[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]






 
                    INVESTIGATING PANDEMIC IMMUNITY:


                     ACQUIRED, THERAPEUTIC OR BOTH

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

            SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

                                 OF THE

               COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                              MAY 11, 2023

                               __________

                           Serial No. 118-29

                               __________

  Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability
  
  
  
  [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
  
  


                       Available on: govinfo.gov,
                         oversight.house.gov or
                             docs.house.gov
                             
                             
                             ______

             U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
52-163 PDF          WASHINGTON : 2023
 
                             
                             
                             
                             
                             
                             
                             
                             
               COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                    JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman

Jim Jordan, Ohio                     Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Ranking 
Mike Turner, Ohio                        Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona                  Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of 
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina            Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin            Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Gary Palmer, Alabama                 Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Clay Higgins, Louisiana              Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Pete Sessions, Texas                 Ro Khanna, California
Andy Biggs, Arizona                  Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Nancy Mace, South Carolina           Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Jake LaTurner, Kansas                Katie Porter, California
Pat Fallon, Texas                    Cori Bush, Missouri
Byron Donalds, Florida               Jimmy Gomez, California
Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota        Shontel Brown, Ohio
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania            Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
William Timmons, South Carolina      Robert Garcia, California
Tim Burchett, Tennessee              Maxwell Frost, Florida
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia      Becca Balint, Vermont
Lisa McClain, Michigan               Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Lauren Boebert, Colorado             Greg Casar, Texas
Russell Fry, South Carolina          Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida           Dan Goldman, New York
Chuck Edwards, North Carolina        Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Nick Langworthy, New York
Eric Burlison, Missouri

                       Mark Marin, Staff Director
             Mitchell Benzine, Subcommittee Staff Director
                        Marie Policastro, Clerk

                      Contact Number: 202-225-5074

                Miles Lichtman, Minority Staff Director
                                 ------                                

            Select Subcommittee On The Coronavirus Pandemic

                     Brad Wenstrup, Ohio, Chairman
Nicole Malliotakis, New York         Raul Ruiz, California, Ranking 
Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Iowa           Minority Member
Debbie Lesko, Arizona                Debbie Dingell, Michigan
Michael Cloud, Texas                 Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
John Joyce, Pennsylvania             Deborah Ross, North Carolina
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia      Robert Garcia, California
Ronny Jackson, Texas                 Ami Bera, California
Rich Mccormick, Georgia              Jill Tokuda, Hawaii

                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

Hearing held on May 11, 2023.....................................     1

                               Witnesses

                              ----------                              

Dr. Marty Makary, Chief, Islet Transplant Surgery & Professor of 
  Surgery, Johns Hopkins University
Oral Statement...................................................     6
Dr. Margery Smelkinson, Research Scientist
Oral Statement...................................................     8
Dr. Tina Tan, Professor of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, 
  Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University
Oral Statement...................................................     9

Written opening statements and the written statements of the 
  witnesses are available on the U.S. House of Representatives 
  Document Repository at: docs.house.gov.

                           Index of Documents

                              ----------                              

Documents entered into the record during this hearing are listed 
  below.

  * Report, SSCC Democrats, ``The Atlas Dogma: The Trump 
    Administration's Embrace of a Dangerous and Discredited Herd 
    Immunity Via Mass Infection Strategy''; submitted by Rep. 
    Raskin.

  * Letter, September 28, 2021, from Members of the GOP Doctors 
    Caucus to CDC Director Walensky; submitted by Rep. Miller-
    Meeks.

  * Study, Clinical Infectious Diseases, ``Comparing SARS-CoV-2 
    natural immunity to vaccine-induced immunity: reinfections 
    versus breakthrough infections''; submitted by Rep. Cloud.

  * Study, Science, ``Ultrapotent antibodies against diverse and 
    highly transmissible SARS-CoV-2 variants''; submitted by Rep. 
    Cloud.

  * Study, Nature, ``SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 Delta variant 
    replication and immune evasion''; submitted by Rep. Cloud.

  * Article, Lancet, ``Protective immunity after recovery from 
    SARS-CoV-2 infection''; submitted by Rep. Cloud.

  * Letter, November 5, 2021, from the CDC to a FOIA request; 
    submitted by Rep. Cloud.

  * Article, ABC, ``Hundreds of hospital staffers fired or 
    suspended for refusing COVID-19 vaccine mandate''; submitted 
    by Rep. Cloud.


Documents are available at: docs.house.gov.


                    INVESTIGATING PANDEMIC IMMUNITY:



                     ACQUIRED, THERAPEUTIC OR BOTH

                              ----------                              


                         Thursday, May 11, 2023

                        House of Representatives

               Committee on Oversight and Accountability

            Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic

                                                   Washington, D.C.

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m., in 
room 2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Brad Wenstrup 
(Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
    Present: Representatives Wenstrup, Comer, Malliotakis, 
Miller-Meeks, Lesko, Cloud, Joyce, Greene, Jackson, McCormick, 
Ruiz, Raskin, Mfume, Ross, Garcia, Bera, and Tokuda.
    Dr. Wenstrup. The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus 
Pandemic will come to order. I want to welcome everyone.
    Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any 
time.
    I now recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening 
statement.
    Today the Select Subcommittee is holding a hearing to 
examine the role of both infection-acquired or natural 
immunity, and the therapeutic acquired or vaccine-induced 
immunity it should have and could have played in the public 
health response to the pandemic and concerns as to why the 
Federal Government decided almost wholly to ignore, at least, 
the natural immunity. In the earliest stages of the pandemic, 
COVID-19 was a novel virus, and there simply was no data. 
Again, we aren't here to negate the significance of that 
unprecedented time, but as data changes, so must our decision-
making based on data. And as time passed, more and more global 
research emerged that infection from COVID-19 produced robust, 
naturally acquired immunity.
    Let's be absolutely clear. Natural or infection-acquired 
immunity is real. It has been known for hundreds, if not 
thousands, of years. Dr. Fauci himself even said so in 2004. 
While speaking about the common flu, he said, ``The most potent 
vaccination is getting infected yourself.'' And, yes, the flu 
and COVID-19 are different, but the science regarding immunity 
is the same and should be respected. However, instead of 
following the science, public health leaders ignored the facts 
and mandated vaccines for Americans without any regard for a 
previous infection and immunity that may come from that and did 
so with the threat of losing one's job. Nowhere in this process 
was there an opportunity for one to confer with their doctor, 
who they know and trust, to discuss risks and benefits to their 
health.
    This is part of the reason we are here today, to ask why 
naturally acquired immunity was never robustly considered as 
part of U.S. public health policy, to ask why science wasn't 
followed. It is essential that we look back and examine the 
policy decisions that were made, and at the end of the day, 
science and scientific facts aren't political. For democracy to 
be healthy, it needs to be transparent, and a transparent, 
healthy, and free Nation doesn't shy away from the facts.
    When the COVID-19 vaccines became widely available, 91 
million Americans had been infected with COVID-19. Still, facts 
and science continued to show that those who had antibodies 
from previous infection had some form of protection against 
reinfection. Yet the Biden administration attempted to mandate 
vaccines, regardless of previous infection, for the military, 
healthcare workers, large private sector companies, and Federal 
employees. All around, this is bad public health. Between the 
mandates and the vitriol showed toward natural immunity, these 
decisions hurt Americans' trust in public health, a trust that 
we hope to restore at the end of this process.
    To be clear, no one ever advocated for a let-it-rip 
approach. No one ever advocated for natural immunity to be the 
end-all public health factor, just that it was to be 
considered. Natural immunity could have been and, I believe, 
should have been a force multiplier for good. We could have 
used thousands of years of science to our advantage, but 
instead, it was demonized. This should have been part of a 
conversation between patients and physicians.
    And I'll share a personal story. I got vaccinated with the 
Pfizer vaccine in early January, February 2021 with so many 
other Americans, especially Americans my age and older and with 
comorbidities. In August 2021, I realized I must have had COVID 
when I was cooking and could not smell garlic salt. I was fine. 
My family was fine, including my 89-year-old mother. All that 
being said, when I was scheduled to go on a trip to Germany, I 
was told I needed to get boosted, and so I asked if here at the 
Capitol if I could get my T-cell count and my antibody levels 
before getting boosted. I was told that they couldn't do the T-
cell through their lab, but they could do the antibodies. I got 
my results. On the results, it says a number of 40 confirms the 
presence of circulating IGG antibodies specific for SARS-CoV-2 
at high levels. At high levels, 40. My number was 821, yet I 
was being told, not by a physician, that I needed to get a 
booster. Why? No doctor involved.
    See, public health needs to be educational not 
indoctrinational. Why were personal medical decisions left up 
to bureaucrats and politicians, not patients and doctors? I do 
believe that vaccines saved innumerable lives. We knew from the 
trials that mRNA-vaccinated people still got COVID. They, in 
most cases, didn't get us sick and were less likely to be 
hospitalized. We know that people with certain comorbidities 
were more vulnerable to severe illness and death. Why did 
bureaucrats and politicians mislead and confuse the American 
people?
    At a town hall event on July 21, 2021, President Biden 
stated, ``If you are vaccinated, you are not going to be 
hospitalized, you are not going to be in the intensive care 
unit, and you are not going to die. You are not going to get 
COVID if you have these vaccinations.'' After the town hall, he 
stated to a reporter when asked about vaccinated people who get 
infected, ``It may be possible. I know of none where they are 
hospitalized in ICU or have passed away, so at a minimum, I can 
say even if they did contract it, which I'm sorry they did, it 
is such a tiny percentage and it is not life threatening.'' In 
May 2021, when asked about new CDC guidance for vaccinated 
people and masks, Dr. Walensky said, ``Data has emerged again 
that demonstrate that even if you were to get infected during 
post-vaccination, that you can't give it to anyone else.'' On 
March 29, 2021, Dr. Walensky told MSNBC, ``Our data from the 
CDC today suggested vaccinated people don't carry the virus, 
don't get sick, and that it is not just in the clinical 
trials.'' The director added, ``But it is also in real-world 
data.''
    A spokesperson for the CDC had to walk back their own 
director's statements a few days later, telling the New York 
Times, ``Dr. Walensky spoke broadly during this interview,'' 
adding that ``It is possible that some people who are fully 
vaccinated could get COVID-19. The evidence isn't clear whether 
they can spread the virus to others. We are continuing to 
evaluate the evidence.'' At a White House briefing on April 23, 
2021, Dr. Walensky offered, ``CDC recommends that pregnant 
women receive the COVID-19 vaccine.'' However, the CDC didn't 
recommend that pregnant women receive the vaccine. It only 
stated that pregnant women can get the vaccine. While small, 
those are very different statements.
    On February 3, 2021, in a White House press briefing, Dr. 
Walensky stated schools could reopen safely without vaccinating 
teachers. She said, ``Yes, ACIP has put teachers in the 1b 
category, the category of essential workers, but I also want to 
be clear that there is increasing data to suggest that schools 
can safely reopen, and that safe reopening doesn't suggest that 
teachers need to be vaccinated in order to reopen safely.'' At 
that time, the White House attempted to distance themselves 
from Dr. Walensky, with the Press Secretary Jen Psaki stating 
that Dr. Walensky was speaking in her personal capacity.
    The Biden administration and CDC's false narratives about 
the necessity and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccine and booster 
misled the public with scare tactics and deception. These 
statements fostered a lack of public trust in our health 
authority during a time when the American people needed that 
leadership and that truth and that trust the most. We are 
holding this hearing today to look back to help prepare for a 
future pandemic, to determine what went wrong, to recommend how 
to do it better. Asking about the reluctance of the public 
health elite to consider natural immunity is essential to this 
question. That is what this hearing is about today.
    Science is clear. While for some, no amount of protection 
may be enough. However, natural immunity is real, it matters, 
it should have been studied, and it should have been considered 
fully, and health decisions should be made on a case-by-case 
basis based on personal and scientific facts. I look forward to 
a strong on-topic discussion today.
    I would now like to recognize Ranking Member Ruiz for the 
purpose of making an opening statement. Dr. Ruiz.
    Dr. Ruiz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Today we are here to 
examine the roles of both vaccine-induced and infection-
acquired immunity, both passive and active immunity, in 
overcoming a deadly pandemic. This hearing comes at a sensitive 
time for our Nation's public health as misinformation and 
disinformation stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic has fueled 
vaccine hesitancy and undermined the greatest tool we have to 
protect against infectious disease, or, in fact, the only tool 
we have that helps prevent against developing symptoms from a 
natural infection that lead to long-term health effects, 
hospitalizations, and death, all while reducing overall 
transmission. It is my sincere hope that we approach today's 
hearing with care and that my colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle will not draw into question that which we know to be 
fact, that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe, the COVID-19 
vaccines are effective, and the COVID-19 vaccines save lives.
    Let me take you back to the winter of 2020 before the 
rollout of the lifesaving vaccines. Every day, Americans 
battled a highly transmissible, rapidly changing deadly novel 
virus. Let me repeat. Every day, Americans battled a highly 
transmissible, rapidly changing deadly novel virus, and at the 
height of the pandemic, we were losing more than 3,000 of our 
fellow Americans daily to this lethal public health crisis, 
more than 3,000 siblings, parents, grandparents, loved ones, 
and neighbors lost to COVID-19 every single day. These were 
some of the darkest times for our Nation.
    And so today, as we end the public health emergency, as we 
look back on the devastation wrought by this virus, we must 
recommit to preventing future harm and saving lives in the 
event of another pandemic. This includes looking at how we can 
build on the Biden administration's implementation of the 
largest, most successful vaccine administration program in 
history that allowed us to safely reunite loved ones, reopen 
schools, businesses, and workplaces, and now declare the end of 
the public health emergency that we all faced.
    In fact, according to the Commonwealth Fund, this 
achievement prevented an estimated 3.2 million deaths and 18.5 
million hospitalizations, plus it saved the United States over 
$1 trillion in medical costs. Now, let's compare that to the 
damage that a reckless mass infection strategy would have done 
to our Nation. This strategy would have, at worst, encouraged 
people to go out and get sick during a deadly, highly 
transmissible airborne virus and, at best, willfully disregard 
preventive precautions at a time when we knew little about 
COVID-19 and its long-term impacts. Even worse, this reckless 
strategy was embraced by those at the very top of the Trump 
administration, such as pandemic advisor, Scott Atlas, who 
pushed a dangerous mass infection strategy that would have 
further strained our already over-capacity national healthcare 
system. The strategy that Atlas and others embraced would have 
pushed already overwhelmed hospitals to the brink, led to 
further delays and care for patients suffering from chronic 
conditions, and this strategy could have caused an estimated 3 
million additional deaths, according to projections by the 
Washington Post.
    Look, I am a doctor, and I took an oath to do no harm, so 
it is pretty clear to me that we should not reverse course on 
basic public health measures. We need to defend basic public 
health in this country due to the politicization and the 
disinformation and the misinformation that has been putting out 
there that has caused the mistrust in basic public health 
knowledge that have been proven time and time again from 
previous pandemics and basic science to reduce harm and save 
lives. Why would we willfully want to allow people, even 
healthy individuals, to get sick by an active infection that we 
know very little about, that now we know can develop long 
COVID, even in patients who have been asymptomatic? And the 
more you get actively infected, the more the risk that you will 
get long COVID, as per the science.
    So, because the fact of the matter is, while we can now end 
the public health emergency because of an overall decrease in 
hospitalizations and mortality, we must still work to address 
long COVID and emerging variants, especially for high-risk 
communities, immunocompromised individuals, and unvaccinated 
populations. And yet the continued spread of disinformation--
``dis'' meaning purposefully causing confusion, mistrust, and 
the misinformation, those who aren't willfully, but they are 
just sharing this disinformation online about not just COVID-19 
vaccines but vaccines overall--pose a serious threat to this 
work and our ability to protect America's overall health. I am 
concerned that people listening to this hearing will then say, 
well, look if active immunity is the way to go, hell, I am 
going to go get infected. I don't care about taking 
precautions. That is not the approach or the message that we 
should be interpreting from this hearing.
    So look, the Brown School of Public Health, Brigham and 
Women's Hospital, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 
and Microsoft AI for Health have found a growing distrust in 
vaccines, has caused more than 300,000 preventable COVID-19 
deaths. What is more, this dis-and misinformation has inflicted 
serious damage on our efforts to combat diseases that we 
previously had under control, like polio and measles, so this 
should be troubling to us all. And I am not speaking here as a 
Democrat. I am speaking here as an emergency physician, a 
scientist who has taken an oath, and a public health expert 
that has studied public health and practiced public health in 
the field, who cares about Republicans and Democrats to stay 
alive, to stay out of hospitals, to not get infected with an 
active virus. Even though you may have mild symptoms, you may 
develop long COVID. You may then carry it and transmit it to 
somebody who is immunocompromised, who is at high risk of 
getting hospitalized and dying.
    So, for the sake of public health, for the sake of our 
neighbors, regardless of political affiliation, I implore 
everyone here today to remain focused on the facts and come 
together to identify real solutions that put people over 
politics to prevent future harm, save future lives, and ensure 
America is stronger and better prepared in the future. Thank 
you.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you, Dr. Ruiz. Our witnesses today are 
Dr. Marty Makary. Dr. Makary is the chief of Islet Transplant 
Surgery and a professor at Johns Hopkins University. He served 
in leadership in the World Health Organization Patient Safety 
Program, elected to the National Academy of Medicine, and has 
published more than 250 peer-reviewed scientific articles. Dr. 
Margery Smelkinson. Dr. Smelkinson is a research scientist and 
microscopist with expertise in infectious disease. She received 
her Ph.D. in biological sciences from Columbia University in 
2007 and completed her postdoctoral fellowships at the 
University of California-San Diego. And Dr. Tina Tan. Dr. Tan 
is a Board-certified pediatric physician as well as a current 
professor of pediatric infectious diseases at Northwestern 
University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.
    Pursuant to Committee on Oversight and Accountability Rule 
9(g), the witnesses will please stand and raise the right 
hands.
    Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony that you 
are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
but the truth, so help you God?
    [A chorus of ayes.]
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you. Let the record show that the 
witnesses all answered in the affirmative.
    The Select Subcommittee--you may be seated--the Select 
Subcommittee certainly appreciates you all for being here 
today, and we look forward to your testimony.
    Let me remind the witnesses that we have read your written 
statements, and they will appear in full in the hearing record. 
Please limit your oral statements to five minutes. As a 
reminder, please press the button on the microphone in front of 
you so that it is on, and the Members can hear you. When you 
begin to speak, the light in front of you will turn green. 
After four minutes, the light will turn yellow. When the red 
light comes on, your five minutes has expired, and we would ask 
that you please wrap up.
    I now recognize Dr. Makary to give an opening statement.

