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On October 29, 2021, CDC published a paper that claimed vaccine-induced immunity to COVID-19 was far superior to natural immunity—and then used that paper to justify crushing civil and individual rights. Documents now obtained by ICAN in a lawsuit against CDC show CDC officials privately admitting that natural immunity was at least equally protective.
Published in CDC’s non-peer-reviewed journal, the MMWR, the paper contained the misleading conclusion that vaccinated individuals were 5.49 times more protected than previously infected unvaccinated individuals. This conclusion stood in stark contrast to peer-reviewed scientific studies that showed natural immunity provided greater protection.
ICAN’s legal team therefore promptly issued three FOIA requests for the data used in CDC’s paper, which evolved into a lawsuit. The documents obtained from the suit reveal CDC’s manipulation of data (and the public) to achieve its policy goals. For example, CDC highlighted the October 19, 2021 paper to make statements like this:
Vaccination provides a higher, more robust, and more consistent level of immunity to protect people from COVID-19 than infection. People who have already had COVID-19 and have fully recovered should get vaccinated.
At the same time, CDC’s November 1, 2021 “Internal Agenda,” which is now only public because of ICAN’s lawsuit, stated:
The available evidence continues to show that both previously infected and fully vaccinated people have a low risk of infection with the virus that causes COVID-19 for at least 6 months following infection or vaccination.… We do not know how much of an antibody response is necessary to be fully protected…. We do not know the durability of protection from infection or vaccination.
This begs the obvious question: How could CDC honestly state that the vaccine provided a “higher, more robust, and more consistent level of immunity” if it didn’t know what level of antibodies were needed for immunity or how durable vaccine immunity was? Answer: it couldn’t.
What makes this manipulation outrageous is that it is not just another false claim by the government but rather one that it and private entities used to justify crushing the civil and individual rights of individuals across the country. ICAN will continue to shine a light on these injustices—with your help—and work to hold everyone responsible accountable.
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