A study on Covid vaccines that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s acting director blocked from publication came out Tuesday in a different journal.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.The findings show that Covid vaccines reduced the likelihood of severe illness by about half among adults last fall and winter.The study was originally scheduled to be released in March in the CDC’s flagship scientific publication, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).
Instead, it was published in JAMA Network Open, a highly regarded, peer-reviewed journal from the American Medical Association.Acting Director Jay Bhattacharya raised concerns about the paper’s methodology after it had already undergone scientific review and MMWR editors had approved it, current and former CDC employees told NBC News in April.At issue for Bhattacharya was the study’s “test-negative design” — an approach that compares the vaccination status of people who test positive for a particular disease (in this case, Covid) to the vaccination status of people who test negative.
The paper looked at adults who visited a hospital or urgent care with symptoms consistent with Covid across seven states from September to December last year.The group studied was tested for Covid around the time of their medical visit.
Among those who tested positive and those who tested negative, the researchers calculated the odds of having received a 2025-26 formulation of the Covid vaccine.They found that the vaccine lowered the odds of a Covid-related visit to the ER or urgent care by 50% and of hospitalization for Covid by 55%.Some public health experts saw Bhattacharya’s withdrawal of the study as political interference in the CDC’s scientific work or as an attempt to withhold evidence of vaccine safety.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F.Kennedy Jr., who oversees federal health agencies including the CDC, has ...