                  STATEMENT OF DR. MARTY MAKARY, CHIEF

            ISLET TRANSPLANT SURGERY & PROFESSOR OF SURGERY

                        JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

    Dr. Makary. Thank you, Chairman Wenstrup and Ranking Member 
Ruiz. You are both good doctors. I respect both of you, even if 
we have different opinions on some things. You have promoted a 
very civil discourse here. I believe in civility, so I want to 
thank both of you. I admire that.
    Nothing speaks more to the intellectual dishonesty of 
public health officials then their complete dismissal of the 
data on natural immunity, making the U.S. an international 
outlier in this academic dishonesty. Since the Athenian plague 
of 430 B.C., natural immunity has been described. It was 
protective against subsequent disease during reinfection or 
prevented reinfection. Natural immunity works for every other 
virus, with arguably the exception of influenza because 
influenza is unique. It is got two spike proteins and a very 
leaky polymerase enzyme. It is unique. Every other virus 
practically that we know of that causes infections in humans, 
there are two viruses that cause severe illness in humans that 
are coronaviruses besides COVID. COVID is one of three 
coronavirus has that causes severe illness in humans. The other 
two both have long-lasting natural immunity.
    So, it is very bizarre that public health officials bet 
that this would break the rule, COVID would be different. Dr. 
Ruiz, you mentioned you believe in vaccines. They are safe and 
effective. I do, too, but I don't recommend the chickenpox 
vaccine if you had chickenpox. CDC doesn't either.
    Dr. Ruiz [continuing]. Virus than COVID-19. It is a 
different virus than COVID-19.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Let him finish his statement.
    Dr. Makary. I don't recommend the chickenpox vaccine if you 
had chickenpox, nor does the CDC. The same with many other 
viruses. Over the last three years, there have been 200 studies 
of natural immunity. The Lancet review of 65 studies from nine 
countries concluded that natural immunity is at least as 
effective. The data are clear. The evidence was there all 
along, but health officials never talked about it, maybe 
because the real story is they were worried somebody might try 
to get natural immunity. So, let's not be honest with the 
public. Was that the idea?
    Public health officials, the government, and CDC, NIH 
privately told me that is what their concern was about 
acknowledging natural immunity, so they made ignoring natural 
immunity a political badge. They dismissed it saying there was 
uncertainty. We don't know how long it is going to last, as if 
we knew how long vaccinated immunity would last. They had it 
backward actually. Our Johns Hopkins study published in JAMA 
was the third most discussed study of all JAMA publications in 
2022, according to the JAMA website. We found antibodies 
present up to two years later. We can have our opinions, but 
let's not ignore this mountain of evidence.
    Big Tech censored my study when I posted it calling it 
vaccine-hesitant content. Government doctors were privately 
saying we agree, but we don't talk about it. We had this sort 
of intense paternalism. We saw this when women wanted home 
pregnancy tests, and doctors were pushing for it, and the 
medical elites said, no, women can't handle that information at 
home. We can't have home pregnancy tests. They fought it for 
years. Same with home HIV tests, medical paternalism. 
Universities like my own put their head in the sand, ignoring 
the data, forcing young, healthy male students to choose 
between the risk of myocarditis--1 in 6,000 young males--or 
getting kicked out of school, even though they had natural 
immunity. That was common.
    The media parroted whatever Fauci and the CDC fed them, 
just like government officials when they fed the media there 
were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Whatever government 
leaders told them, they parroted without asking any questions. 
And is anyone surprised that Pfizer or Moderna, which 
controlled a lot of the narrative, they never talked about 
natural immunity. Why would they, a reason not to get one of 
their products? Many practicing doctors knew about natural 
immunity, the power of it. European doctors, many tailored 
vaccine recommendations factoring in natural immunity just like 
you do with chickenpox, and they would tailor medications, and 
that is the art of medicine.
    Now, natural immunity isn't just an academic point. Lives 
were lost because they ignored it. Thousands of Americans died 
because public health officials ignored natural immunity, 
because from December 2020 and April 2021, there was a limited 
vaccine supply. Thousands of Americans were dying, just as you 
said Ranking Member Ruiz. We had people dying to get the 
vaccine. The vaccine was highly effective against the variant 
at that time. It saved lives, and they couldn't get it because 
we were giving vaccines to those already immune with natural 
immunity. Why would you give two life preservers when some were 
drowning with none?
    If you think healthcare costs too much, we are dealing with 
a massive nurse exodus, resulting in higher prices. Thirty-four 
thousand nurses left in New York state alone. Now they are 
hiring traveling nurses for twice and three times the cost. 
That is translating into higher medical bills. If you are 
healthy enough to fight in a war, you are probably extremely 
low risk for COVID. Thank you, and I look forward to your 
questions.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you, Doctor. I now recognize Dr. 
Smelkinson for five minutes of remarks. Thank you.

                  STATEMENT OF DR. MARGERY SMELKINSON

                           RESEARCH SCIENTIST

    Dr. Smelkinson. Chairman Wenstrup, Ranking Member Ruiz, and 
Committee Members, thank you for inviting me to speak today. I 
am a research scientist with 24 years of experience working in 
the laboratory, primarily focusing on host-pathogen 
interactions and infectious diseases. Currently, I am a staff 
scientist in the Research Technologies Branch at NIAID, where I 
perform collaborative research with investigators throughout 
the Institute on projects that focus on infectious diseases, 
rare and autoimmune diseases, and immunology. As a disclaimer, 
I am here in my personal capacity and not speaking on behalf of 
the NIH, NIAID, HHS, or the Federal Government.
    The U.S. COVID pandemic response has been plagued by a 
failure to adjust to emerging data and to account for 
unintended consequences. One glaring example of this is the 
handling of school closures, with the CDC guidelines 
continuously at odds with evidence from other countries and 
from school districts that opened in the U.S. in the fall of 
2020. This disregard for data led to prolonged closures, and a 
catastrophic decline in academic achievement, and a widening 
equity gap. This was not the only area where our health 
agencies failed to acknowledge evidence. They also failed to 
recognize the protection against COVID afforded by natural 
immunity.
    Natural immunity refers to the immunological response that 
an individual develops after recovering from an infection. It 
is part of the adaptive immune response, which produces memory 
B and T cells that remain in the body and can quickly respond 
to the same pathogen if it is encountered again. For centuries, 
natural immunity has been recognized as a vital defense 
mechanism against reinfection, long before the precise cellular 
mechanisms were understood.
    Throughout much of the pandemic, though, messaging in the 
U.S. was that there was no evidence of lasting protection from 
COVID infection, but, in fact, we did know otherwise and early 
on. In July 2020, a paper published in Nature showed a strong T 
cell response in SARS CoV-2 recovered patients. It also 
demonstrated that patients recovered from SARS, the first one, 
also had T cells that were still reactive to the virus nearly 
20 years later, a very good indicator that SARS CoV-2 immunity 
would be similarly durable. Several more papers came out in 
late 2020, early 2021, reaffirming these results and that even 
a mild or asymptomatic infection could produce a strong and 
long-lasting response. As expected, these immunological data 
translated into low reinfection rates.
    In February 2021, a U.S. study of 3 million people showed a 
0.3 percent reinfection rate compared to three percent in those 
without prior infection during the same time period. Two months 
later the large Siren study of English healthcare workers 
estimated that prior infection was associated with an 84-
percent lower risk of reinfection. By late 2021, there were 
numerous studies, including a systematic review, which showed 
that natural immunity was at least as effective as vaccine-
conferred immunity and waned more slowly.
    The early data clearly showed that natural immunity was 
strong. Other countries did acknowledge this by allowing 
exemptions from mandates and passports, while the U.S. 
continued to disregard it. In the short term, this provided 
justification for mandates with no exceptions, an approach that 
resulted in staffing shortages, particularly in the healthcare 
sector where we could least afford to lose workers. It also 
caused needless loss of life as vaccines were given to 
essential workers with natural immunity instead of being 
prioritized for the elderly. Additionally, the daily quarantine 
of thousands of students could have been significantly reduced 
if districts had at least made exceptions for students with 
natural immunity, at least.
    Disregarding the wealth of evidence of natural immunity led 
to missed opportunities to implement policies that could have 
been more effective and efficient in controlling the pandemic 
and limiting collateral damage. Unfortunately, now vaccination 
rates for other vaccines have declined, ironically increasing 
society's vulnerability to infectious outbreaks. While some of 
this may be due to missed medical appointments and school 
closures, there has also been a significant loss of trust in 
public health due to misleading messaging and inflexible 
policies during the pandemic. Our health agencies must learn 
from this unfortunate error of failing to be candid with the 
American public and for the pervasive implementation of 
policies that were not adequately supported by data. Thank you
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you, Doctor. I will now recognize Dr. 
Tan to give an opening statement.

