America First Legal (AFL) has released a new set of documents obtained from litigation against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These documents indicate further evidence of coordination between the CDC and social media companies to manage public narratives regarding the COVID-19 vaccine.
The documents include email exchanges showing how the CDC collaborated with Facebook to control information disseminated to the public about the COVID-19 vaccine. In an email chain titled "CDC approval requested: FAQ Content," Genelle Adrien at Facebook contacted Carol Crawford at the CDC for approval of a "FAQ Content" section for Facebook's "COVID-19 Information Center."
Carol Crawford, who had previously discussed using Twitter’s "Partner Support Portal" to remove online content, was involved in this exchange. The proposed FAQs addressed side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The CDC responded by making several changes and requested the removal of a line that stated, “More serious side effects are extremely rare. A person is far more likely to be seriously harmed by a disease than by its vaccine.” Crawford noted that the CDC did not have “any cleared language, as far as I know, to support the second and third sentences.”
Despite this lack of confirmed language, Biden Administration officials continued promoting the vaccine. In December 2021, President Biden stated, “For unvaccinated, we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death — if you’re unvaccinated — for themselves, their families, and the hospitals they’ll soon overwhelm.”
The documents suggest that as late as May 2021, months after the vaccine rollout began, the CDC could not confirm that vaccination was safer than contracting COVID-19 and developing natural immunity. Nonetheless, efforts persisted to encourage Americans to get vaccinated.