一则爆炸性消息称，卫生与公众服务部的政治任命成员被允许审查、修改和延迟疾病控制与预防中心撰写的报告《政治》杂志上周五晚些时候发表了一份报告。
政治报道称疾病预防控制中心的《发病率和死亡率每周报告》是一份由科学家汇编的公开报告，自20世纪80年代以来，该报告一直是疾病预防控制中心与医疗保健提供者、研究人员、记者和公众之间的主要沟通渠道，但当疾病预防控制中心的发现与唐纳德·特朗普总统关于冠状病毒。
美国广播公司新闻没有独立证实政治报道。
卫生和公众服务部发言人迈克尔·卡普托(Michael Caputo)向美国广播公司新闻部证实:“(公共事务助理部长)几乎清除了包括疾控中心在内的所有部门的所有面向公众的文件。
“我们的目的是确保证据、基于科学的数据推动政策通过这场流行病，而不是疾控中心内部不可告人的深层国家动机，”没有科学或医学背景的特朗普竞选官员卡普托在一份声明中说。
2018年5月1日，华盛顿，前特朗普竞选官员迈克尔·卡普托(Michael Caputo)抵达哈特参议院办公室大楼，接受参议院情报委员会工作人员的采访。
根据政治，在一个例子中，卡普托和他的团队推动追溯调整疾控中心的报告，他们说夸大了新冠肺炎的风险。根据《政治》的报道，交流小组认为，批评是疾控中心的报告没有明确指出患有新冠肺炎的美国人可能是因为他们自己的行为而被感染的。
在另一个例子中，卡普托的团队试图减缓疾控中心关于羟氯喹的报告，羟氯喹是一种有争议的疟疾药物，特朗普在新闻发布会上经常提到这是一种潜在的新冠肺炎治疗方法。一份关于羟氯喹的报告称，“这些药物的潜在益处并不超过其风险”，该报告被搁置了大约一个月，而该小组调查了疾控中心作者的政治倾向。据《政治》报道。
几位疾控中心的工作人员告诉美国广播公司新闻，他们得知卡普托的团队试图以不符合科学的方式修改每周报告，感到非常愤怒，他们以前认为这是不可能的。
民主党提名人乔·拜登通过他的竞选经理参与了政治报告。
拜登的竞选副经理凯特·贝丁菲尔德在一份声明中说:“当唐纳德·特朗普告诉鲍勃·伍德沃德他想淡化病毒时，这正是他所指的令人厌恶的背叛。”。
“这份报告进一步证明，特朗普政府一直在系统地将政治光学置于美国人民的安全之上，”她补充说。“特朗普的失败给我们留下了600万感染者，数百万人失业，以及发达国家最严重的疫情。我们应该得到更好的。”
Trump officials interfered with CDC reports: Politico
Politically appointed members of the Department of Health and Human Services' communications teams were allowed to review, change and delay reports authored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a bombshellreport published by Politico late Friday.
The Politico reportsaid that the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, a public report compiled by scientists that's served as the key communication avenue between the CDC and health care providers, researchers, journalists and the public since the 1980s, has been tinkered with when CDC findings didn't align with President Donald Trump's public statements aboutcoronavirus.
ABC News has not independently confirmed the Politico report.
"[The assistant secretary for public affairs] clears virtually all public-facing documents for all of its divisions, including CDC," Michael Caputo, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, confirmed to ABC News.
"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," Caputo, a former Trump campaign official with no scientific or medical background, said in a statement.
Former Trump campaign official Michael Caputo arrives at the Hart Senate Office building to be interviewed by Senate Intelligence Committee staffers, on May 1, 2018, in Washington.
According to Politico, in one instance, Caputo and his team pushed to retroactively adjust CDC reports that they said inflated the risk of COVID-19. The critique, in the communication team's opinion, was that the CDC reports did not explicitly point out that Americans with COVID-19 could have become infected because of their own behavior, according to the Politico story.
In another instance, Caputo's team tried to slow down a CDC report on hydroxychloroquine, the controversial malaria drug that Trump frequently referenced as a potential COVID-19 treatment during press briefings. A report about hydroxychloroquine that said "the potential benefits of these drugs do not outweigh their risks" was withheld for roughly a month while the team investigated the CDC author's political leanings,according to Politico.
Several CDC staff members told ABC News they were infuriated to learn Caputo's team made attempts to revise the weekly reports in ways inconsistent with science, something they would have previously thought not possible.
Democratic nominee Joe Biden weighed in on the Politico report via his campaign manager.
"When Donald Trump told Bob Woodward that he wanted to downplay the virus, this is the exact kind of repugnant betrayal that he meant," Kate Bedingfield, Biden's deputy campaign manager, said in a statement.
"This report is further proof that the Trump Administration has been systematically putting political optics ahead of the safety of the American people," she added. "Trump's failure has left us with 6 million infected, millions more unemployed, and the worst outbreak in the developed world. We deserve so much better."