                       STATEMENT OF DR. TINA TAN

               PROFESSOR OF PEDIATRIC INFECTIOUS DISEASES

                      FEINBERG SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

                        NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

    Dr. Tan. Thank you. Chairman Wenstrup, Ranking Member Ruiz, 
and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for 
holding today's hearing and inviting me to testify. As a 
pediatric infectious diseases physician, I have cared for many 
patients with serious illness due to COVID-19, and I am 
committed to saving lives and providing my patients with the 
best care possible and the best medical advice. And that is why 
I recommend that all eligible individuals stay up to date on 
their COVID-19 vaccinations. I greatly appreciate your 
commitment to hearing from physicians like myself who have been 
on the front lines of this pandemic since the pandemic started.
    When SARS CoV-2 first emerged, it truly was a novel virus, 
so we knew very little about it. Increasing knowledge, the 
emergence of new variants, new tools, and increased population 
immunity have all caused medical recommendations to change 
appropriately over time. My testimony will cover what we now 
know about the benefits and risks associated with immunity 
after infection and COVID-19 vaccines, the appropriate roles of 
physicians and the Federal Government in COVID-19 prevention, 
and recommendations to improve public understanding of 
vaccines.
    Now, the term ``natural immunity'' to mean immunity after 
infection, can be somewhat confusing. Immunity acquired from a 
COVID-19 infection and immunity after vaccination are both 
natural. Immunity after infection appears to provide protection 
against future severe disease from COVID-19. The body of 
evidence for immunity after infection, however, is more limited 
than that for vaccine-induced immunity, and data suggests that 
the best immunity comes from hybrid immunity, which is the 
combination of vaccination and immunity after infection.
    Relying only on immunity after infection to prevent COVID-
19 can be very risky. Unvaccinated individuals without prior 
COVID-19 infection have an increased risk of severe disease, 
hospitalization, and death. Before vaccines, patients with 
COVID-19 completely overwhelmed hospitals, which compromised 
our ability to provide care to all patients. COVID-19 vaccines 
provide substantial protection against severe disease, 
hospitalization, and death. The bivalent booster COVID-19 
vaccines increases protection, and we must encourage more 
people to receive this booster.
    An April 2022 study found the vaccine effectiveness of the 
bivalent MRNA vaccine booster was 72 percent for COVID-19-
related hospitalizations and 68 percent for COVID-19-related 
deaths. Several studies have also indicated that COVID-19 
vaccination appears to reduce the risk of long COVID. A March 
2023 study found that vaccinated individuals had less than half 
the risk of developing long COVID.
    COVID-19 vaccines are safe, and side effects after a COVID-
19 vaccination tend to be mild and temporary, very similar to 
those experienced after routine vaccinations. And we know that 
CDC has conducted extensive monitoring of the adverse events 
associated with vaccines, and the risk associated with getting 
a natural COVID infection are far greater than the risk 
associated with receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.
    Now, we know that physicians are considered one of the most 
trusted vaccine messengers, and 2021 AMA survey showed more 
than 96 percent of U.S. physicians had been fully vaccinated 
for COVID-19. And as an ID specialist, I have educated other 
physicians and healthcare personnel about COVID-19 disease and 
COVID-19 vaccines. We must better leverage the role of 
physicians to increase vaccine uptake for COVID-19 and other 
vaccine-preventable diseases. And to do this, we must expand 
our physician work force.
    Unfortunately, nearly 80 percent of the counties here in 
the United States don't have a single infectious disease 
physician, and in 2022, only 56 percent of adult ID training 
programs and only 46 percent of pediatric ID training programs 
filled, and high medical student debt draws many physicians to 
more lucrative specialties and subspecialties.
    The Federal Government has an important role to play in 
COVID-19 vaccinations, and those roles have evolved over time. 
The Federal Government provided critical resources, 
information, and partnerships to support rapid equitable 
vaccine administration. It also instituted vaccination 
requirements, and the concept of vaccine requirements is not 
new. We know that seasonal influenza vaccination requirements 
for healthcare personnel have been in placed at many 
institutions for years and really have decreased the amount of 
transmission occurring from healthcare personnel to the 
patients they care for.
    Prior to the Delta variant, COVID-19 vaccine offered 
incredibly powerful protection against infection. Reducing 
transmission could limit the development of variants, ease 
pressure on hospitals, and save lives. The trajectory of the 
pandemic, however, has changed. While vaccines remain highly 
effective at preventing severe disease, hospitalization, and 
death, they are no longer as effective in preventing infection 
and transmission. And in addition, most people in the U.S. now 
have some immunity. Policies should evolve based on the latest 
data, and data do not support mandatory COVID-19 vaccination 
requirements at this time.
    The other thing that I just want to mention is that routine 
childhood vaccination rates significantly dropped during the 
pandemic and remain below pre-pandemic levels, and this is 
driving outbreaks of diseases, such as measles, pertussis, and 
polio, with very troubling public health consequences and 
economic costs.
    I thank you for your attention to the important issue of 
vaccination and this opportunity to testify.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you, Doctor, and I agree with the grave 
concern about the other vaccines that aren't being administered 
out of fear at this time.
    I now recognize myself for questions, but I do want to say 
some things. You know, to imply that those that support the 
idea of studying and considering and researching natural 
immunity implies that you are against the vaccine, that is 
false. That should not be implied, and it doesn't mean that the 
vaccines weren't beneficial and weren't lifesaving, and the 
emergency use authorization, I felt, was very appropriate, 
especially for the most vulnerable because of what we knew at 
the time. But since vaccinated people still got COVID, and we 
knew that from the trials, you can't say that vaccinated people 
won't get long COVID because they can still get COVID.
    And to say that the vaccines are safe, safe as we know it 
at the time, but we don't have a five-year study. We don't have 
a 10-year study. We saw 18-to 40-year-old males getting 
myocarditis after vaccination. Those are things we need to 
continue to study and to consider. To make a blanket statement 
that they are safe is not fair. Safe as we may know it at a 
certain point, but we are seeing things. In this Committee, we 
will be looking at our VAERS system, the reporting of adverse 
events from vaccines. It is important that we do that and make 
sure that it is working, and it is to be honest, and it is to 
be trusted.
    So, what we have seen throughout the pandemic is the public 
health establishment disregarding natural immunity. I mean, 
that has been very clear. We have all lived through that. Let 
me go down the line, starting with Dr. Makary. Is natural 
immunity to COVID-19 a real thing that should have been 
considered, recognized, and studied?
    Dr. Makary. Absolutely. We lost a million people from the 
work force roughly because natural immunity was ignored. A 
million people leaving the work force isn't good for public 
health.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Doctor?
    Dr. Smelkinson. Yes, I think when it came to mandates, we 
should have absolutely made exemptions for people with natural 
immunity to save the work force and to save our precious 
vaccines for those that were truly vulnerable, which is what 
many other developed countries did.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Do you think mandates should have been 
implemented without a consultation with a physician?
    Dr. Smelkinson. I think that mandates, when there is a 
public health benefit, can be justified. So early on when the 
vaccines were rolled out, when they did seem to reduce spread, 
they were justified, but exemptions should have always existed 
for those with natural immunity.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Then to that point, I will tell you, during 
the Trump administration, I made the recommendation that 
America needs to be hearing from the doctors that are treating 
COVID patients, not politicians, and that would be much more 
greatly embraced by the American people. Dr. Tan?
    Dr. Tan. I agree that you get natural immunity after 
infection, and I think that is important, but I think early on, 
we didn't understand or have the data to really support that, 
you know, natural immunity would be the only thing to rely on. 
And we knew that as individuals got COVID infection, they were 
at much higher risk for going on to developing complications, 
now known as long COVID and multi-system inflammatory syndrome, 
both in children and adults.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I think we all agree that early on, no one 
knew exactly what, so we were all clamoring for a vaccine, but 
at the same time should have been looking at natural immunity 
as well and take it into consideration in the overall treatment 
of a patient, as I pointed out with my own numbers there. In 
the summer of 2021, the CDC removed all references to natural 
immunity. Dr. Makary, do you know why?
    Dr. Makary. They never talked about it. They upheld 
something I would call the Novak Djokovic doctrine. That is, no 
one who is unvaccinated, regardless of prior recovery from 
COVID, was allowed in the United States under the false 
pretense that vaccines prevent transmission, that natural 
immunity was not a real thing, and that there was no risk 
whatsoever to the vaccine. And just a quick note. I don't like 
the conversation framed around all or nothing, entirely relying 
on natural immunity. Doctors' custom tailor treatments all the 
time and you know what? If somebody had a natural immunity 
early on, maybe we recommend one dose or space out the doses or 
hold off on the booster, but this all-or-nothing cult around 
vaccine ignores the Fraiman Study that found that 1 in 662 two 
doses results in a severe adverse event.
    Do doctors do a proper informed consent with that risk? In 
the early days of COVID when we were losing a thousand people, 
that risk is acceptable. Now it is not acceptable. We can't 
have a five-year-old girl gets 77 mRNA doses in her average 
life span. That is what people are promoting without any data.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I had a situation where a gentleman called me 
about his son, and he said just to go to school he has to get 
vaccinated. He has a perfectly healthy son, and I recommended 
one dose of the Pfizer. It would give him some immunity. Most 
of the myocarditis incidents were coming after the second dose, 
so get one dose. Get immunity that way, which the majority of 
it comes from that first dose, yet he was denied. He was denied 
accepting that. I said get a doctor's note. The school board 
was deciding this, not the patient and the doctor.
    The CDC website at that time, Dr. Makary, also said, ``Get 
vaccinated regardless of whether you already had COVID-19. 
Studies have shown that vaccination provides a strong boost in 
protection in people who have recovered from COVID-19.'' Any 
thoughts on that?
    Dr. Makary. Well, the CDC's own data showed that if you 
were vaccinated and had prior immunity, that is the so-called 
hybrid immunity, or you just had natural immunity, you hit the 
same ceiling of hospitalization rates during the Omicron wave. 
So, one dose may be reasonable, but we fired 81,000 soldiers 
just in one swath for not having both doses. That is arrogance, 
paternalism, and medical elitism. That isn't the humility the 
American public expects. That is why child vaccination rates 
are down unfortunately.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Of course. Care to comment on that?
    Dr. Tan. Well, I mean, we know that vaccine hesitancy has 
existed as long as vaccines have existed. You know, with Edward 
Jenner and the smallpox vaccine, there was vaccine hesitancy 
then. I think with the COVID-19 vaccines, I think there was a 
misunderstanding in the general public about the role that they 
would play, at least, you know, in preventing the serious 
disease and infections and hospitalizations and death that may 
occur in individuals. And I think that is why it is so 
important to really protect those individuals, especially those 
individuals that have immunocompromised conditions. And 
children do serve as a vector of transmission to those 
individuals in the household.
    Dr. Wenstrup. If I could before I turn it over to the 
Ranking Member for questions, you know, I have recommended any 
chance I get to say this vaccine is different from the other 
vaccines, and really this mRNA vaccine has been more of a 
therapeutic than the other vaccines have proven to be as far as 
prevention. And I think that people need to know that, and our 
public health system today should be shouting that from the top 
of their lungs to parents of young children to make sure they 
get those other vaccines. But when they say you must get this 
one as well, I think that is an injustice, and that is harming 
our system, if that is what they are advocating.
    I yield to the Ranking Member for his questions.
    Dr. Ruiz. Thank you. I am going to put my doctor hat on 
right now. Natural infection creates an immune response in 
immuno-competent people. We have known that. We have known that 
for a very long time. Nobody ever denied that. Nobody ever said 
that getting an infection doesn't create an immune response, 
OK? The immune response and protection depends on several 
factors and varies based on viral load, age, and immuno-
competency, so it is not an easy, standard response that 
everybody is going to have. However, natural infection with 
this virus causes severe illness, hospitalization. With this 
virus, not the chickenpox, can send you to the ICU. With this 
virus, natural infection can cause deaths, 3,000 per day, in 
fact. You know, this virus that mutates and that has an immune 
response that wanes leads to the need of re-boosting your 
immunity.
    The goal is to boost your immunity to mount a rapid and 
strong immune response so that you don't get symptoms, miss 
work, or transmit it to a high high-risk loved one or go to the 
ICU or, God forbid, die. That is the goal here, people. Let's 
take a step back. Who wants to get sick and miss work? Who 
wants to transmit this to your little one or your elderly, you 
know, grandparent even if you have been vaccinated? So, the 
best way to avoid symptoms from a natural infection or the risk 
of long COVID or hospitalizations or death is by boosting your 
immune response passively with a vaccine, OK?
    Now it sounds like the narrative being pushed is to get 
infected with COVID-19, and if you get infected, then you don't 
need a vaccine, or prefer to get a natural infection over a 
vaccine for a deadly virus, or that if you get infected, then, 
disregard the vaccine or the booster. That seems to be the 
narrative here. That is just wrong, guys. It is just wrong, 
contrary to medical and public health practice, and it violates 
the oath of doing no harm.
    Look, let me clarify some things. Vaccines don't cause long 
COVID. Vaccines do not cause long COVID. Natural infection 
causes long COVID, OK? Active infection, even mild infections 
cause long COVID. Let me clear up another misinformation 
already stated. Yes, vaccines help reduce transmission. They 
help reduce transmission. It is not 100 percent you get a 
vaccine; you are not going to get infected. It is not 100 
percent you get a vaccine; you are not going to spread it 
somewhere. Again, the immune response, boosted by a vaccine, 
hopefully is strong enough, rapid enough to defeat the viral 
load and how fast it replicates in order to prevent it from 
reaching a level to where you are symptomatic, and you are 
transmitting it to other people.
    So, with people who have that fast, strong immune response 
boosted by a vaccine, you are going to be able to prevent 
getting infected, and you are going to be able to prevent 
transmitting it to other people, definitely hospitalizations 
and definitely death. But some people who are vaccinated may 
have received a larger viral load, a mutated virus, and their 
immune system may not have responded fast enough, and they 
still may get infected. They still made transmit it, and there 
may still be hospitalization. Yes, some may still even die. So, 
it is not a simple black or white, 100 percent or not. It is 
understanding physiology and the mechanism of the immune 
response.
    So, when President Biden took office, he hit the ground 
running to expand access to lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines. On 
his first full day in office, President Biden issued the 
National Strategy for the COVID-19 Response and Pandemic 
Preparedness. The Biden administration's National Strategy 
leverage the Defense Production Act to rapidly increase our 
supply of vaccines, stand up vaccination centers in communities 
across the country, and mobilized the public health work force 
to support a comprehensive COVID-19 response. So, thanks to 
President Biden's leadership and investments from Democrats' 
American Rescue Plan, which every House Republican opposed, we 
were able to get more than 600 million shots in arms, laying 
the groundwork to safely reopen 99 percent of schools, reignite 
our economy, and resume everyday life.
    Dr. Tan, as a fellow physician, I deeply admire your 
commitment to protecting your patients, our Nation's kids from 
the constantly evolving threat of infectious diseases like 
COVID-19. How do vaccines work to protect patients and forge 
stronger immunity, even among those who have already 
experienced infection?
    Dr. Tan. So, as you mentioned, vaccines work by boosting 
the immunity, and we do know that hybrid immunity actually is 
one of the strongest immunities in preventing hospitalizations, 
severe COVID disease, and death. It also has been shown that it 
prevents the development of multi-system inflammatory syndrome, 
both in children and in adults. And one thing about MIS-C in 
children is that many of the children who develop this are 
unvaccinated, and when they do develop it, many of them either 
have mild or very little in the way of symptoms. So, you cannot 
predict who is going to go on to develop MIS-C.
    Dr. Ruiz. Thank you. Thank you. The Biden administration 
pursued a multi-pronged approach to encourage uptake of the 
