The acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reportedly delayed publication of a CDC report indicating the COVID-19 vaccine reduced emergency room visits and hospitalizations among healthy adults last winter by about half, according to two scientists familiar with the decision.
The scientists, who spoke with The Washington Post on condition of anonymity, said the report had been slated for publication on March 19 in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
The move is raising questions among some current and former officials about whether findings highlighting the vaccine’s effectiveness are being sidelined as the Trump administration recalibrates its public health messaging.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime critic of COVID shots, has pushed for a different approach to vaccine policy.
According to a summary of the report obtained by the Post, healthy adults who received the 2025-2026 COVID vaccine between September and December were 50% less likely to require emergency or urgent care and 55% less likely to be hospitalized compared to those who did not receive the updated dose.
The report had already cleared the CDC’s scientific review process, the scientists said, but acting CDC Director Jay Bhattacharya delayed publication over concerns about the methodology.
In a statement, HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said, “It’s routine for CDC leadership to review and flag concerns about MMWR papers, especially relating to their methodology, leading up to planned publication.”
He continued by saying that Bhattacharya raised concerns about “the observational method used in the study to calculate vaccine effectiveness," adding that “the scientific team is working to address these concerns.”
“Dr. Bhattacharya wants to make sure that the paper uses the most appropriate methodology for such a study,” Nixon added.
The methodology in question, known as test-negative design, has been widely used by the CDC for years to evaluate vaccines for respiratory illnesses, including influenza, and has appeared in major peer-reviewed journals.
Kennedy, who founded a prominent anti-vaccine group, has been critical of COVID shots, once calling them the “deadliest vaccine ever made.”
“The secretary has already taken steps to try and remove the availability of the vaccine from children and others, so if you’re putting out an MMWR that the vaccine is effective at preventing hospitalizations and medical care visits … that message is not in line with the direction you’ve been taking with the removal of the vaccine,” Dan Jernigan, former head of the CDC’s vaccine safety office, told the Post.
Jernigan said the test-negative approach, while not perfect, has long been used to gauge vaccine performance in real-world conditions.
“It’s a real-world approach where you can’t control differences between people who get vaccinated and those who don’t, and how that influences their likelihood of getting infected,” Jernigan said.
Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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