September 12, 2020

Politico: Trump Aides Demand That CDC Publication Be More Optimistic

Michael Caputo, former flack for Vladimir Putin and Carl Paladino; fired from the Trump campaign after saying mean things about Corey Lewandowski; and poster of numerous sexually crude and sexist tweets directed at women as well as multiple derogatory and crude tweets about Chinese people. This was the background that qualified him to be the senior HHS spokesperson.Ron Sachs/CNP via ZUMA

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Whenever I mention the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report it’s usually to joke about that being the worst title ever for a newsletter. Jokes aside, though, it’s actually a highly respected publication that provides doctors around the world with reliable, current information about a wide variety of subjects. Recently, of course, COVID-19 has been one of its primary focuses.

And that’s a problem. You see, sometimes the MMWR publishes information that disagrees a bit with President Trump’s public statements. What to do? Correcting Trump is out of the question, of course, so the only other option is to pressure the CDC into backing off. According to Dan Diamond in Politico, that’s exactly what’s happened:

Since Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign official with no medical or scientific background, was installed in April as the health department’s new spokesperson, there have been substantial efforts to align the reports with Trump’s statements, including the president’s claims that fears about the outbreak are overstated…Caputo’s team also has tried to halt the release of some CDC reports, including delaying a report that addressed how doctors were prescribing hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug favored by Trump as a coronavirus treatment despite scant evidence.

…In one clash, an aide to Caputo berated CDC scientists for attempting to use the reports to “hurt the President” in an Aug. 8 email sent to CDC Director Robert Redfield and other officials that was widely circulated inside the department and obtained by Politico.

…Caputo also said that HHS was appropriately reviewing the CDC’s reports. “Our intention is to make sure that evidence, science-based data drives policy through this pandemic—not ulterior deep state motives in the bowels of CDC,” he said.

There you have it. Caputo wants to make sure that science reporting isn’t driven by “deep state motives in the bowels of the CDC.” Instead it should be driven by whether or not it annoys the president.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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