{"id":26207,"date":"2026-06-24T08:51:40","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T08:51:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/24\/covid-19-vaccine-study-that-was-blocked-from-cdc-journal-is-published-elsewhere-wsls\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T08:51:40","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T08:51:40","slug":"covid-19-vaccine-study-that-was-blocked-from-cdc-journal-is-published-elsewhere-wsls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/24\/covid-19-vaccine-study-that-was-blocked-from-cdc-journal-is-published-elsewhere-wsls\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 vaccine study that was blocked from CDC journal is published elsewhere &#8211; WSLS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mike Stobbe<br \/>Associated Press<br \/>Published:\u00a0<time datetime=\"2026-06-23T22:44:20.000Z\">June 23, 2026 at 6:44 PM<\/time><br \/>Mike Stobbe<br \/>Associated Press<br \/><strong>NEW YORK<\/strong> \u2013 A study on COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness has finally been published after being blocked from a government health journal.<br \/>The vaccine was found to be about 55% effective against COVID-19-associated hospitalizations, and reduced COVID-19-related trips to emergency departments and urgent care clinics by 50%, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jamanetworkopen\/fullarticle\/2850668\">the study<\/a> published Tuesday by JAMA Network Open.<br \/>Recommended Videos<br \/>The findings are not particularly surprising: Researchers have repeatedly found that COVID-19 vaccines work. But the paper drew public attention after Trump administration political appointees decided <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/cdc-covid19-vaccine-study-ea3a8e56d0dcdb7428f060b395b5ff23\">not to run it<\/a> in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publication.<br \/>They argued that the study&#8217;s design was too vulnerable to false assumptions that could produce flawed results. But many public health researchers maintain it&#8217;s a reliable design that&#8217;s been used for decades and offers the best way to understand how well a vaccine is working currently.<br \/>\u201cIt is critical that we continue to characterize and publish estimates of vaccine effectiveness in populations with changing immunity against evolving viral strains,\u201d wrote Natalie Dean, an Emory University biostatistics expert, in <a href=\"https:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jamanetworkopen\/fullarticle\/2850669\">a commentary<\/a> that accompanied the study&#8217;s publication Tuesday.<br \/>The research originally was scheduled to be published this spring in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the CDC&#8217;s flagship publication. It had been cleared by the agency&#8217;s Office of Science but was flagged by acting agency Director Jay Bhattacharya, said Althea Grant-Lenzy, the CDC&#8217;s chief science officer, in a recent interview.<br \/>His decision did not mean the paper would never be published, she said, but rather that the authors had to take time to address his concerns. The authors had the freedom to take the study instead to outside journals, she added.<br \/>The study approach, called \u201ctest-negative design,\u201d looks at people who were admitted to hospitals or visited emergency rooms with respiratory illnesses. The researchers checked whether patients were vaccinated and then calculated the odds of a positive COVID-19 test among vaccinated patients vs. those who were unvaccinated. <br \/>Papers using that methodology have been published \u2014 after review by experts in the field \u2014 in a number of esteemed journals, including <a href=\"https:\/\/publications.aap.org\/pediatrics\/article\/151\/5\/e2022060894\/191035\/Effectiveness-of-BNT162b2-COVID-19-Vaccination-in\">Pediatrics<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nejm.org\/doi\/full\/10.1056\/NEJMoa2110362\">New England Journal of Medicine<\/a>.<br \/>Bhattacharya has argued the methodology relies too heavily on assumptions and could produce results that were skewed by factors such as prior infections and how different groups of patients behave.<br \/>Proponents of the study design say the methodology is built to address differences related to who seeks care, and prior infection shouldn\u2019t be much of an issue because so many Americans have already been infected by the coronavirus. They say no study design is perfect but that U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials haven\u2019t proposed a realistic alternative for getting real-time estimates of how well vaccines are working.<br \/>Earlier this month, the CDC held a forum to discuss the pros and cons of such studies. A panel of speakers at the front of a CDC auditorium included Dean and two others who mostly focused on the methodology&#8217;s strengths. <br \/>But the panel also included one critic: <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/cdc-acip-martin-kulldorff-vaccines-a1f8135eb1360be0dbf407f3d316ab80\">Martin Kulldorff<\/a>, a Swedish-born biostatistician who \u2014 along with Bhattacharya \u2014 was a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, an October 2020 letter maintaining that pandemic shutdowns were causing irreparable harm. <br \/>U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last year appointed Kulldorff as head of a federal vaccine advisory committee before the biostatistician stepped down to become chief science officer at the HHS planning and evaluation office.