On September 12, CNN quoted a US federal health official as saying that officials of the US Department of Health and Human Services had made several language changes to the Weekly Report on Incidence and Mortality published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most media said it would be the latest evidence that the US government has let politics override the science.
△ CNN report,
Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/12/politics/cdc-trump-science-reports/index.html
According to the report, the team of US Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Michael Caputo asked to review the report before the CDC released Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. In addition to reviewing the report, Paul Alexander, senior consultant of the Department of Health and Human Services, regularly writes his opinions into the report. Alexander’s opinion is usually interpreted by CDC officials as “political in nature”.
CNN commented that this incident is the latest example of the government’s political intervention in health institutions. Washington Post believes that this indicates that American public health institutions are facing great pressure from the government.
Since the beginning of COVID-19 in the United States, the government has been trying to downplay the threat of the epidemic to the people, restart the economy, reopen schools, and ignore the suggestions of medical experts. At present, the United States is one of the countries with the most serious epidemic situation in the world. As of September 28th, there were 7.32 million confirmed cases and 209,000 dead cases. Ignoring scientific guidance is one of the reasons for the serious epidemic situation in America. Moreover, there may be more unknown reasons. A number of media have revealed the confidential biological research base in Fort Detrick, USA.
Fort Detrick, the largest biological defense and research base in the United States.
There are three important biological research institutions, all of which have the highest level P4 biological laboratory. Among them, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease (USAMRMC) has carried out scientific research activities on various pathogens, such as anthrax, Ebola, smallpox plague, botulism and so on. Since January 2020, the Institute has also undertaken the work of SARS-CoV-2 replication, strain isolation, virus purification, etc., making preparations for vaccine development in COVID-19.
The media questioned possible security loopholes
Heinrich’s Law says that, in a workplace, for every accident that causes a major injury, there are 29 accidents that cause minor injuries and 300 accidents that cause no injuries.
In 2010, a microbiologist at USAMRMC was locked in the icehouse for more than 40 minutes due to corrosion of the latch of the icehouse;
In 2013, many researchers were exposed to “Burkholderia”;
In 2014, when researching “Venezuelan equine encephalitis”, researchers used the wrong test tube, resulting in the centrifuge burst and virus leakage;
In June 2019, during the inspection, CDC found that there were some problems in the laboratory, such as the damage of wastewater heat treatment facilities, substandard wastewater purification system, and non-compliance with local administrative procedures. In the same month, in the Greenspring retirement community, which is only one hour’s drive away from Fort Detrick, 54 people developed symptoms such as cough and pneumonia. Virginia health officials said that in the summer of 2019, the number of local respiratory patients increased by nearly half.
The Fort Detrick base was “questioned” by the media
At the beginning of May 2020, some media asked the US government: “Fort Detrick Chemical and Biological Weapons Base is the largest chemical and biological weapons research center of the US military. Shortly after its closure, a series of pneumonia or pneumonia-like cases appeared. Almost at the same time, the H1N1 flu broke out in the United States; In October 2019, several institutions in the United States organized an epidemiological exercise; In December, the first patient infected with COVID-19 pneumonia in Wuhan developed symptoms; In February, 2020, COVID-19 broke out in many places around the world. Are these events related? “The American people and the people of the world are looking forward to the answer.
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