HHS Official's Vaccine Study Critique Rebuffed by CDC Panel
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- Martin Kulldorff, HHS chief science officer for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, claimed at CDC's 'Public Health Grand Rounds' to have identified "the fatal flaw in test-negative designs," arguing the case-control method can't be used when cases and controls have different diseases.
- CDC's Carrie Reed, University of Michigan's Emily Martin, and Emory's Natalie Dean countered that TND studies already only enroll people seeking care for the same illness symptoms, so Kulldorff's critique doesn't apply, and that vaccines prevent specific pathogens (Covid vs. RSV vs. flu), which is exactly why the design works.
- Jay Bhattacharya, who is leading CDC though not officially acting director, previously blocked publication of a CDC staff study on Covid vaccine effectiveness citing "concerns regarding the methodological approach to estimating vaccine effectiveness"; the paper was ultimately published in a peer-reviewed journal.
- HHS posted a new charter for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) that diminishes its vaccine-evaluation role and instead directs the panel to assess "alternatives" to vaccination.
- Kulldorff, Bhattacharya, and other Robert F. Kennedy Jr. HHS appointees have raised persistent doubts about Covid vaccines and vaccine science more broadly, framing that Lopman says is now surfacing inside CDC's flagship seminar series.
- Ben Lopman, professor of epidemiology and global health at Emory's Rollins School of Public Health, argues the Grand Rounds amounted to an attempt to manufacture a scientific debate where none exists and risks sidelining a primary tool for real-time monitoring of Covid, flu, and RSV vaccine performance.
Why it matters: If the test-negative design is discredited inside the agencies that rely on it, public health loses a primary surveillance tool that tells regulators whether this season's flu shot or a new RSV vaccine is actually working in the real world, exactly the kind of monitoring that depends on CDC's internal scientists and the ACIP pipeline HHS is now restructuring.