COVID-19 vaccine and save lives. Alongside decisive action to 
increase supply and accessibility, the Biden administration 
instituted commonsense requirements for healthcare workers and 
Federal workers to get vaccinated. And as the novel coronavirus 
evolved, the Federal Government move decisively to roll out 
safe and effective boosters to better protect the American 
public from new variants.
    Let me be clear. These actions saved lives. According to a 
Commonwealth Fund study published in December 2022, the Biden 
administration's COVID-19 vaccination strategy prevented 3.2 
million deaths and 18.5 million hospitalizations, and without 
COVID-19 vaccines, the United States would have experienced 4.1 
times more deaths and 3.8 times more hospitalizations. Dr. Tan, 
how have vaccines helped us to reduce the ongoing threat posed 
by COVID-19, particularly in communities that were hardest hit 
by the pandemic?
    Dr. Tan. So, the vaccine also helps to prevent transmission 
of the disease to other individuals so that, you know, we know 
that the more the virus is allowed to circulate in the 
community, the more it is going to mutate, and the more 
individuals are going to become infected.
    Dr. Ruiz. Thank you. So, this is my last question. So, you 
know, as we look to prevent and prepare for future pandemics, a 
crucial component of our work must be investing in the 
infrastructure to rapidly develop and deploy safe and effective 
vaccines. Look, the decision to concomitantly invest in 
producing the vaccine while we were in the R&D phase helped us 
rapidly deploy this, so there are lessons learned that we 
should incorporate in the next response. And in your written 
testimony, Dr. Tan, you mentioned the need for investments in 
vaccine infrastructure, infectious disease physician 
recruitment, research to better understand and combat vaccine 
misinformation and disinformation, and increased coverage for 
vaccines. Dr. Tan, why are these measures so important for our 
future public health preparedness?
    Dr. Tan. This is incredibly important because these 
measures will allow us to protect the largest number of 
individuals so that we don't have another devastating pandemic 
where you are going to have lives lost when they could have 
been saved with the use of an effective vaccine. And, you know, 
by building infrastructure for vaccines in both the adult and 
the pediatric populations, you are going to be able to save 
more lives all across the age span.
    Dr. Ruiz. Thank you. I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize the Chairman of the full 
Committee, Mr. Comer, for five minutes of questions.
    Mr. Comer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank our 
witnesses for being here.
    The pandemic has definitely undermined trust in public 
health. We have heard time and time again, those in positions 
of public trust in the Biden administration making misleading 
or false statements regarding COVID-19. Now, I want to run 
through some of these statements and ask each of our witnesses 
if, at the time those statements were made, if science and data 
supported these statements.
    On June 22, 2021, Dr. Fauci said, ``It is as simple as 
black and white. You are vaccinated, you are safe. You are 
unvaccinated, you are at risk. Simple as that.'' Yes or no, Dr. 
Makary, does science and data support that statement?
    Dr. Makary. Not anymore.
    Mr. Comer. Dr. Smelkinson.
    Dr. Smelkinson. I mean, it did appear like that. In the 
summer of 2021, it did seem like the vaccines were doing pretty 
well at suppressing infection and spreading it, but shortly 
thereafter, it was not, and they didn't look at that in the 
trials.
    Mr. Comer. Dr. Tan?
    Dr. Tan. I think at the time, based upon the science that 
was available, the statement was appropriate, but I think now, 
the pandemic is evolving----
    Mr. Comer. Right.
    Dr. Tan [continuing]. So that we have to be agile enough to 
really go along with that.
    Mr. Comer. Right. On May 16, 2021, Dr. Fauci said, the 
vaccinated became ``a dead end for the virus.'' Dr. Makary, did 
science and data support that statement?
    Dr. Makary. In April 2021, we knew vaccines didn't stop 
transmission.
    Mr. Comer. Dr. Tan?
    Dr. Tan. It stopped transmission in some individuals but 
not 100 percent stopping.
    Mr. Comer. Dr. Smelkinson.
    Dr. Smelkinson. I agree with what they both said. It 
didn't, 100 percent.
    Mr. Comer. On May 19, 2021, Director Walensky said, ``Even 
if you were to get infected during post-vaccination that you 
can't give it to anyone else.'' Dr. Makary, did science and 
data support that statement?
    Dr. Makary. No.
    Mr. Comer. Dr. Smelkinson.
    Dr. Smelkinson. No.
    Mr. Comer. Dr. Tan.
    Dr. Tan. You were less likely, but it is not 100 percent.
    Mr. Comer. On March 29, 2021, CDC Director Walensky said, 
``Vaccinated people don't carry the virus, don't get sick.'' 
Dr. Makary, did science and data support that statement?
    Dr. Makary. It did not.
    Mr. Comer. Dr. Smelkinson?
    Dr. Smelkinson. I mean, again it may have appeared that way 
for a while, but the trials didn't look at that.
    Mr. Comer. Dr. Tan?
    Dr. Tan. Yes, the trials didn't look at that, so the 
appearance was yes.
    Mr. Comer. Finally, on June 21, 2021, President Biden said, 
``If you are vaccinated, you are not going to be hospitalized, 
you are not going to be in the ICU unit, and you are not going 
to die.'' Yes or no, Dr. Makary, did science and data support 
the President's statement?
    Dr. Makary. We thought that early on, but they denied the 
overwhelming data that that was not true and made that 
statement after that data were clear.
    Mr. Comer. Dr. Smelkinson.
    Dr. Smelkinson. That was around the time where 
breakthroughs were happening more rapidly, so I think that we 
could have seen that that was going to devolve into more 
reinfections.
    Mr. Comer. Dr. Tan.
    Dr. Tan. I think there was some support for that, but, you 
know, nothing is 100 percent, so I think science and data at 
that time was evolving.
    Mr. Comer. Dr. Makary, by July 21, 2021, were there 
vaccinated Americans that had caught COVID-19?
    Dr. Makary. Absolutely.
    Mr. Comer. Were there vaccinated Americans in the hospital 
for COVID-19?
    Dr. Makary. Absolutely.
    Mr. Comer. Were there vaccinated Americans that had died 
from COVID-19?
    Dr. Makary. Absolutely.
    Mr. Comer. Dr. Makary, was the President lying?
    Dr. Makary. There was a lot of misinformation spread by 
public health officials that we had to close schools, that 
vaccinated immunity was much stronger than natural immunity, 
that the ideal dosing interval was three or four weeks, that we 
had to boost young people with no evidence to support it. On 
long COVID, on ignoring natural immunity, there was a lot of 
misinformation spread during the pandemic, a lot spread by the 
CDC.
    Mr. Comer. And I think this is why there is a lack of trust 
in American public health. Our leaders were unwilling to speak 
the truth and unwilling to follow the facts, and that is a big 
deal. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the topic of this hearing. 
This a very important hearing. We have got a lot of work to do 
in America to regain the trust of the American people in public 
health. With that, I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you. I now recognize the Ranking Member 
of the full Committee, Mr. Raskin, from Maryland for five 
minutes of questions.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just want 
to start with a small semantic problem. Some people are 
contrasting natural immunity with vaccination, but actually, 
natural immunity is, well, natural, and our bodies will create 
antibodies in response to an infection whether it is by 
contracting the disease or in response to receiving a 
vaccination. So, in both cases, natural immunity is operating, 
and nobody is naturally immune to COVID-19. It creates an 
implication that somehow some people just will never get it, 
and I don't think there is any studies that demonstrate that. 
So, if you can activate a natural immunity response either by 
getting it or by having a vaccine, why not let COVID-19 just 
wash over the whole population and create herd immunity, which 
seems to be the subtext of some people's remarks here. It will 
be cheaper than vaccination, and you don't have to run a 
government campaign to have people get the disease. They will 
just get it if you let it run wild.
    Well, that was precisely the strategy advocated by key 
Trump advisors during the Trump administration, and I sat on 
the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis where we 
dealt with witnesses and people who specifically advocated 
this. We revealed in a report last year, which I would love to 
submit for the record, Mr. Chairman, called the ``Atlas Dogma: 
The Trump Administration's Embrace of a Dangerous and 
Discredited Herd Immunity Via Mass Infection Strategy,'' from 
June 2022. I would ask unanimous consent to accept that report. 
But the administration embraced this massive infection strategy 
promoted by pandemic advisor, Scott Atlas, a Fox News pundit 
with no background in infectious diseases, who amazingly was 
hired by the White House in the middle of the pandemic in July 
2020. So, can I just ask for unanimous consent to enter this 
report into the record?
    Dr. Wenstrup. So, ordered.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you.
    Mr. Raskin. Dr. Deborah Birx, who was then the coronavirus 
coordinator for the Trump White House, told the Select 
Subcommittee in a transcribed interview that she was constantly 
raising the alert about the dangers of Dr. Atlas' views on this 
pandemic. She warned that his wildly irresponsible herd 
immunity strategy was not implementable, and leading public 
health experts agreed at the time. Dr. Tan, why is mass 
infection, just letting the disease run over the population, a 
bad idea, even though it will activate natural immunity?
    Dr. Tan. Well, the problem is that you are going to have a 
lot of individuals that are going to get seriously infected. 
They are going to be hospitalized, which is going to completely 
overwhelm the system, and there are going to be far more deaths 
if you let somebody just get infected to be infected. We see 
that with the chickenpox parties that used to be held where 
people would know someone that had chickenpox. They would bring 
their children over to get infected. Some of those children 
would develop super infections with bacteria that landed them 
in the hospital with limb loss, other types of disfigurement, 
as well as deaths. So, trying to have somebody just get a 
natural infection for immunity is a very risky and dangerous 
way, and vaccines are the safest way for you to get immunity.
    Mr. Raskin. It will lead to mass unnecessary suffering and 
death----
    Dr. Tan. Correct.
    Mr. Raskin [continuing]. And spread of the disease. Well, a 
systematic review published in Nature in January 2023 found 
that hybrid immunity was more protective than immunity after 
infection alone against the Omicron variant, and the 
effectiveness of previous infection against hospital admission 
or severe disease was 74 percent and against reinfection 24 
percent. That is just having gotten it. But hybrid immunity, 
meaning you get the shot two, you 97 percent immunity against 
severe disease and hospital admission, and 41 percent against 
reinfection as opposed to 24 without it. So that improves the 
odds, too.
    So, I guess my question is to you is do false and 
misleading claims about herd immunity and natural immunity 
ultimately undermine people's willingness to get vaccinated, 
and why is this debate so politicized and polarized?
    Dr. Tan. Well, I am a practicing clinician, so I can't 
comment on the politicization of it, but I can say that there 
already is some hesitancy with regards to receiving routine 
vaccinations, and with all the misinformation that was 
disseminated, it really fell on the COVID-19 vaccine to sort of 
push that to a different level.
    Mr. Raskin. I yield back. Thank you.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Mr. Malliotakis from New York 
for five minutes of questions.
    Ms. Malliotakis. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank 
you to those testifying today. You know, ignoring the science 
of natural immunity led to prolonged lockdowns, school 
closures, vaccine mandates, people being fired, losing their 
livelihoods, particularly in a city like mine, New York. We had 
a labor shortage. We had many issues as a result, and early on, 
we knew that naturally acquired immunity was present for COVID-
19, and just about everyone in the world was studying COVID-19 
and finding individuals developed the natural immunity. Various 
studies showed that reinfections were rare, protection lasted 
around one year, individuals who were previously infected with 
COVID-19 were likely to benefit from the vaccination and the 
natural immunity, right, and a previous COVID-19 infection 
offers at least the same level or even superior protection as 
two doses of a Moderna or Pfizer vaccine.
    But even with all this data, the CDC and the Biden 
administration began to present a false message that receiving 
a COVID vaccination and booster was the only way to protect 
yourself against the virus. President Biden made multiple 
statements that simply did not follow the science, as those 
testifying today are affirming. He said, ``If you are 
vaccinated, you are not going to be hospitalized. You are not 
going to be in ICU unit. You are not going to die.'' That was 
false. He said, ``You are not going to get COVID if you have 
these vaccinations.'' That was also false. Dr. Fauci says, 
``You become a dead end for the virus.'' That was also false.
    And in New York City, all public employees, including 
teachers, police officers, firefighters, those frontline 
workers, they were mandated need to get this vaccination or be 
terminated. And as a result, nearly 15,000 city workers were 
fired for not complying, many who had been recently infected. 
So, since I joined Congress in 2021, I have fought for my 
constituents against these arbitrary and unscientific policies. 
I led a lawsuit that ended Mayor de Blasio's vaccine passport 
where you could not even walk into a restaurant to get a 
sandwich unless you were vaccinated. I joined a lawsuit that 
struck down President Biden's vaccine mandate on the private 
sector. We fought New York City to drop vaccine mandates on the 
private sector and on the public sector and reinstate those 
that were fired. We also voted to lift that vaccine mandate on 
members of our military.
    Dr. Smelkinson, let me start with you. Did President Biden, 
Governor Cuomo, and Mayor de Blasio do a great disservice to 
our economy and society by not incorporating natural immunity 
into their policies?
    Dr. Smelkinson. Yes. I mean, the data showed that natural 
immunity was as protective as vaccinated immunity, and when we 
are talking about equitable policies, lower-income minority 
communities tended to be less vaccinated, and relatedly, they 
also tended to have more natural immunity. So, these vaccine 
passports that were enacted were actually quite inequitable as 
well since they didn't make exemptions.
    Ms. Malliotakis. I agree, and that is why we sued to stop 
it. How was natural immunity not even a factor in these policy 
decisions that negatively impacted so many Americans?
    Dr. Smelkinson. I can't answer why it has been disregarded 
because other countries have acknowledged it. I mean, that is 
why these studies were run. When the vaccines came out, they 
started getting busy on figuring out how does the vaccine 
compare to natural immunity. There was a big Israeli study to 
get at the prioritization of the vaccines. And so, I don't know 
why they disregarded it.
    Ms. Malliotakis. OK. Dr. Makary, do you have any inkling 
there?
    Dr. Makary. I think you just heard why people don't want to 
recognize natural immunity. They associate with a let-it-rip, 
try-to-get-the-infection strategy. No one is saying that. No 
one. None of us have said that vaccines save lives. None of us, 
not even the Great Barrington Declaration folks or Scott Atlas. 
Look, I get it. You may not like Trump but look at Sweden's 
deaths and look at Michigan's deaths. As you know, it is not 
fair to compare Florida and New York because they had 
infections at different times seasonally, and medicine advanced 
and it is lowering the infection fatality rate. But Sweden and 
Michigan are perfect comparisons: same population, same percent 
of older people, identical populations. In the end, 37,000 
deaths in Michigan; half, 17,000 in Sweden.
    Ms. Malliotakis. Thank you. I need to get one last question 
in because we recently were successful in getting the state and 
city universities of New York to roll back their vaccine 
mandates. Remember, these are young healthier Americans who are 
attending our universities. Should private universities follow 
that and rescind their vaccine mandates?
    Dr. Makary. Yes.
    Ms. Malliotakis. And Dr. Smelkinson?
    Dr. Smelkinson. Yes, of course.
    Ms. Malliotakis. Dr. Tan, I will even let you answer there.
    Dr. Tan. I think in certain situations, yes, they should 
rescind it. And, again, we are in a different time than we were 
back when all this was occurring.
    Ms. Malliotakis. Thank you very much.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Dr. Bera from California for 
five minutes of questions.
    Dr. Bera. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think we have to be 
really careful here because in this debate and dialog, we need 
to make sure we aren't sending a message to the public that 
vaccines are bad, right? You all would agree with that. I also 
think it is very dangerous to think in black and white that 
infection-acquired immunity was totally discounted. It wasn't. 
I mean, for folks that were on the front lines. As a doctor and 
former chief medical officer, you know, when we didn't have 
vaccines and we were running short on health workers and so 
forth, we were in consultation with our hospitals and folks 
that, you know, got infected, survived. We understood that they 
have some natural immunity, and they often were the ones that 
were going back and taking care of COVID patients. There was 
also consideration when we did have antibody tests, do you go 
out and do mass availability of these antibody tests to 
determine who has had it and who hasn't had it, and so it was 
not black and white.
    I also understand from a public health perspective, when 
you are trying to launch a mass vaccination campaign, you often 
will think about things in broad terms, and mandates sometimes 
do compel folks to get that vaccine. Should we have been a bit 
more nuanced? Of course. Should we create exceptions for folks 
that say, look, I have already had COVID who are hesitant to 
get that vaccine, who may want to get that antibody test and 
demonstrate that they have got sufficient natural infection-
acquired immunity? Yes, we should always have flexibility. We 
should always be nuanced.
    Should politicians and elected officials be speaking in 
