President Joe Biden said in his administration, CDC guidelines would follow medical science and not the whims of political influencers and popular opinion. It was one of the key campaign promises made by President Joe Biden on the campaign trail, to not follow what he perceived as former President Donald J. Trump meddling in the affairs of health and science during the pandemic.
Now, in bombshell revelation by the New York Post, it is looking like that’s exactly what happened when the CDC’s new guidelines for schools nearly mirrors a set of demands issued by the teachers union.
“What seems strange to me here is there would be this very intimate back and forth including phone calls where this political group gets to help formulate scientific guidance for our major public health organization in the United States,” Dr. Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine at the University of California told The Post. “This is not how science-based guidelines should work or be put together.”
A chain of emails shows that CDC health officials coordinated their February school reopening health and safety guidelines with the union, allegedly.
Of course, after their publication, the union applauded those guidelines.
“Today, the CDC met fear of the pandemic with facts and evidence. For the first time since the start of this pandemic, we have a rigorous road map, based on science, that our members can use to fight for a safe reopening,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said after the new CDC guidance was released. “The CDC has produced an informed, tactile plan that has the potential to help school communities around the country stay safe by defining the mitigation and accommodation measures, and other tools educators and kids need, so classrooms can once again be vibrant places of learning and engagement.”