Internal Documents Show CDC Altered COVID Vaccine Study, Raising Questions About Transparency

# Internal Documents Show CDC Altered COVID Vaccine Study, Raising Questions About Transparency

**WASHINGTON, D.C.** — Newly released internal documents, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, reveal that researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made substantial revisions to a pivotal safety study on mRNA COVID-19 vaccines prior to its publication. The documents, secured by the advocacy group Children’s Health Defense (CHD) after the agency initially failed to comply with information requests, suggest a concerted effort to minimize the visibility of death data.

### Rewriting the Narrative An analysis conducted by CHD senior research scientist Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., alleges that study authors “severely edited” the manuscript specifically to “promote safety and to de-emphasize death.”

The revisions were evident even in the title of the work. While the original draft was titled “Reactogenicity and Adverse Events,” the final version published in *The Lancet Infectious Diseases* in June 2022 was rebranded as “Safety of mRNA vaccines.”

Beyond the title, critical information was sanitized from the paper's abstract—the section most commonly read by medical professionals and the public. A draft comment from lead author Dr. Hannah Rosenblum explicitly noted: “Note all death results/interpretation has been removed from abstract.”

The study, which analyzed data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and V-safe during the first six months of the U.S. vaccine rollout, omitted a figure that displayed the top 10 leading causes of death from VAERS reports, including heart disease and COVID-19. This data was relegated to supplemental materials, effectively burying the information where it would be accessed by few.

### Internal Disagreement and "Reporting Bias" The published study claimed the concentration of death reports in the days immediately following vaccination was “similar” to other adult vaccines, though it failed to provide the comparative data necessary to support such a conclusion.

Internal correspondence reveals that the authors’ dismissal of these death reports as mere “reporting bias” faced resistance from within the federal health bureaucracy. A reviewer, identified by Jablonowski as likely being Dr. Robert Ball, deputy director of the FDA’s Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology, challenged the authors, noting that a VAERS death report filed shortly after vaccination “may also reflect a true event.” Notably, Dr. Ball was excluded from the list of authors on the final published study.

### A Pattern of Questionable Transparency The disclosure arrives during a period of intense scrutiny regarding federal vaccine oversight. The climate of distrust has been exacerbated by:

* **Legal Challenges:** A federal judge recently blocked a scheduled meeting of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which had been set to address rising concerns over COVID-19 vaccine injuries. * **Leadership Upheaval:** In February 2026, CDC Acting Director Jim O'Neill resigned abruptly amid an administration-led push to overhaul the agency's vaccine policy. * **Records Destruction Allegations:** Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, one of the *Lancet* study's authors and a former director of the CDC Immunization Safety Office, has been referred to the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Office of Inspector General by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) for the alleged deletion of agency records pertaining to adverse events.

### Public Trust at a Low The implications of these findings reach far beyond academic debate. Jablonowski emphasized that had the risks been clearly and honestly communicated at the time of the study's publication, the public might have made different decisions regarding booster shots.

Public trust in government health guidance continues to crater. An Axios/Ipsos poll from March 2026 found that only 60% of Americans now trust government guidance on childhood vaccines, down from 71% in June 2025. As noted by Dr. Peter Breggin, author of *Canary In a Covid World*, the damage to the credibility of public health institutions is profound.

“You have to have an honest assessment or else the public is never going to trust public health again,” Breggin stated.

When reached for comment on the revisions made to the study, the CDC deferred inquiries to the Department of Health and Human Services, which provided no response by the time of publication.