medical professionals, skeptics, and journalists were censored or had their accounts suspended by Twitter, Facebook, and Google-owned websites for publicly questioning the safety or effectiveness of vaccines. For example, independent journalist Alex Berenson’s Twitter account was suspended in August 2021 for allegedly and repeatedly violating the company’s policies regarding COVID-19 “misinformation,” and Mr. Berenson later claimed that government officials had pressured the social media firm to target his account.
Court Order
Days ago, an appeals court partly upheld a ruling that the Biden administration must restrict its communication with social media firms in connection with the firms’ content moderation rules. Earlier this week, the Department of Justice filed a motion with the Louisiana-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a bid to seek clarity on the court’s recent ruling, in which a panel of judges found that a lower court’s ruling in the case was “broader than necessary.”The appeals court instead reduced the restrictions initially handed down by Judge Terry Doughty, chief U.S. district judge for the Western District of Louisiana, so that the judge’s ruling can apply only to the CDC, the FBI, the Surgeon General’s office, and the White House. It means that those agencies can’t communicate with social media firms such as Facebook, X, YouTube, and others regarding their content policies.
The district court, earlier this year, placed restrictions on the Department of State, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
But the appeals court panel, in its Sept. 8 order, wrote that the lower court “did not err in determining that several officials ... likely coerced or significantly encouraged social-media platforms to moderate content, rendering those decisions state actions.”
“In doing so, the officials likely violated the First Amendment,” the judges wrote.
In July, Judge Doughty granted an injunction and found there was “substantial evidence” of a far-reaching censorship campaign on behalf of the federal government in a strongly worded ruling.
Further, the judge wrote that the “evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario“ that ”during the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’”
At the time, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said the injunction prevents the administration “from censoring the core political speech of ordinary Americans” on social media.
“The evidence in our case is shocking and offensive with senior federal officials deciding that they could dictate what Americans can and cannot say on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other platforms about COVID-19, elections, criticism of the government, and more,” Mr. Landry said in a statement.