broad terms and generalities? No. I have never said that the 
vaccines were going to prevent illness because no vaccine is 
100 percent. Are they reducing transmission? Yes. Are they 
reducing severe illness? Yes. Are they reducing death and 
morbidity and mortality? Yes. Those are all factual statements 
that, you know, we get. I also think we have to be very careful 
because we know COVID-19 is continuing to mutate, and while you 
may have natural immunity to a prior variant, we can't say with 
100-percent uncertainty a new variant will not emerge where 
that prior immunity is going to be protective. We can also say 
the same thing about a prior vaccine, right? Part of the 
reason, you know, Dr. Makary, that you said we constantly 
update our influenza vaccine is because it is constantly 
mutating, and prior influenza vaccinations don't protect 
against new mutations.
    So, we just have to be open to that because we may see a 
new variant emerge next fall that our current vaccines don't 
protect against, or prior infection doesn't protect against. 
And I think we have got to be really, really careful in our 
messaging. Now, we also may see a new mutation emerge where 
prior vaccines are very protective and prior infection is very 
protective, so we have got to be open to that possibility as 
well. But I think for those of us who are on this Committee, I 
think we have got to be very careful in making sure we don't 
feed into vaccine hesitancy.
    Let me ask a ``yes'' or ``no'' question. I think I know the 
answer to it. Separating out the COVID-19 vaccine, all of you 
believe that routine childhood vaccines, measles, vaccines all 
of that are incredibly important. Dr. Makary?
    Dr. Makary. The routine child immunizations are important.
    Dr. Bera. Dr. Smelkinson?
    Dr. Smelkinson. Yes, of course.
    Mr. Bera. Dr. Tan?
    Dr. Tan. Absolutely.
    Dr. Bera. So, again, I would hope all of colleagues, 
Democrats and Republicans on this, understand that we have a 
responsibility. Look, we can debate efficacy of COVID-19 
vaccines, we can debate efficacy of natural immunity, but we 
need to be really careful that doesn't spill over. You know, we 
are seeing measles vaccination rates drop. We are seeing, you 
know, routine childhood vaccinations drop, and that is a real 
dangerous scenario that keeps me awake at night because COVID-
19 is not measles. Dr. Smelkinson, as we think about lessons 
learned, and this is about natural immunity versus, you know, 
we can look at the Swedish data, and Sweden wasn't the best in 
the world. It wasn't the worst in the world. It was kind of 
middle of the road. Their own internal studies have suggested 
that there were things that could have been done differently.
    Dr. Makary. That is right.
    Dr. Bera. They took a different approach. We should 
continue to look at these approaches, but what Sweden did 
incredibly well that helped them end the pandemic is they 
launched a mass vaccination campaign fairly quickly and 
actually have higher vaccination rates than we have in the 
United States. Now, again, they are doing an internal study. I 
would hope we could do that study to get a sense of what we did 
right and what we did wrong, and that is what I would hope this 
Committee does.
    Dr. Makary. If I could just point out, Sweden does not 
recommend the COVID-19 vaccine for children under 12. They did 
good in their vaccine rollout, better than us, but not by a 
lot. So, I think there are a lot of factors that went into 
play, but I appreciate every comment you made, Congressman 
Bera. Thank you.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Dr. Miller-Meeks from Iowa 
for five minutes of questions.
    Dr. Miller-Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate 
the comments, but I am going to clarify some misinformation by 
my colleagues. No. 1, as a physician and as a former director 
of public health, it is understood in medical vernacular and 
public health circles that natural immunity refers to immunity 
after infection or infection-acquired immunity, not immunity 
from vaccine. Would you agree, Dr. Makary?
    Dr. Makary. It has always been the case.
    Dr. Miller-Meeks. Dr. Smelkinson?
    Dr. Smelkinson. I mean, it is all the same cells being 
generated. In that sense, I guess it is natural, both of them, 
but one is a therapeutic and one is from the virus.
    Dr. Miller-Meeks. Correct. And Dr. Tan?
    Dr. Tan. No. I mean, agreed that, you know, you are 
generating the same cells to produce immunity to protect 
yourself, so in that sense, they are both natural.
    Dr. Miller-Meeks. Correct, but when we say, ``natural 
immunity,'' we are referring to infection-acquired immunity. I 
want us to have the same language, and the reason that is 
important is because, although I agree with almost everything 
Dr. Bera said, where I disagree, was that natural or infection-
acquired immunity was not discounted. I can tell you that I was 
censored. I was reported to the Board of Medicine in my state. 
I was, you know, threatened to be taken off platforms. I have 
been on this Committee now. This is my third year. I have asked 
this question of Dr. Fauci and of Dr. Walensky and of public 
health directors behind me, who even into 2021 and 2022, were 
reluctant to acknowledge that there was infection-acquired 
immunity. And let me say I was vaccinated. I gave the COVID-19 
vaccines in all 24 of my counties.
    And when you talked about natural immunity, no one was 
suggesting that people go out and attend a COVID-19 party and 
not get vaccinated. What we were asking for, the nuance that 
you mentioned, which was that we acknowledge that there is 
infection-acquired immunity, and, therefore, we risk stratify 
who we recommend vaccinations to, especially when you don't 
have enough vaccine to go around, and it is extraordinarily 
costly. That prepares us for the next pandemic, how we risk 
stratify.
    And this also goes into the concept of herd immunity, which 
is, again, that doesn't distinguish between natural immunity or 
vaccine-acquired immunity. It is the percent or the prevalence 
of the population that is immune. I even put forward a bill 
because of this difficulty with recognition of natural 
immunity. It was if public health professionals and medical 
doctors lost their sense of their education in denying that 
there was such a thing. I put forth a bill to mandate testing 
by all insurance companies of both humoral immunity and T cell 
immunity so people could document that they were immune and 
then not be fired from a job in the military or in the 
healthcare work force or another job.
    And so, if I sound passionate about this, I am extremely 
passionate about it because we have to get the science right. 
We have to get the messaging right, and the message was very 
wrong when we didn't acknowledge infection-acquired immunity. 
We can do both. We can walk and chew gum. We can say there is 
infection-acquired immunity, but depending upon your risk 
level, it could be very detrimental for you to wait to get 
infection-acquired immunity. We can do both of those things, 
and it is important to do them.
    So, I apologize. You can see the lack of responsiveness I 
got from four public health officials. We knew early on in 2021 
about infection-acquired immunity, about a better level of 
immunity from both infection-acquired and COVID vaccine. And, 
Dr. Makary, you conducted one of the first long-term studies to 
look at COVID antibody levels nearly two years after infection. 
You know, what was it like trying to do this study, and did the 
NIH or CDC support your inquiry?
    Dr. Makary. It was nearly impossible to study natural 
immunity. My Johns Hopkins colleagues and I published a study 
on natural immunity, basically drawing the blood of people who 
had COVID in the past and did not have vaccines, to measure 
their antibody levels, and we found those antibodies were 
present and durable up to nearly two years after infection. Why 
did the NIH or CDC not invite people who were infected in the 
early days to test their blood? No one was supposed to talk 
about natural immunity. It was misinformation, even if it was 
scientifically valid, because they thought maybe somebody might 
try to get the infection, so let's not be honest with the 
American public. That is the basis for it, and that is what 
public health officials told me privately.
    Dr. Miller-Meeks. So, like me, you have no idea why they 
ignored it.
    Dr. Makary. There was no money for it, they didn't want to 
talk about it, and they wanted to promote an indiscriminate, 
all-or-nothing vaccine strategy that meant all the vaccines 
could be four today or seven, depending on your age, or 
nothing. And if you don't do all of them, you are not fully 
vaccinated, and you don't meet the criteria of the Novak 
Djokovic doctrine. You are not allowed to travel into the 
United States. You are not allowed to play tennis outdoors. It 
was an absolutism. That is what ruined public health 
credibility is not being honest.
    Dr. Miller-Meeks. And I apologize. Did this also lack of 
acknowledgement of infection-acquired immunity play into how 
often we recommended people to be boostered and the age at 
which they should both get COVID-19 vaccine and boosters, even 
if they had both infection and vaccine?
    Dr. Makary. Yes, for public health officials, it was all or 
nothing. Doctors on the ground were customizing their vaccine 
recommendations. You have had COVID twice, including four 
months ago? I am not going to recommend the booster because you 
are young and healthy, and there is no data to support it. That 
is how doctors practiced medicine, but that was labeled 
misinformation by the medical elites.
    Dr. Miller-Meeks. Thank you so much, and if I may, I would 
like entered into the record a letter that the Doctors Caucus 
sent to Dr. Walensky in September 2020 asking questions, and 
making inquiries into infection-acquired immunity, and looking 
at real-world evidence and data and research from other 
countries.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Without objection.
    Dr. Miller-Meeks. Thank you, sir. I yield back my time.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Mr. Mfume from Maryland for 
five minutes of questions.
    Mr. Mfume. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to 
take exception with something that I heard here in this 
hearing, and that is that racial minorities across our country 
had a greater sense of immunity and were impacted less by this 
disease. In fact, infection-acquired immunity and all the other 
things were even more dangerous in minority communities, both 
when looking at death rates and broader inequalities in the 
healthcare system. In fact, the total cumulative data that we 
have and is available to all of us show that black Americans, 
Hispanic, American Indians, Native Alaskans, Native Hawaiians, 
and Pacific Islanders all suffered higher rates of COVID-19 
cases and deaths. That is the record, so the suggestion from 
some that, well, it was not that bad in these minority 
communities I think is a biased, xenophobic, and absolutely 
incorrect proposition to be putting forward. So let the record 
really reflect that those communities got hit harder, and those 
deaths rates were higher, and those cases went up.
    I think what we ought to do here is to sort of transport 
ourselves back to the dark, difficult days of COVID. We are 
looking back now is if we are looking through Alice in 
Wonderland's looking glass at what took place, and we all run 
the risk of being Monday morning quarterbacks. What we were 
dealing with we were dealing with in real time. Were there 
assumptions that were incorrect? Yes. Were there efforts 
underway to try to grab and get ahold of this? Yes. Did some of 
them work? No. Did some of them work? Yes. But when you are in 
the middle of a crisis, you are not trying to look to find the 
perfect way out. You want a way out to be able, particularly in 
this case, to save lives. So, it is great to look back and say 
if we could have, should have, would have, but the fact of the 
matter is that this entire Nation was dealing with something in 
real time.
    People were washing their hands and told they need to wash 
them 20 to 30 times a day. Many of us thought that this disease 
was transmitted by touching. Others thought it was transmitted 
because of closeness. There were quarantine times that varied 
from 7 days to 17 days. Students on college campuses and other 
young people were afraid to get a vaccine because the social 
media posts were saying it will create infertility among you. 
We were washing our groceries as they were being dropped off at 
our door before, we brought them into our homes. So, we were in 
real time, and in real time you are going to get some things 
right and you are going to get some things wrong, but at the 
end of the day, the real key is to try to find a way to save 
lives.
    Now, my bigger concern, Mr. Chairman, is that we don't play 
into the notion of vaccine hesitancy. It takes us down a dark, 
difficult path and one that we all, I hope, don't want to go 
down, particularly when we see now that measles, mumps, and 
even polio are starting to reemerge in this country because of 
hesitancy, in many instances by parents who don't want to get 
vaccines for their children, and in other instances just 
because people have this boogeyman theory that somehow or 
another, if you put something in your arm that has been 
scientifically and medically researched and approved that it is 
going to distort you, change your DNA, create a monster, or do 
something far worse.
    So, I hope and really pray that this hearing does not add 
to this notion of vaccine hesitancy. Is it important to look 
back? Absolutely, yes. That is the only way we can identify 
things that we agreed with, disagreed with, things that worked 
and didn't work. But to assign blame when we were all trying to 
figure this out together, I think, is absolutely the wrong way 
to go, and that means Republican blame, Democratic blame, 
Independent blame. We were all in real time.
    So, it troubles me when I continue to see the sort of 
political machinations that are taking place, pointing the 
finger and blaming, and say we created a worse problem than we 
had. Actually, I thought we did pretty good getting out of the 
problem that we did have, and I think we have our larger 
medical community to thank for that and the number of people 
who were on the line, who were not physicians but regular men 
and women who worked in jobs where they were very susceptible 
of becoming ill, who went to work every day, who we don't even 
talk about now because we took them for granted.
    So, we have come a long way since we were in the middle of 
this crisis, and I think it is important to always keep that in 
consideration and in the right context. I yield back. Thank 
you, sir.
    I now recognize Mrs. Lesko from Arizona for five minutes of 
questions.
    Mrs. Lesko. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Actually, if I may before you begin. We will 
reset the clock. Mr. Mfume, you made a statement that I could 
recognize from the panel that they are confused on who you 
thought made a statement, and I would like them to have the 
opportunity to maybe clarify or rectify or respond to the 
accusation of what someone said, you know----
    Mr. Mfume. Sir, you are the Chair, so you----
    Dr. Wenstrup. Which doctor? Which doctor? I would like to 
let them have the opportunity----
    Mr. Mfume. Dr. Smelkinson.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you.
    Dr. Smelkinson. Yes. Thank you for giving me the 
opportunity to respond. I actually do agree with you, and I 
said that the lower-income communities did tend to have more 
natural immunity. They were more impacted by COVID-19. They 
also tended to be less vaccinated. I think that those things 
are linked. When it came to the vaccine mandates that made no 
exemptions for natural immunity, my point was that those 
mandates were not very equitable because if you are if you are 
not making exemptions for natural immunity, those communities 
weren't able to live up to the mandate.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you. Mrs. Lesko, you are recognized.
    Mrs. Lesko. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and this is a great 
discussion because the purpose of this Committee, from my 
understanding, is to try to learn from what we did right and 
what we did wrong so when the next pandemic comes along, we 
aren't going to repeat it, hopefully.
    So, my first question is for Dr. Makary. In October 2020, 
Rochelle Walensky, who would later become CDC director, co-
authored a memorandum published in the Lancet that stated, 
``There is no evidence for lasting protective immunity to SARS 
CoV-2 following natural infection.'' Was there any data at the 
time that would have supported her statement or refuted her 
statement?
    Dr. Makary. Well, first of all, the absence of evidence 
isn't the evidence of absence, and she should have known that 
all other viruses yield natural immunity with ultra-rare 
exceptions, including the two other coronaviruses that cause 
severe illness in humans. Both were studied to have long-term 
immunity, so I think it was intellectually dishonest. But even 
worse, she dug into her position as the data were overwhelming, 
even to this day the Djokovic doctrine in place yesterday in 
America prevented teachers at federally funded schools from 
working. We won't allow people with natural immunity to work 
unless they have the full vaccine primary series. Well, guess 
what? We are hurting children from ignoring natural immunity.
    It is not historical. It is not looking back and blaming. 
It is right now. A hundred and sixty schools in Missouri have 
gone down to a four-day school week because they don't have 
enough teachers. They have left. Hospitals are understaffed. 
Response times are longer for first responders, not because of 
a historical mistake. They are still ignoring natural immunity. 
Even at my university, you can't go to school without the 
primary vaccine. Even if you have had COVID three times and 
were in the ICU with myocarditis, you still need to get the 
COVID vaccine. That is intellectually dishonest.
    Mrs. Lesko. Thank you. That is very passionate, very 
appropriate because our last hearing we had was about school 
closures and how that adversely affected students. You know, 
did you bring this up, and I haven't done the research. So, did 
you bring up the natural immunity, and were you shut down? Were 
you censored?
    Dr. Makary. I was not censored. I always cited data, but I 
can tell you that natural immunity was considered 
misinformation by our public health oligarchs as they spread 
their own misinformation on many other topics.
    Mrs. Lesko. And a related question to all three of you, in 
the early stages of the pandemic, do you believe that Federal 
public health officials were aware of the centuries-old 
knowledge of infection-acquired immunity?
    Dr. Smelkinson. Yes, they were definitely aware of that, 
but even if they thought SARS CoV-2 was different, certainly by 
mid-2020, there was a lot of immunological data showing that 
