Tensions run high in House hearing on COVID vaccine safety, efficacy

House lawmakers exchanged pointed barbs Thursday in what ended up being a rather “political” hearing held by the House Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines.

Top federal health officials appeared before the subcommittee to discuss how to engender further trust in vaccines as well as examine how the initial COVID-19 vaccine campaigns were carried out. At various points throughout the hearing, however, Democrats accused their colleagues across the aisle of creating further mistrust in immunizations.

The witnesses included Peter Marks, director Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA); Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); and George Reed Grimes, director of the Division of Injury Compensation Programs for the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).

Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), chair of the select subcommittee, appeared to anticipate how the hearing would play out Thursday, advising the members to abide by “established standards of decorum” even as “vigorous disagreement is part of the legislative process.”

Republican members of the panel concentrated largely on the public perception of the coronavirus vaccines’ efficacy, which they characterized as misleading. Wenstrup said during the hearing, “When you say reduce, it’s different than saying prevent. And that happened too often.”

While praising the development of the vaccines as an “extraordinary triumph of science,” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) argued that “subsequent actions from overstating vaccine efficacy to the implementation of sweeping mandates and the suppression of open scientific debate eroded public trust.”

COVID-19 vaccines significantly reduce the chances of severe illness, hospitalization and death due to an infection but they don’t provide 100 percent protection against transmission. As Marks noted during his testimony: “No pharmaceutical is 100 percent safe. In fact, even the water we drink is not 100 percent safe.”

Asking no questions of the officials, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) accused Marks of rushing the authorization of the vaccines and criticized Grimes and his department for not processing enough claims of injury resulting from COVID-19 vaccinations.

As of Jan. 1, 2024, there are 12,854 COVID-19 countermeasure claims, 9,682 of which are claims of injury or death due to the vaccines, according to the HRSA. Grimes noted in his opening remarks that the claims account for less than 0.001 percent of vaccine administrations.

“The caseload for the CICP [Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program] is orders of magnitude higher than it was prior to 2020,” Grimes said. The program’s director called on more staffing to handle the claims, though lawmakers like Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) pushed back on this Thursday, saying he believed the process should be streamlined.

When asked by Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) about his role in the vaccine approval process, Marks acknowledged there were sentiments about “speeding up” the approval process due to the high rate of COVID-19 deaths that were occurring at the time. When pressed by Comer, Marks said the decision around speeding up that process was “made on” his “own.”

Rep. Jill Tokuda (D-Hawaii) blasted her Republican colleagues for spreading “dangerous rhetoric” during the hearing.

“I am deeply concerned about some of the dangerous rhetoric we’ve heard throughout today’s hearing, which appears purposely aimed at undermining confidence in vaccines,” Tokuda said.

“My Republican colleagues have failed to handle this subject with the care our public health officials have asked for, recklessly amplifying the spread of misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine,” Tokuda continued.

“And while my colleagues on the other side of the aisle may claim that today’s hearing is only about the COVID-19 vaccine, they cannot and must not ignore the fact that the COVID misinformation, intentional spread of disinformation of the COVID-19 vaccine, has resulted in across the board decreases in immunization levels over the last few years.”

Wenstrup made note of the tension in his closing remarks, saying, “This hearing should not have been political — and most of it was not I would say today, fortunately — but the fact that it is simply is further evidence this conversation is completely necessary to take place.”

Ranking member Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.), a physician like Wenstrup, accused GOP members of throwing around facts “without the context and understanding.”

Touching on the nature of the vaccines and the level of protection they provide, Ruiz ended his remarks by saying, “When we talk about absolutes, again, we are intentionally giving disinformation to the American public that they don’t work.”