EXCLUSIVE: CDC Says It Performed Vaccine Safety Data Mining After Saying It Didn’t

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is saying it has performed vaccine safety data mining and analyses since early 2021, a reversal from a recent letter.

The CDC said in an operating procedures document dated Jan. 29, 2021, that it “will perform” a type of data mining analysis of vaccine safety data called Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR).

The public health agency stated that it will conduct routine surveillance. This data is currently being logged in to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.

The purpose of data mining and surveillance was to detect adverse events at greater-than-expected rates.

But little of what the agency said it would perform has actually been performed, according to a June 16 letter to the Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit.

The group requested, through a Freedom of Information Act Request, all data generated by the data mining as well copies of any other data.

Roger Andoh, CDC Records Officer, responded that staff from the CDC Immunization and Safety Office had “inform” him that there were no PRRS conducted by CDC .”

“Data mining is also outside the agency’s scope; staff recommend that you contact the FDA, or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

According to the procedure document, FDA was given the task of conducting data mining using a new method.

The CDC also failed to produce other information it said it would be producing, such as weekly tables of all reports of adverse events following COVID-19 vaccines.

Confusion

The reaction was quick. Joshua Guetzkow, a senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem who has been applying his training in statistics to examine vaccine safety, said it showed the CDC “lied” about its efforts to monitor the safety database, known as VAERS.

” In their own web document, they clearly state their intentions to track VAERS safety signals. Guetzkow told The Epoch Times by email that they failed to do so. Guetzkow has been working for Children’s Health Defense.

“Another point: In their FOIA reply, they stated that data mining was not within the CDC’s purview. He wondered why they said they would do data mining using PRRs as part of the SOP briefing.

Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, has tried to obtain answers from federal agencies during the pandemic. He told CDC Director Rochelle Walensky in a that this disclosure “raises doubts about whether CDC ever obtained the information regarding vaccine safety it initially claimed it would” within the operating procedures document.

The request for information that triggered the CDC’s response was for data from Feb. 1, 2021, through Sept. 30, 2021.

Dr. John Su is a member of the CDC’s Immunization and Safety Office and heads the VAERS group at the CDC, which authored these operating procedures.

“CDC has been performing PRRs since Feb 2021, and continues to do so to date,” Su told The Epoch Times via email.

Hope That CDC Is ‘More Forthcoming’

In its response to Freedom of Information Act requests, the CDC stated that it was “unambiguous: The agency said that it hadn’t done PRR” and had no obligation to do so.” Risa Evans from Children’s Health Defense (CHD) told The Epoch Times via email.

“Now the CDC states that it has in fact been conducting PRR since February 2021. CHD will certainly follow up with the CDC to obtain those records, and hopefully, the agency will be more forthcoming this time around in light of its legal obligations under FOIA and its stated commitment to ‘openness and accountability,'” she added.

The Epoch Times filed a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA), for any PRR analysis the CDC conducted as well as all other information. The VAERS team assured The Epoch Times the information would be “provided to you”, but no date was given.

The FDA claims that they have conducted an alternative type of analysis called Empirical Bayesian Data Mining.

“FDA performs Empirical Bayesian Data Mining periodically on VAERS data as part of its vaccination safety monitoring efforts,” an official told The Epoch Times via email.

A spokesperson was not available to answer questions.

The Epoch Times filed a FOIA Request with FDA to obtain the results.

Guetzkow in 2021 performed his own analysis of data from VAERS. This analysis revealed safety signs for many events including Bell’s palsy and severe allergic shock. Some of the events have been confirmed to be connected, or described as likely connected, to one or more of the COVID-19 vaccines by the CDC and other U.S. authorities.

“CDC and FDA have been actively engaged in vaccine safety surveillance ever since COVID-19 vaccines have been in use. During the first month of their availability, data on anaphylaxis after [the Pfizer and Moderna] COVID-19 vaccines were published (including in highly visible journals, like the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), indicating an observed incidence comparable to data after other vaccines. VAERS identified what became known as “thrombosis and thrombocytopenia” (TTS), which was detected after Janssen’s vaccination. This led to an immediate halt in vaccine use just weeks later. VAERS reviewed reports of myocarditis after mRNA COVID-19 vaccines during Summer 2021, providing a highly thorough characterization of such reports,” Martha Sharan, a spokeswoman for the CDC, told The Epoch Times in an email.

” These examples show that potential safety issues in vaccines can be identified quickly and effectively by FDA and CDC. .”