recovered patients had a very robust B cell and T cell 
response, and they were seeing that it was lasting over many, 
many months, so they did, and it was very similar to the T 
cells that were made by SARS-1 that were still reactive almost 
20 years later. So yes, I think they knew early on that natural 
immunity was strong.
    Dr. Tan. I think they knew that there was some natural 
immunity. I would imagine that the question they were asking is 
how much do you need to be protective. And, you know, at the 
time because there was so much disease going around, they had 
to make very difficult decisions as to what was going to be 
beneficial for the majority of the individuals.
    Mrs. Lesko. Did you want to add anything?
    Dr. Makary. If I could just add, because in my role as 
editor-in-chief of Medpage Today, the second largest trade 
publication read by doctors in the first two years of the 
pandemic, I asked has anyone seen a healthy person who has 
recovered from COVID show up in an ICU. The answer was always 
no. Maybe there is somebody out there, but by and large, it 
protected against severe disease in the first two years. It was 
always right in front of our eyes. A New England Journal of 
Medicine study where the editors are your friends and they 
called it misinformation, that was establishment group-think, 
and the reality is we always knew those precious lifesaving 
vaccines should not have been going to people, first in line 
already immune with natural immunity, as thousands died a day.
    So, it was not a philosophical point. Thousands of 
Americans died from natural immunity and over a million people 
left the work force, and we are still suffering in schools and 
hospitals, in all sorts of settings because of that ignorance. 
And they still haven't issued any kind of apology, rehiring, or 
back pay in the vast majority of those instances.
    Mrs. Lesko. Thank you, and I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Ms. Ross from North Carolina 
for five minutes of questions.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to start out I 
know we have pointed a lot of figures and a lot of places on 
both sides of the aisle, but I want to commend the Biden 
administration's work in delivering and deploying COVID-19 
vaccines. And there is no doubt that the strong coordination 
between public health organizations, governmental agencies, and 
healthcare professionals helped save countless lives. And that 
happened in my home state of North Carolina, where our 
Department of Health and Human Services went to every corner of 
the state, worked with Latino medical professionals, worked 
with the Native-American community, helped the African-American 
community overcome vaccine hesitancy from, you know, a history 
of racial discrimination. And we need to praise the people who 
made sure that people who needed vaccines got them as quickly 
as they possibly could, and these efforts are a testament to 
our Nation's ability to respond to a health crisis.
    The rapid development, which I would give the Trump 
administration credit for, the delivery and the administration 
of vaccines was not only critical for our domestic response but 
played a major role in the international community and was 
instrumental in saving lives around the world. We sent vaccines 
around the world, and our vaccine strategy strengthened our 
relationship with many of our allies and reaffirmed our 
commitment to addressing the pandemic on a global scale. I 
would also like to address the fundamental representation that 
some, not all, of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
have made, which is that somehow infection-acquired immunity 
replaces the need for a vaccine. We need them both. We need 
them both.
    While COVID-19 infections do confer immunity, it does not 
reduce the role that vaccines play in safely promoting 
widespread immunity. For example, any argument that assumes 
that everyone will survive a COVID-19 infection fails to take 
into account various risk factors that people face, 
particularly the elderly, and we saw that in nursing homes, 
people with underlying conditions and people who are 
immunocompromised. And many of those people live in households 
with young, healthy people who might bring COVID into the home. 
My brother has lupus and lives in a household with teenagers. 
Dr. Tan, what risks do infections pose to the communities that 
I mentioned?
    Dr. Tan. Actually, you bring up a really good point. 
Infection in those communities, so immunocompromised, the 
elderly, the very young under a year of age, and those with, 
you know, underlying comorbidities, infection really 
significantly increases the risk of the development of 
complications, hospitalizations, and dying from COVID-19.
    Ms. Ross. And did we see people dying?
    Dr. Tan. Absolutely.
    Ms. Ross. And does vaccination reduce the threat of 
infection posed to these particular communities?
    Dr. Tan. Absolutely.
    Ms. Ross. Also, I want to talk about long COVID. Long COVID 
has been shown to be more frequent and more severe among people 
who are not vaccinated. Dr. Tan, how do other effects of long 
COVID factor into the vaccine versus infection-acquired 
immunity conversation?
    Dr. Tan. So that is a very good point in that we know that 
if someone is vaccinated, they are significantly less likely to 
develop symptoms of long COVID, and the same is true for multi-
system inflammatory syndrome, which is one of the consequences 
that we see both in children and adults, but much more in 
children. And those that are unvaccinated are much more likely 
to go on to develop MIS-C as opposed to those that are 
vaccinated.
    Ms. Ross. In the few seconds that I have left, Dr. Tan, in 
your written testimony, you note, ``The body of evidence for 
infection-acquired immunity is more limited than for vaccine-
induced immunity.'' Can you explain this a little bit more?
    Dr. Tan. So, you know, I think what we are learning is that 
with vaccine-acquired immunity, we know that it does provide 
protection and that the amount of protection has changed a bit 
with regards to the emerging variants of Omicron that have now 
become the main players for COVID now. And so, with that, we 
are able to produce a vaccine that is going to be effective and 
provide better immunity against the Omicron variants. Likewise, 
we know from one of the studies that the immunity that you get 
from infection-induced immunity prior to the Omicron does not 
protect as well against preventing reinfection with an Omicron 
variant.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you, and I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Mr. Cloud from Texas for five 
minutes of questions.
    Mr. Cloud. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I wanted to take a 
moment and kind of clear up some of the, really, misinformation 
even coming from this campaign. The Ranking Member has alluded 
a number of times, along with some Members of his side of the 
Committee, that that those of who are saying the public 
officials should have considered naturally acquired immunity 
and the data there, and the over millennia of scientific 
understanding about that, that we were somehow advocating for 
COVID-catching parties, it is ridiculous and itself is 
misinformation.
    Using that same logic model, I could claim that they are 
advocating that the government public officials should be lying 
to the American people in order to enforce mandates and do 
other kinds of things that happened to keep people out of their 
profession, to keep medical experts who were speaking to this 
issue out of their scientific understanding and data, that they 
should have been banned from Big Tech, and conspiring with Big 
Pharma to do that. I am not making that accusation, but that is 
exactly what the same logic model would do.
    And so, I think it is about time that we get back to 
talking about what happened because vaccine hesitancy is an 
issue. I am thankful that the vaccine was created. I am 
thankful that was developed, and for those that it helped. What 
is a big issue and even a bigger issue, and certainly within 
jurisdiction of this Committee as a subcommittee of government 
oversight, is to make sure that our taxpayer-funded public 
health officials aren't conspiring against the very people they 
are supposed to be serving.
    Time and time again, the American people were told by Dr. 
Fauci and the Biden administration to take the vaccine, and at 
the time it was experimental at best. The data was very new. It 
was necessary, you know. There was emergency use authorization 
because we didn't know what we were dealing with, but then it 
began to be mandated on the people. People lost jobs. Suddenly 
vaccine passports are made a reality. And if the shutdowns 
weren't damaging enough, we had medical people that were taken 
out of the industry when they were supposed to be helping 
people. These people, many of them decided not to take the 
vaccine, not because of conspiracy theories or anything like 
that, but just because they had a natural immunity. Many 
studies early on, or at least certainly a few months into it, 
gave us data that this was an issue that should have been 
concluded.
    I would like to submit to the record an August 2021 study 
later published in the Journal of Clinical Infections and 
Infectious Diseases, which found that natural immunity offered 
up to 13 times more protection than vaccine immunity versus 
Delta, suggesting that winning vaccine efficiency and robust 
and durable immunity for previously infected persons; an August 
2021 study published by the Journal of Science, which found 
broad antibody response from infection-derived immunity that 
protected against a wide variety of COVID variants; a September 
2021 study published in Nature, which showed natural immunity 
offered as good or better protection against the Delta variant; 
a November 2021 article in the Lancet regarding natural 
immunity, which stated that ``Protection from reinfection is 
strong and persists for more than 10 months of follow-up,'' and 
also asked why naturally immune persons weren't given the same 
considerations as vaccinated people; a November 2021 response 
to a FOIA request by the CDC in which they stated they could 
not provide any documentation of naturally immune persons 
getting reinfected and then being transmitted to someone else; 
and a September 30 ABC article that was titled, ``Hundreds of 
Hospital Staffers fired or Suspended for Refusing COVID-19 
Vaccine Mandates,'' that talked about President Biden mandating 
vaccines for the healthcare industry.
    Mr. Cloud. Dr. Makary, I would like to ask you about the 
ethical concerns you have about the Federal Government 
mandating or compelling medical treatment that provides such 
treatment that Big Pharma basically can benefit from.
    Dr. Makary. I heard from many parents who said, look, my 
child, we are concerned about myocarditis. Maybe they had 
myocarditis in the past and they are being told you still need 
to get the vaccine. They already had high levels of antibodies. 
A nurse, who was going to get fired for not being vaccinated, 
already had high levels of the antibodies that neutralize the 
COVID virus, but they were antibodies that Dr. Fauci didn't 
recognize. And so, we had a million people leave the work 
force, and hospitals are understaffed.
    So, Dr. Fauci in early 2022 sees the mountain of evidence 
out there on natural immunity, including the studies you cited, 
and he says, you know what? We have got to address this. A 
Biden administration official has a phone call with Dr. Fauci 
and four invited doctors, loyal friends of the Biden 
administration who supported mandates and restrictions. And 
they ask them, should we give credit for a vaccine if you had 
natural immunity. The vote was tied 2-2, and Dr. Fauci says, 
you know what? We are just going to continue to ignore natural 
immunity, and we have the Djokovic doctrine that lives up until 
yesterday. Why would you put such a critical vote on policy in 
front of a straw poll of a couple like-minded friends?
    Mr. Cloud. That is tragic, literally. I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Mr. Cloud, without objection, the articles 
you referenced are submitted for the record.
    Mr. Cloud. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Mr. Garcia from California 
for five minutes of questions.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I was mayor 
of Long Beach for the last eight years, so we have a large 
public health department, about half a million people, so I saw 
firsthand the impact of our vaccine rollout and how important 
it was to public health. And our region and broader L.A. County 
was hit really hard during 2020/2021 during that winter surge, 
of course, before vaccines were available. Our regional 
healthcare system was at a breaking point. ICUs were full. On 
certain days, we were losing dozens of lives across L.A. 
County. It was a horrific experience. In my city alone we lost 
1,300 people from our community. We know that across the 
country, we have lost over 1.3 million American lives. One of 
those lives was my mother. Another was my stepfather. I know 
the impacts of this pandemic and how destructive it can be on 
families.
    I want to remind us that during that time, there was a 
Regional Quality Health Index on the quality of air, and the 
amount of crematoriums that were actually having to be in 
operation where damaging air quality. That is how horrific the 
time was, and I think it is important to remember how bad the 
pandemic actually impacted us because I think we have a 
tendency to forget the lives impacted and the real impact to 
our economy as well.
    We did everything we could to get folks vaccinated in Long 
Beach. We were the first city to vaccinate 99 percent of our 
seniors in California, the first city in the state of 
California to vaccinate our teachers. Both the Governor and the 
President called our approach a national model, but I am very 
concerned about the attack on vaccination efforts. I am very 
concerned when folks within the Congress, even on this 
Committee, put out disinformation about what vaccines are.
    There are 3 million Americans today that are likely alive 
thanks to vaccinations. We know this, and despite this, many of 
our colleagues in the majority have chosen to undermine COVID 
vaccinations in general. I want to also point out that 
misinformation hurts our efforts. We know that Republicans in 
general are 2 1/2 times more likely to believe misinformation, 
and studies have shown that states with higher vaccination 
rates have had significantly fewer COVID deaths, so these are 
facts.
    I want to share some examples of this harmful 
misinformation today and the rhetoric that has actually led to, 
I think, huge public health emergencies in this country. This 
is one tweet that has actually been sent out by a Member of 
this Committee, which essentially says that we are suggesting 
that COVID vaccines are associated with nearly 6,000 deaths and 
actually encouraging folks to not get vaccinations. Dr. Tan, 
what do you think about this claim about the 6,000 deaths 
around vaccinations?
    Dr. Tan. Well, in this country, we have a very, very robust 
vaccine system that looks at all the different potential 
adverse effects that may be associated with vaccines. So, the 
problem is that some of these deaths, even though they are 
reported, it may have been the vaccine was given, but the death 
was not due to the vaccine itself.
    Mr. Garcia. Absolutely. Absolutely right, and actually to 
say, no, do not get the vaccine is completely irresponsible. 
Would you agree with that?
    Dr. Tan. I agree.
    Dr. Jackson. Mr. Chairman, point of order.
    Mr. Garcia. Dr. Tan----
    Dr. Jackson. Mr. Chair?
    Mr. Garcia [continuing]. I also would like to go to the 
second----
    Dr. Wenstrup. The gentleman will suspend.
    Dr. Jackson. His remarks are clearly disparaging and 
sullying a Member of Congress.
    Mr. Garcia. I am just clearly pointing out facts from 
public statements.
    Dr. Wenstrup. The Chair reminds the gentleman from 
California to observe proper decorum. The issues we are 
debating are important ones that Members feel deeply about. 
While vigorous disagreement is part of the legislative process, 
Members are reminded that we must adhere to established 
standards of decorum in debate. It is a violation of House 
rules and the rules of this Committee to engage in 
personalities regarding other Members or to question the 
motives of a colleague. Remarks of that type aren't permitted 
by the rules and aren't in keeping with the best traditions of 
our Committee. The Chair will enforce these rules of decorum at 
all times and urges all Members to be mindful of their remarks.
    Mr. Mfume. Mr. Chairman?
    Dr. Wenstrup. You may proceed.
    Mr. Mfume. I have a point of order on this side.
    Dr. Wenstrup. You are recognized.
    Mr. Mfume. Mr. Chairman, I don't know that the gentleman 
from California was disparaging anyone. He put up a tweet, that 
is a fact, that exists online, available for anybody to look 
at. And so because we customarily throughout the Congress will 
take quotations and quotes and use them once they appear in the 
public record, I think this is in keeping with that, and I 
don't think this was an effort to disparage but an effort to 
instead point out what a particular Member or Members of this 
Committee may have put out themselves in the public space that 
we all refer to as social media.
    Dr. Jackson. Mr. Chairman, I believe that the Member said 
she was clearly trying to cause harm.
    Dr. Wenstrup. At this point, it is the ruling of the Chair 
that the gentleman may proceed. However, I remind the gentleman 
to be cautious and to understand the decorum as he proceeds 
with his remaining time of 1 minute and 46 seconds.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you very much. I will just read the next 
few public statements. I appreciate that. This next tweet 
actually, and I will just go ahead and read what it says here, 
it says, by a Member of this Committee, ``The FDA should not 
approve the COVID vaccines. There are too many reports of 
infection and spread of COVID-19 among vaccinated people. These 
vaccines are failing and do not reduce the spread of the virus 
and neither do masks.'' You can read the rest of it here. Dr. 
Tan, what do you think about this tweet, about the FDA not 
approving vaccines? Do you think that is helpful or hurtful in 
vaccine information and misinformation?
    Dr. Tan. I think it would be hurtful if the FDA did not 
approve the COVID vaccines because we know that COVID vaccines 
saved millions of lives----
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you.
    Dr. Tan [continuing]. By their approval and their use.
    Mr. Garcia. And I will show you one last one just to ensure 
that we were on track, and, again, I will just read the tweet. 
It is a public statement. This tweet actually says that 
``Vaccinated employees get a vaccination logo just like the 
Nazis forced Jewish people to wear a gold star. Vaccine 
passports and mask mandates create discrimination against un-
vaxed people who trust their immune systems to a virus that is 
