The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report describes itself as “the voice of CDC” and “the agency’s primary vehicle” for publishing “timely, reliable, authoritative, accurate, objective, and useful public health information and recommendations.” Throughout the pandemic, research published in this journal played a major role in shaping United States pandemic policy, influencing the lives of countless Americans.

But it appears the influence goes both ways.

A recent assessment by COVID-19 policy critics Tracy Beth Hoeg , Vinay Prasad , and Alyson Haslam of the University of California, San Francisco, calls into question the quality of much of the work MMWR published on masks during the pandemic, as well as the integrity of the CDC and some of the researchers responsible for MMWR’s articles pertaining to masks.

In the picture painted by the trio, throughout the pandemic, this CDC journal regularly published reports by CDC-affiliated researchers detailing studies that were plagued by flawed designs and unwarranted conclusions but that supported CDC policy that ignored long-held consensuses regarding the general ineffectiveness of masks.

According to the assessment by Hoeg and her colleagues, of the 77 mask studies published by MMWR between 2020 and 2022, only 30% had a study design appropriate for testing mask effectiveness, and only 14% yielded statistically significant results, including some demonstrating those who regularly wore masks were more likely to contract COVID. None used random assignment, a technique widely considered a best practice when testing the effectiveness of an intervention.

Yet, they note, “over 75% of all 77 studies concluded masks were effective.”

Furthermore, Hoeg and her colleagues emphasize that “[a] number of studies that were particularly influential in shaping policy recommendations around masking in the public and schools were not even among the studies that attempted to properly evaluate masks, as they had no control group or comparative time period.”

One of these was a highly publicized 2020 case study involving two Missouri hairdressers who wore masks at work while infected with SARS-CoV-2, but seemingly did not transmit it to the fraction of their clients that agreed to be tested as part of the case study.

Collectively, Hoeg and her colleagues wrote that these patterns are “suggestive of bias within the journal,” potentially due to influence from political appointees and a lack of input from external experts.

A 2020 op-ed published in the prestigious medical journal JAMA raised similar concerns that after decades of independence from politicians and policymakers, MMWR articles pertaining to COVID were being subjected to delays and changes requested by political appointees within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services prior to publication.

Likewise, Steven Templeton , an Indiana University School of Medicine microbiologist and former CDC researcher, highlighted in his Substack how the CDC and editors of MMWR openly “choose to publish only results that support [CDC] policy.” Unlike the writers of the JAMA op-ed, however, it did not appear Templeton was suggesting this was anything new.

In either case, though, whether spurred by COVID or revealed because of it, if policy and politics do, in fact, influence research published by “the voice of CDC,” then it would seem safe to say this voice is one that speaks propaganda and works not to further science or public health but to costume CDC-propagated misinformation in an official-looking lab coat.

Daniel Nuccio is a Ph.D. student in biology and a regular contributor to the College Fix and the Brownstone Institute.