U.S. Health Agencies Hid Data on Surging COVID Cases Among Fully Vaccinated

New documents recently obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show U.S. health agencies knew COVID-19 cases were surging among people aged 65 and over in 2021 but hid the data from the public and signed off on boosters anyway.

Through a series of FOIA requests, attorneys with the Informed Action Consent Network (ICAN) obtained a September 2021 presentation given to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and top officials at the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including Dr. Anthony Fauci, Francis Collin, Dr. Peter Marks, and Janet Woodcock showing “shocking levels of waning immunity and breakthrough infection among the vaccinated as early as July 2021.”

Humetrix Cloud Services was contracted by the Department of Defense Joint Artificial Intelligence Center to analyze Medicare claims data to “monitor, map, and conduct COVID-19 predictive analytics” for the military. This analysis occurred as health officials considered in 2021 whether Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine booster was necessary amid studies showing waning vaccine effectiveness.

The observational study, “Project Salus,” included 5.6 million fully vaccinated individuals over age 65—2.9 million who received Moderna’s vaccine and 2.7 million who received Pfizer’s. The total Medicare population cohort included 20 million individuals.

Humetrix researchers found a “significant decrease in vaccine effectiveness against infection and hospitalization” during the Delta wave. Data show that for the week ending on July 31, 2021, fully vaccinated individuals comprised an estimated 73% of COVID-19 cases and 63% of COVID-19 hospitalizations in the 65 and over age group.

Humetrix researchers also found rapidly waning immunity, as infection rates 5-6 months post-vaccination were twice as high as infection rates 3-4 months post-vaccination.

“Our observational study VE findings show a very significant decrease in VE against infection and hospitalization in the Delta phase of the pandemic for individuals vaccinated with either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine for those 5–6 months post-vaccination vs. those 3–4 months post-vaccination,” Dr. Bettina Experton, President and CEO of Humetrix, said in a Sept. 15, 2021, email to top FDA officials.

Breakthrough cases started in January 2021—within a month of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in December 2020, according to the data. Humetrix found that among the beneficiaries, there had been 133,000 cases, 27,000 hospitalizations, and 8,300 ICU admissions among the fully vaccinated since the beginning of the pandemic.

Dr. Experton disclosed that Humetrix, in August 2021, shared the data with the CDC.

“It would have been nice to know [the military] was conducting this prior to now. Also might have been nice for CDC to share the data,” Dr. Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research within the FDA responded.

“This is more worrisome than the other data we have, in my opinion,” FDA acting commissioner Dr. Woodcock replied.

The presentation and emails were obtained by ICAN, a nonprofit founded in 2016, with the goal of providing every person with the right of informed consent.

“We believe that by holding regulators accountable through our successful legal actions, individuals will become empowered to make truly informed decisions about their own health and the health of their families,” their website states.