The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doctor in charge of monitoring reports of adverse COVID-19 vaccine reactions has been accused by a Republican senator of mishandling and possibly deleting key records.
Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) struggled to find records belonging to Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, the director of the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office, while trying to comply with a subpoena from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) for vaccine safety data.
“HHS officials recently informed me that Dr. Shimabukuro’s records remain lost and, potentially, removed from HHS’s email system altogether,” Johnson wrote in a Wednesday letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and acting HHS watchdog Juliet Hodgkins.
“Dr. Shimabukuro’s potential mishandling of his official records is highly concerning.”
It is not clear what specific records are missing, but Johnson’s team was told HHS was struggling to locate information for which Shimabukuro had responsibility and that should exist, an aide explained to The Post.
Last November, Johnson had asked HHS, the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration to “preserve all records referring or relating to the development, safety, and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines.”
In January, after becoming chair of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Johnson blasted out a subpoena for records on internal COVID-19 vaccine safety communications, which led to HHS discovering the potential discrepancies with Shimabukuro’s emails.
“Any attempt to obstruct or interfere with my investigatory efforts would be grounds for contempt of Congress,” Johnson wrote Wednesday.
Contempt of Congress is punishable by up to a six-figure fine and 12 months in prison.
Under the Federal Records Act, government officials are required to preserve materials “made or received by a Federal agency under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business.”
Johnson is calling upon the FBI, DOJ and HHS Inspector General’s Office to probe whether Shimabukuro and other federal health officials “deleted or destroyed official agency records.”
He is also demanding an inquiry into whether records were intentionally deleted to “avoid or subvert
Congressional oversight or the Freedom of Information Act.”
The Post reached out to Shimabukuro, HHS, and the CDC for comment.
The Wisconsin senator’s concerns about Shimabukuro’s adherence to record-keeping requirements comes on the heels of revelations that National Institutes of Health (NIH) senior adviser Dr. David Morens “retained very few emails or documents” pertaining to the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In November 2023, Johnson discovered evidence that Morens had instructed colleagues in 2021 to contact him at his Gmail address.
Morens later indicated that he couldn’t remember whether or not he deleted emails. The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic found evidence that Morens sought guidance from the NIH’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) office on how to avoid records requests.
“I had always suspected that Dr. Morens was not the sole evader of federal record-keeping requirements at HHS,” Johnson remarked.
“The extent to which HHS officials systemically mishandled, deleted, or destroyed their communications, data, and other information relating to the COVID-19 pandemic and the vaccines must be thoroughly investigated.”
Johnson and other Republican lawmakers in Congress have battled with the HHS watchdog for months, trying to get it to conduct a more thorough investigation into Morens.
“If the allegations regarding Dr. Shimabukuro’s mishandling of agency records are true,” Johnson warned, “then it will certainly raise questions about the effectiveness of the HHS OIG’s oversight and cast doubt on whether the HHS OIG actually did what I asked it to do nineteen months ago.”
