The CDC

The CDC's Employee Speech Policies

Documents released in our FOIA lawsuit for the CDC's policies on employee speech

This reading room contains all of the documents produced to date in Knight Institute v. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit the Knight Institute filed on April 2, 2020, seeking records relating to restrictions on the ability of CDC employees to speak with members of the press and the public.

Our FOIA lawsuit was prompted by widespread reporting that the CDC has been sidelined in the government’s public response to the COVID-19 pandemic and that the Office of the Vice President has been controlling CDC communications and limiting the ability of CDC scientists to speak to the public or to the press.

On June 9, 2020, the CDC released its first set of documents in response to our request. We received four documents, two of which contained redactions concealing critical details about the role of the Office of the Vice President in controlling CDC communications. We will publish additional documents here as we receive them. 

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