WASHINGTON (NewsNation Now) — Dr. Deborah Birx says there was no pressure from the White House Coronavirus Task Force for the CDC to relax school reopening guidelines.
“No one has pressured, at least that I know of, from the task force or from my personal dealings with the CDC,” Birx said. “We have disagreed sometimes on the scientific evidence and that’s a healthy disagreement, but you can see that asking someone to look at other people’s data related to the mental health of children as well as the academic health of children was an important dialogue at that time and the CDC decided whether to incorporate it or not. No one, I did not personally, nor did anyone that I know of, pressure the CDC to change their guidelines.”
In an interview with NewsNation’s Marni Hughes Wednesday, Birx explained that in her role as coronavirus response coordinator, she emailed CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield to share data from SAMHSA and the National Institute of Mental Health at the NIH.
Birx said she asked Redfield to have the CDC team review that data and see if it should be incorporated into the introduction on school reopening guidelines.
“Not changing science, not changing their dialogue, not changing guidance. I think that’s how we should all work together,” Birx said.
Birx told Hughes the goal is to look at each other’s information and make sure they’re incorporating the best ideas when writing guidance.
Watch an exclusive interview with White House Coronavirus Task Force members Secretary Alex Azar, Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams, and Dr. Deborah Birx on NewsNation on WGN America.