<br \/>Kulldorff argued that studies with that design can \u2014 but shouldn&#8217;t \u2014 include people with different diseases. He also questioned why longer-term studies weren&#8217;t used to evaluate COVID-19 vaccines.<br \/>\u201cWe were in a pandemic! That&#8217;s why!\u201d one person called from the audience.<br \/>___<br \/>The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<br \/>Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<br \/>Click here to take a moment and familiarize yourself with our Community Guidelines.<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsls.com\/tv-listings\/\" aria-label=\"Navigate to TV Listings\">TV Listings<\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsls.com\/account\/newsletters\/\" aria-label=\"Navigate to Email Newsletters\">Email Newsletters<\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsls.com\/rss\/\" aria-label=\"Navigate to RSS Feeds\">RSS Feeds<\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsls.com\/contests\/\" aria-label=\"Navigate to Contests and Rules\">Contests and Rules<\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsls.com\/contact\/\" aria-label=\"Navigate to Contact Us\">Contact Us<\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsls.com\/station\/2019\/09\/19\/learn-about-wsls-10-internships\/\" aria-label=\"Navigate to Internships at WSLS 10\">Internships at WSLS 10<\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsls.com\/careers\/\" aria-label=\"Navigate to Careers at WSLS 10\">Careers at WSLS 10<\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsls.com\/station\/2019\/11\/11\/closed-captioning-information\/\" aria-label=\"Navigate to Closed Captioning \/ Audio Description\">Closed Captioning \/ Audio Description<\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/publicfiles.fcc.gov\/tv-profile\/WSLS-TV\" aria-label=\"Navigate to Public File\">Public File<\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsls.com\/eeo-report\/\" aria-label=\"Navigate to Current EEO Report\">Current EEO Report<\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsls.com\/station\/2019\/11\/11\/terms-of-use\/\" aria-label=\"Navigate to Terms of Use\">Terms of Use<\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsls.com\/privacy\/\" aria-label=\"Navigate to Privacy Policy\">Privacy Policy<\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsls.com\/usprivacy\/\" aria-label=\"Navigate to Do Not Sell My Info\">Do Not Sell My Info<\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsls.com\/station\/2020\/11\/19\/fcc-applications\/\" aria-label=\"Navigate to FCC Applications\">FCC Applications<\/a><br \/><button type=\"button\" style=\"appearance:none;border:none;background:none;color:inherit;padding:0;cursor:pointer\" aria-label=\"Open cookie preferences dialog\">Cookie Preferences<\/button><br \/><span>If you need help with the Public File, call<\/span> <a class=\"Link-PukYsz7Y__LinkBase-sc-scvrjz-0 dqbtrn\" href=\"tel:+15405121559\" aria-label=\"(540) 512-1559\">(540) 512-1559<\/a><br \/><span>At WSLS, we are committed to informing and delighting our audience. In our commitment to covering our communities with innovation and excellence, we incorporate Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies to enhance our news gathering, reporting, and presentation processes.<\/span> <a class=\"Link-PukYsz7Y__LinkBase-sc-scvrjz-0 dqbtrn\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wsls.com\/station\/2024\/04\/18\/how-we-are-using-ai-at-graham-media-group\/\" aria-label=\"Read our article\">Read our article<\/a> <span>to see how we are using Artificial Intelligence.<\/span><br \/>Copyright \u00a9 2026 WSLS.com is managed by Graham Digital and published by Graham Media Group, a division of Graham Holdings.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/rss\/articles\/CBMiuwFBVV95cUxNNV9yN1d6Zm9UM1hYRGltU1VkbElkZDVHOWItWVYzT0QycUsxRDlDek4wbDFxQ3drTC1jRlY0MHhvTjdUSElld1F0eFktRzJIZklNUFZsYmNVWXhMbDhwQTVrRTZMSFdVZ0xWMDNIbzF3cm9JZmp2RGVHVktUWmRjYlNJcjdXSS1Ua01EWlZ0YXlJcjhLN0s0MkxHM3Rwc2djSUZEZ3ZXOE41X0dpdWdkcV9QanU5ZGg5dGJZ?oc=5\">source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mike StobbeAssociated PressPublished:\u00a0June 23, 2026 at 6:44 PMMike StobbeAssociated PressNEW YORK \u2013 A study on COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness has finally been published after being blocked from a government health journal.The vaccine was found to be about 55% effective against COVID-19-associated hospitalizations, and reduced COVID-19-related trips to emergency departments and urgent care clinics by 50%, according [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26208,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}