99 percent survivable.'' Do you think that this tweet which 
compares vaccinated people to Jewish folks living under the 
Nazis, what kind of impact would this have, you think, on 
public health?
    Dr. Tan. I think it would have a negative impact on public 
health, and I respectfully disagree with that particular 
sentiment that has been put forth. I mean, we know that 
vaccines are lifesaving, and they should be made available to 
everyone so that there is no disparity.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you very much, Dr. Tan. I really 
appreciate that. I think it is really important for us to 
remind the Committee and the public about public statements 
that are made by Members of this Committee, particularly as 
questions are asked, and so thank you very much, all, for your 
service. I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Dr. Joyce from Pennsylvania 
for five minutes.
    Dr. Joyce. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let's regain the focus 
of this hearing, which is, and again, ``Investigating Pandemic 
Immunity: Acquired, Therapeutic, or Both.'' In January 2022, 
data from the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report showed 
that during the Delta surge, case rates for individuals with 
previous infection and no vaccinations were nearly four to five 
times lower than case reports for those individuals who were 
only vaccinated. CDC data showed the hospitalization rates also 
followed that similar pattern. Yet despite this data and 
decisions made by other nations, including the EU, to recognize 
the recovery from COVID-19 on the same level as vaccination 
status, the administration still maintained or fought to 
maintain a variety of vaccine mandates, either through CMS, the 
Department of Labor, that failed to account for the importance 
of natural immunity.
    Dr. Makary, in your opinion as a physician, what impact has 
the administration's disconnect between the data and the policy 
regarding natural immunity had on the credibility of the CDC 
and actually the Biden administration at large?
    Dr. Makary. Well, there were a lot of broken promises, 
regardless of what political party somebody is a member of. The 
promise by the Biden administration and Dr. Fauci is that we 
would not have vaccine mandates. That was a broken promise. 
They ignored natural immunity right up until this day in all 
their policies, and this has resulted in damaged public trust.
    Now, we have been for centuries building public trust in 
the medical profession. A lot of that went down the drain when 
they lied to the American people saying that schools have to be 
closed for two years and cloth masking of toddlers was 
important to stop the transmission. They never even gave us the 
proper data on COVID and children. Ask any pediatrician or 
public health official or CDC official or Fauci or Walensky how 
many healthy children have died of COVID in the last three 
years. They can't tell you. Was it 90 percent of the deaths in 
children with special medical conditions? That matters because 
when you have a healthy young male who is at the lowest risk of 
COVID and the highest risk of myocarditis, you might want to 
modify the vaccine recommendation if they already have 
circulating antibodies from natural immunity. They did not, and 
that was the intellectual dishonesty we saw from public health 
officials.
    Dr. Joyce. Thank you. Dr. Makary, do you feel the processes 
by which the CDC drafts and formulates, seeks input from 
internal and external stakeholders, and finalizes its 
recommendations and guidance, including morbidity and mortality 
weekly reports, are sufficient, and do they properly reflect 
the views of the outside or any contrarian opinion?
    Dr. Makary. No. The CDC's own non-peer-reviewed journal, 
called MMWR, MMWR is a joke. It is a joke. They publish their 
own flawed studies. They weaponize research. They looked at a 
small sliver of data from the state of Kentucky. It was the 
most horrific methodologic study you could possibly design, and 
they conclude, hey, natural immunity is no good. The study was 
entirely flawed, and everybody falls for it. The medical 
community claps like seals and this is great, ignoring the 130 
studies at the time and the incredible historical record, all 
the way back to 430 B.C. that natural immunity is effective. 
And we never saw people the first two years who were healthy 
come back with severe disease after they recovered, and that 
should have been a sign that we were being deceived by the 
weaponization of research itself.
    Dr. Joyce. And you bring in an interesting discussion 
point. You called it a joke, but the American people are not 
laughing. The American people want to understand, does natural 
immunity work? And we have evidence now that it does. Many of 
us on this panel felt the CDC was very slow in reporting data, 
specifically related to vaccines and natural immunity, that 
they did have throughout the pandemic. How can we promote 
better data stewardship through the CDC, and, most important, 
how do we restore the trust in the CDC with a public, which I 
stated, are not laughing, with a public that is increasingly 
skeptical with the mandates, with a public that does not 
respect top-down government approaches. Is there a way through 
this?
    Dr. Makary. We need an apology from public health 
officials. We need to have scientific debate, not using 
censorship, but instead using scientific evidence, and I think 
we need some humility from public health officials. Neither 
vaccinated immunity nor natural immunity are perfect. Let's not 
try to suggest the other side is all evil, but it is not an 
either. We can be honest with the public about the data and 
still recommend safe practices today.
    Dr. Joyce. Thank you for the discussion about honesty. I 
thank you for being here today, and, Mr. Chairman, I yield.
    Dr. Makary. Thank you.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Dr. Jackson from Texas for 
five minutes of questions.
    Dr. Jackson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. As discussed here today 
in this hearing, the science we had at the time when vaccine 
mandates were put in place supported the concept that 
infection-acquired immunity not only provided protection but 
looks like it actually provided superior protection compared to 
immunity acquired by the vaccine. This is also something that 
we probably knew was true based on many other studies of other 
coronaviruses, such as SARS and MERS.
    It was stated earlier that natural immunity was not 
disregarded in the healthcare system. I just want to point out 
that that is absolutely not true. Natural immunity was 
discounted in the medical community, and that was evidenced by 
the large number of healthcare workers that were subsequently 
fired because they refused to get the vaccine, ones that had 
documented COVID infections and had recovered from it.
    And that brings up a point. A point was made earlier that 
you needed to rely on antibody testing, and that made it 
impossible to use natural immunity as a reason to let people 
come to work or stay at work and not be dismissed. That is also 
not true, and it is somewhat of a ridiculous excuse that was 
used in the efforts to undermine any ability to be able to use 
natural immunity for the purpose of keeping people at work or 
school or wherever. You didn't need that. If you had otherwise 
healthy individuals with documented COVID and they had 
recovered, you could reliably credit them with natural 
immunity. We know this, right? If they tested and people were 
testing extensively, if they tested and they tested positive, 
they went home and they recovered from their infection, they 
came back, you could reliably say they had the infection, they 
recovered from it, and they would have a natural immunity. We 
know this for a variety of reasons, some of which I just 
described.
    Dr. Tan, I want to ask you to speak on a few things. Can 
you speak on why hospitals nationwide fired rather than hire 
unvaccinated nurses, physicians, and other staff with 
infection-acquired immunity?
    Dr. Tan. I don't have a comment on that. I don't know the 
reason that hospitals did that, but, you know, I think now 
there is more data on the fact that you do have immunity after 
infection, and that immunity can play a role in be being 
protective. But I can't comment on why hospitals would have 
fired individuals.
    Dr. Jackson. I mean, this kind of stuff is still going on 
today, and we obviously know this now, and it is still 
happening today. Why did hospitals implement the vaccine 
mandates without providing exceptions for staff with infection-
acquired immunity? Do you know the answer to that?
    Dr. Tan. I don't know the answer to that. I can say that it 
was probably because they wanted to protect as many patients as 
possible from not getting COVID from the person taking care of 
them. And again, the pandemic has evolved, so that, you know, 
when some of this was occurring early on, it was a matter of 
trying to protect the patients and the people providing care to 
the patients so that we didn't have COVID being transmitted in 
the hospital setting.
    Dr. Jackson. Can you tell me how many staff members were 
let go or put on leave at your hospital for not getting the 
COVID-19 vaccine?
    Dr. Tan. So, people were not fired at my hospital.
    Dr. Jackson. So, if they refused the vaccine, they were 
allowed to continue to work and provide care to patients?
    Dr. Tan. In certain places in the hospital, yes.
    Dr. Jackson. So, no one at your hospital was dismissed at 
all for refusal to get a COVID vaccine?
    Dr. Tan. I don't about ``at all,'' but if there were a 
number, it was really very, very small. I mean, we really tried 
to retain as many individuals as possible.
    Dr. Jackson. Well, I wish I could say that was the case all 
over the country, but it definitely wasn't. It wasn't in the 
area that I represent. There were many healthcare workers that 
either had the choice of leaving voluntarily or being fired 
because they refused to get the vaccine, and many of them are 
doing it because they understood that they had natural immunity 
because they had previously had an infection and had recovered 
from it. Some of them had actually been sick more than once and 
had recovered, and they had been tested multiple times, and it 
was well-documented.
    And I just think it led to a lot of problems, and it 
probably led to a lot of excess deaths. We had these shortages 
nationwide when we had providers that were sitting at home, not 
able to take care of patients. With that, I would yield back, 
Mr. Chair.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Dr. McCormick for five 
minutes of questions.
    Dr. McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am happy you are 
here. I consider you experts. I consider you highly qualified 
to be in front of us today, and yet I find it somewhat ironic, 
as we did our pre-interview, before you started testifying, we 
talked about the number of patients that we treat, and it is 
ironic that there are a lot of people out there that consider 
themselves experts without your intelligence, without your 
experience, without your acumen that were able to censor people 
like myself, who has seen more patients than probably all three 
of our experts here today, for COVID, that is.
    And indeed, as a matter of fact, probably in all the 
hearings we have had so far, all the experts that have come and 
testified before us are very smart people and have so much 
great expertise, and yet I was censored, censored by the 
government, who had not treated one COVID patient, censored by 
experts who had seen a minimal, if any, patients, and that was 
allowed. Matter of fact, it was encouraged by the government. 
When the President's press secretary says we are openly working 
with media outlets ``to decide who to censor.'' That is our 
government talking about censoring experts. So, I wanted to 
point that out, the irony already.
    I think it is really important when we talk about treating 
patients and when we are exposed. By the way, it may surprise 
you to know that I am one first people to ever get a 
vaccination in America because I was on the front lines of 
COVID, and it was a novel virus, and I didn't know if I had 
immunity or not. Now, I knew it had been around for a while 
because we had all kinds of weird fevers and symptoms, so 
probably I might have had some immunity, but I got the 
vaccination because I believed in the science.
    But as science developed and so did our immunity, the irony 
is that once we were known to be immune, once I had the 
vaccination and I continued to be exposed to thousands of 
patients, the booster shot continued to be explained to be 
something that is beneficial, even when the CDC admitted that 
it was at best minimally effective for the highest-risk 
patients. And yet still, we are pushing it on pediatric 
patients who had been exposed and symptomatic with no studies 
on the side effects of this vaccination.
    So how am I supposed to trust a government that is pushing 
something with no evidence and possible real harm when our 
whole Hippocratic Oath starts with ``do no harm?'' And so, I 
wanted to ask you, sir, I have read your book, and I think you 
are an expert in the field. I want to ask you what do you think 
this does for the trust in our government, our CDC, and those 
people who play politics with medicine.
    Dr. Makary. I think public health officials need to come 
clean and say we got natural immunity way wrong. We were so 
wrong on this, long after the data were available. We are sorry 
lives were ruined. If you look at what social media and Big 
Tech did to any data, scientific or an experience of a parent, 
on vaccine complications, it is entirely un-American. You have 
a rate of myocarditis of 1 in 6,000, and when parents asked 
about that, shut up. You shouldn't be asking those questions. 
If you posted any study that pointed out the complications, it 
was censored.
    Ask any pediatrician recommending the COVID vaccine, three 
shots for a young healthy 12-year-old girl, what is the rate of 
myocarditis. Ask them what do you think of the Swiss study that 
two percent of people after the vaccine had an elevated 
troponin, an indicator of heart damage, as you know as a 
physician. Ask them about that.
    Dr. McCormick. So, I am unlimited time, so I couldn't agree 
with you more. Here is the problem. We in America have been 
very shorted on the studies allowed to find out the damage of 
vaccinations. And, in fact, I am sure any immunologist would 
know that once you are immune to something and you are exposed 
to it repeatedly, you are likely to have a hyper-immune 
response because your body is already prone. And it is 
something that causes you hyper-coagulability or inflammation 
that can cause a stroke, a heart attack, a DVT, or any sort of 
pleural thickening in your lung, things that are life 
threatening to expose yourself to a pathogen, even if it is a 
vaccination, and that immune response that could cause real 
harm has not been studied. We have not had an honest 
conversation.
    And I point out another point of hypocrisy in our 
government, by the way. These same people that worry about 
disease in our population are the same ones who opened up the 
Southern border, and, ironically, they limited our travel, 
United States citizens' travel, and business by their 
vaccination status and their testing status. Meanwhile, they 
let hundreds of thousands, maybe actually millions of people 
across the Southern border without a test, without a 
vaccination, and indeed, disseminated them during the worst 
part of the pandemic all over the United States. Hypocrisy. 
Hypocrisy.
    And by the way, my ER was overwhelmed, overwhelmed by an 
incredible amount of people who were infected by COVID, and you 
had civilians, citizens paying taxes, waiting behind in line 
for people who were not only not paying taxes but not paying 
their bills so that they could pay the bills for those people 
who were are waiting behind. Think about that and let that set 
in as you pay your taxes this year. With that, I yield.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Ms. Tokuda from Hawaii for 
five minutes of questions.
    Ms. Tokuda. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let's set the record 
straight on the role COVID-19 vaccine policies and boosters 
have played in reopening America's schools and businesses, 
preventing hospitalizations, and, most importantly, saving 
lives. In the winter of 2020 when we were battling a new surge 
of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths, we needed to meet the 
moment and rapidly deploy safe, effective vaccines to the 
American people. Thanks to Democrats' American Rescue Plan, we 
did just that.
    The American Rescue Plan included $7.5 billion for vaccine 
distribution and administration nationwide, quickly getting 
shots in those arms. Of these funds, $20 million went to my 
home state of Hawaii, which helped fully vaccinate over 80 
percent of Hawaii residents, one of the highest vaccination 
rates in the country. The rollout of COVID-19 vaccine has been 
so successful and, in large part, thanks to the American Rescue 
Plan's bold investments and the Biden administration's decisive 
leadership to protect Americans' health and safety with 
commonsense policies that encourage vaccinations across the 
board.
    In fact, after President Biden announced vaccination 
policies for Federal employees and contractors in July 2021, we 
saw a 40 percent increase nationwide in vaccination rates in 
just four months. Coupled with additional measures to protect 
healthcare workers and robust Federal investments in vaccine 
distribution, these policies have resulted in a decline in 
COVID-19 deaths by 95 percent and hospitalizations by 91 
percent.
    Let's put this another way. In the first nine months of the 
pandemic, the U.S. recorded 798 COVID-19-related deaths. By 
comparison, we saw less than half that amount in the following 
two years from December 2020, when vaccines were first made 
available, through November 2022. That is a huge deal.
    Dr. Tan, as a physician who has been on the front lines of 
the pandemic, had we not taken these clear, decisive, 
coordinated steps to get people vaccinated as quickly as 
possible, would more people have died? Would more Americans 
today be experiencing severe illness? Would hospitalization 
still be strained in terms of the number of patients coming 
through our doors?
    Dr. Tan. Absolutely.
    Ms. Tokuda. Thank you. Now, we know that if we relied 
solely on immunity through infection, which was what we had 
part of the vaccination being developed when we saw more than 
twice the amount of deaths than we have in the last two years, 
the situation in the United States would have been much worse. 
The state where I am from in Hawaii, we saw quick adherence to 
vaccination requirements. This led to a record amount of 
vaccinations, but also what it led to was the lowest death 
rates and rates of infection across the country.
    Something else I would like to touch upon is the importance 
of vaccines keeping pace with the highly infectious variants we 
