Ex-CDC director urges liability for vaccine makers, 10-year max for public health officials

Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield called Wednesday for Congress to end the liability shield for vaccine manufacturers on "Restoring American Wellness," arguing the protections in the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 was "well intended but it doesn't work."

COVID-19 "vaccines were clearly oversold" to the public, Redfield said, calling for public health officials to give "credibility" to vaccine injuries.

He still treats patients and he said some of those with supposed "long COVID" never had a documented infection but received an mRNA vaccine. 

"I don't think there was honest information" given to the public, and "the greatest harm that was done" to public health credibility was the "lack of honesty" among leaders in his agency, National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration, Redfield told a Heritage Foundation event Wednesday.

He favors a 10-year limit, by norm if not statute or regulation, on federal public health officials in their roles, alluding to former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci's nearly four decades running the agency and its massive research budget. Such long tenures may play a role in the "lack of openness [to the possibility] that perhaps you didn't have all the answers," Redfield said.

"I was rapidly defined  ... as a conspirator" within NIH because, as a virologist, Redfield believes SARS-CoV-2 came from a lab and was "educated to infect humans" because it was "immediately infectious," unlike the first SARS and MERS, Redfield said. Scientists sent him death threats and even encouraged him to kill himself, he said, drawing gasps.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., promised federal officials he would be a "mosquito" in the upcoming Trump administration as he continues investigations of pandemic research and decisions, after he "pretty much just got the middle finger" from agencies in oversight demands letters thus far.

His top immediate goal is getting the last 50 pages of Fauci's unredacted emails and a 17-page "talking points memo" related to what the feds knew about COVID vaccine injuries such as heart inflammation in 2021, Johnson told the Heritage event.

Johnson said he believes Department of Health and Human Services secretary-nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FBI director-nominee Kash Patel will improve transparency and open access to documents the Biden administration has hidden or heavily redacted. "The first step is accountability," Johnson said.