are seeing emerge today. Dr. Tan, we know that immunity from 
infection alone doesn't adequately protect against variants. 
Can you explain how COVID-19 booster shots have been critical 
to protect us against emerging variants but also helping us to 
keep schools open, a topic we have discussed in this Committee, 
businesses up and running, and the rest of society safe as we 
reopen and try to keep our communities clean of infection as 
well?
    Dr. Tan. Yes. The bivalent boosters give you specific 
immunity to the Omicron subvariants, and that is currently what 
is circulating at this time. And by having high immunity to 
that, you basically are protecting individuals so that they are 
able to go out into the community and resume more activities of 
daily life, such as going to work, going to school, patronizing 
local businesses, meeting with family members, et cetera.
    Ms. Tokuda. Thank you. You know, in the small remaining 
time I have left, I wanted to touch upon one other topic. 
Unfortunately, misinformation about vaccine safety, a side 
effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, has undermined confidence in 
long trusted safe and effective vaccines. UNICEF has warned 
parents of the danger presented by vaccine misinformation. The 
world is experiencing the largest global decline in decades in 
the number of children receiving basic immunization, and today 
these declining vaccination rates are driving outbreaks of 
previously controlled diseases, like polio, whooping cough, and 
measles.
    Doctors, I understand, take a Hippocratic Oath--we just 
heard about it--to do no harm. As we see a resurgence of once-
dormant diseases as a result of vaccine misinformation, how 
harmful is this erosion of vaccine confidence to the health and 
wellness of our children, our families, and our communities?
    Dr. Tan. It is normally negatively impactful. If we start 
to see outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases, you are going 
to get a lot of morbidity and mortality that may be associated 
with that are occurring, especially in the pediatric 
population, in people that are immunocompromised and in the 
elderly. So, we need to be able to control these diseases 
because all of these diseases are and can be fatal.
    Ms. Tokuda. Thank you. If I am hearing you right, you know, 
eroding confidence and vaccines results in deaths. Thank you 
very much, Mr. Chair. I yield back my time. Thank you, Dr. Tan.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Ms. Greene from Georgia for 
five minutes of questions.
    Ms. Greene. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. While some Members on 
this Committee have decided to use their time to disparage me 
and my tweets and provide misinformation at this very important 
Committee hearing, I would like to talk about the biggest 
spreader of misinformation, and that would be the President of 
the United States. As a matter of fact, just months before the 
FDA approved the experimental COVID vaccines, President Biden 
said if you get vaccinated, you won't get COVID. Then it just 
so happened, one year later, the press secretary announced that 
after four vaccine doses, COVID vaccine doses, that President 
Biden tested positive for COVID again and was experiencing mild 
symptoms. That is quite a lot different than if you get 
vaccinated, you won't get COVID-19. That is spreading 
misinformation.
    Also, I would like to talk about how the definition of 
``vaccine'' was changed, and this is really important to talk 
about. Pre-2015, the CDC's definition of ``vaccination'' was 
``an injection of a killed or weakened infectious organism in 
order to prevent the disease.'' Then in 2015 to 2021, the 
definition of ``vaccination,'' according to the CDC, is the 
``act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce 
immunity to a specific disease.'' Produce immunity. Then just 
right after, literally right after, the FDA approves the 
experimental COVID-19 vaccines, they changed the definition of 
``vaccination'' again. The new definition was changed to ``the 
act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce 
protection from a specific disease.'' Talk about spreading 
misinformation. I think that it is our governing bodies and the 
Biden administration and many Democrats that were spreading 
misinformation about these so-called vaccines.
    And I am going to tell you right now, I don't think these 
are vaccines at all. A vaccine would stop the spread of a 
disease. A vaccine would provide immunity, but obviously the 
President of the United States got four COVID-19 vaccines and 
still tested positive for COVID. Dr. Makary, what is the 
difference there if after four COVID-19 vaccines, clearly 
vaccine so-called immunity, if the President had had natural 
immunity, would he have continued to get tested or promoted 
this experimental vaccine?
    Dr. Makary. I don't know. I do know that people who are 
against the COVID vaccine and I may not see eye to eye on 
everything, but I understand why they are angry. I understand 
where they are coming from because they have been lied to time 
and time again, even recently. The bivalent vaccine we heard 
from the White House podium; the data are crystal clear. Oh 
really? It was approved based on data from eight mice. Where is 
the randomized-controlled trial? Instead, they weaponize 
research in the government and say, OK, here is a non-
randomized trial. People who got the bivalent did better. Well, 
guess what? They are a different type of person. They are a 
different risk profile.
    That is the ultimate failure of our government is the lack 
of a critical appraisal of important research on vaccines, on 
vaccine complications, and on so many other issues like natural 
immunity.
    Ms. Greene. I agree with you, and I actually support many 
vaccines but not an experimental vaccine that was government 
mandated on the public. Dr. Tan, you said that COVID vaccines 
are safe and side effects are mild. I would like to talk to you 
about so-called, according to you, mild side effects. Let's 
talk about how nine days after receiving the vaccine, a 6-foot-
9 healthy 17-year-old, Everest Romney, was admitted to the ICU 
with blood clots in his brain. Anyone who talked about the 
incident on social media was censored. Nine months later, he 
was admitted for a second time. Doctors found another blood 
clot, a deep vein in his right leg and potentially permanent 
heart inflammation.
    Let's talk about myocarditis, like the NCAA Division 1 
student athlete golfer, John Stokes, diagnosed with myocarditis 
four days after receiving a second dose. On his own Tik-Tok 
video in the hospital, he was explaining what happened to him. 
That was not misinformation that was his own testimony, and 
many other athletes and especially young men, who have had 
myocarditis. And it can be a lifelong, disabling condition, as 
you know. So how can you call those side effects mild?
    Dr. Tan. In the vast majority of individuals, the side 
effects from COVID-19 vaccine are mild and temporary, and that 
is why the VAERS System in this country works so well because, 
you know, of the billions of doses of----
    Ms. Greene. I will remind you that there are 948,617 VAERS 
reports about the COVID-19 vaccine. That is way higher than the 
flu, and that is much higher than the Zoster vaccines. Thank 
you. I yield back my time.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you, and I want to thank all of our 
witnesses here today for your testimonies. It is greatly 
appreciated. And at this time, I would now like to yield to the 
Ranking Member Ruiz for a closing statement, if he would like 
one.
    Mr. Ruiz. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have heard a 
number of different perspectives today, and I want to bring us 
back to where we started. In the early days of the pandemic, we 
were dealing with a deadly, highly transmissible and highly 
mutating virus. As we planned our public health strategy, we 
prioritized saving lives and the prevention of future harm, and 
keeping our healthcare system at or below capacity, and that 
strategy was successful.
    As I said at the beginning, the Biden bind administration's 
implementation of the largest, most successful vaccine 
administration program in history prevented an estimated 3.2 
million deaths. As an added bonus, it saved the United States 
over $1 trillion in medical costs. So, as we wrap up this 
conversation and as we have future conversation in this 
Subcommittee, I just ask that we keep our eye on the ball and 
focus on the prevention of harm and the prevention of getting 
infected.
    This will almost always involve the proven public health 
measures that we know work, such as vaccines that are known to 
be safe in a public health perspective, effective, and vaccines 
that have saved lives, and let us be cautious about the impacts 
our words can have. Nuance is good, yes, but we cannot get to a 
place where we are explicitly or implicitly sowing distrust in 
COVID vaccines by focusing on the small percentage of, for 
example, the severe side effects when we know at a population 
base, it is safe and the symptoms are mild, and it has helped 
us get to where we are today.
    So, we have a process to study vaccines, and they were 
studied, and we know who are at high risk because of those 
studies. And there are contraindications to people getting this 
vaccine, and there are risks, or some people, and those are the 
people that physicians use the data to recommend not getting 
the vaccines, so let's be nuanced. Let's use our words 
carefully, and let's sow trust in public health measures.
    Let's go back to understanding that this virus spreads from 
airborne oral aerosols to the public and that any covering 
blocks that aerosol from leaving your mouth. Now, some 
coverings are better than others, some aren't as good, but by 
reducing those molecules, you reduce the risk of transmission. 
So, yes, masks help to reduce the risks of transmission. Just 
like if these molecules are transmitted by your mouth when you 
speak, you cough, you scream, or sing, the further you are, the 
less likely you will come by being infected with a droplet that 
either you breathe in through your nose, your mouth, your eyes. 
So yes, in these circumstances, social distancing is a 
preventive measure, public health measure.
    So, vaccines do work. Vaccines are safe. I do not wish 
anybody, regardless of whether a natural infection can cause a 
more robust immune response, to go and get infected or to want 
to get infected or to disregard the importance of a vaccine. I 
don't want a Republican or a Democrat or anybody to get the 
symptoms to have enough viral load to transmit it to a more 
higher-risk person, or to risk themselves being hospitalized or 
even death. And those who have been vaccinated, if you fall 
under the category of being high risk or not immunocompetent, 
then I would still recommend to take all the precautions 
because you can still get sick, and you can still be 
hospitalized, and you can still die.
    So, it is nuanced, and, you know, we have to work within 
that nuance. And I do believe that in future pandemics, we 
shouldn't be stuck, that are unknown viruses that can kill 
people, that are rapidly transmissible, that we should be 
focusing on just disregarding safety precautions by saying that 
getting infected is going to be a protection. So, let's just be 
careful on the way we present this, and let us work always to 
put people over politics. Those are my hopes for this 
Subcommittee, and thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I thank the Ranking Member, and I will say 
that I continue to look forward to working with Dr. Ruiz 
through this process over the next year and a half as we have 
worked well together in the past, and I think we will continue 
to do our best to, possibly have differences of opinions, which 
doctors sometimes do, and move forward with something that we 
can present to the American people as a better pathway for the 
next pandemic.
    You know, we are advocating for a multi-pronged strategy to 
defeat COVID or the next pandemic. A majority of Americans have 
had COVID and have had infection-acquired immunity. We can 
learn a lot from that, and we should try to. I don't believe 
that herd immunity was ever the Trump White House's strategy. I 
know people talked about it, but I don't think that was ever 
the strategy. Protecting the most vulnerable I saw was, as we 
saw an emergency use authorization for the vaccine, and it was 
there for the elderly and those with comorbidities, and that 
was always a priority. And reality suggested that this 
contagious disease would continue to spread throughout the 
Nation.
    Understanding infection-acquired immunity and protections 
it offers is essential, in my opinion, or to resume normal life 
in America and end things like lockdowns. It needs to be 
considered, and false statements, no matter where they were 
coming from, especially if they are coming from leadership 
position, is wrong. And we can look at studies and we could 
look at comparing Sweden and Michigan. You know, Michigan had 
severe lockdowns and mandates. Sweden did not. Sweden had half 
the deaths. What is up with that, right? Why can't we look at 
that?
    So, you know, as doctors, if you are honest with yourself, 
as doctors, researchers, you can look at a study and say this 
is a flawed study, or this was a very good study. This is a 
very good study without any type of bias whatsoever. We know 
how to do that, and we need to do that and not pretend. You 
know, I am curious because I haven't ever seen anything on the 
initial studies, and I was very involved. We were involved 
with, as the Doctors Caucus, looking at was taking place with 
Operation Warp Speed and understanding the technology, but also 
how the studies were being conducted. Normally before FDA 
approval, you have 8,000 to 10,000 people in a study. They had 
30,000 to 40,000 people, and I applaud those brave Americans 
that got in these studies that helped us produce a vaccine.
    The one thing I am curious about is those that got the 
placebo and got COVID, did we look at their immunity from it? 
Did we make that part of our study? As far as I know, we did 
not. We missed that. We should have done that. That should have 
been part of what we were doing, lesson for the future, in my 
opinion. You know, we have two or three doctors on this very 
Committee that have actually been treating patients during 
COVID, and, you know, I can tell you that they feel, and they 
said today that, you know, infection-acquired immunity was 
ignored, and when they spoke about it, they were censored.
    These are facts that are coming out. We got to address 
this, and quit playing politics with it, and say that was a 
wrong thing for any government to do on behalf of the health of 
the American people. Look, I got vaccinated. I also was out in 
military uniform with the National Guard testing people, 
driving up testing. I was out giving shots with the National 
Guard and when my local hospital said can you come out, or can 
you come out to the fairgrounds and vaccinate people as they 
are coming through to be part of this mission. So, when the 
implication is that, you know, people on one side or the other 
are saying, oh, it is natural immunity only, that is not true, 
and it doesn't help this Committee when we have comments like 
that coming from this Committee. Let's be serious about what 
people were actually doing and saying and what their concerns 
are.
    And by the way, an opinion is far different from 
misinformation, and if we aren't allowed to have opinions in 
the medical community anymore, then we are doomed. We are 
absolutely doomed going forward. More times than one, I would 
say to a patient, here is what I believe, and if I see some 
hesitancy, I would say, I would like you to get another 
opinion, and I think that is a wise thing to. So, when we have 
opinions, it is not necessarily misinformation, but the fact of 
the matter is false statements were made by many.
    Whether they intended them to be false or they knew they 
were false, I don't know, but they were false statements that 
were being made, and some of these people served on both 
administrations that were doing this. You know, I don't think 
it helped with that. That does dissipate trust in our public 
health system. As I said earlier, I had recommended under the 
Trump administration let America hear from the doctors treating 
COVID patients every day, not someone sitting in a lab, not 
someone that is not bedside with anybody. Let them tell us what 
is actually going on, and I think that is a lesson learned that 
we have to move forward.
    And I heard Miss Ross say she gave credit to the Trump 
administration for creating a vaccine, but I don't think it 
helps when a candidate for office says, well, if it is made 
during the Trump administration, I am not going to take it. 
That didn't help build public confidence in what was going on. 
You know, we talked about say something safe. The honest 
discussion you have with your patient is we think this helps 
and here is why, but also honest is, I don't know what I will 
say five years from now or 10 years from now, and here are some 
of the adverse events that we are seeing. And you have a 
discussion with your patient, and you decide what what's best 
for you.
    Look, many people got COVID. They got infection-acquired 
immunity. It is not necessarily that they didn't want to get 
the vaccine. It is because it was not available to them. And 
there is a lot of information we could have gained from those 
people that got COVID and how their body responded to it. You 
know, some didn't even know they got COVID. Some people got 
tested or checked for antibodies and found out, oh, I must have 
had it. I don't know when. This is all important information 
and data, and it is very important.
    And you know what? You are not supposed to hear from Dr. 
Facebook or Dr. Social Media. You are supposed to talk to you, 
Dr. Tan, you Dr. Makary, you, Doctor. That is who people need 
to go talk to, and we have to supply doctors with accurate data 
without flawed studies. That is the important thing. That is 
one of the takeaways that we need to come away with from this 
Committee.
    One thing I never heard about, and I have never heard 
anyone discuss or studying, the possibility of hyper-immunity. 
You have had COVID. You have had the vaccine. You get the 
booster. What are the effects of that? Those are fair 
questions. Hyper-immunity is real. So, I hope that we can 
continue to go down this path and have good conversations, 
conversations with experts and amongst ourselves to where we 
can really have some good results and good recommendations to 
make for the future.
    With that and without objection, all Members will have five 
legislative days within which to submit materials and to submit 
additional written questions for the witnesses, which will be 
forwarded to the witnesses for their response.
    Dr. Wenstrup. If there is no further business, without 
objection, the Select Subcommittee stands adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:43 p.m., the Select Subcommittee was 
adjourned.]