The continued efforts of CrossFit, Inc. and the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) have made strides towards exposing the corruption that compromises America’s public health agencies.

Through the direct actions of CrossFit and ICAN, The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been forced to reveal several uncomfortable truths about the corruption and conflicts of interest within their respective agencies. 

In 2017, an ICAN Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to HHS, responsible for vaccine safety testing and oversight, asked for any documents related to the work done by the agency in pursuant to the mandate laid out in the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) of 1986. 

In short, the FOIA request asked for any reports HHS has given the U.S. Congress, as they have been mandated to do on a regular basis, over the last 30 years that show they are making vaccines safer. After HHS was unable to produce the requested documents ICAN filed a lawsuit. In the end, HHS settled with what is called a court ordered stipulation, admitting the following: 

In 2017, ICAN also put HHS on notice to answer 11 questions. Simple inquiries concerned safety testing and monitoring, improvement of the adverse events reporting system, continued research to identify which children are at increased risk of vaccine injury, the science backing up the agency’s blanket statements about vaccine safety, conducting studies comparing total health outcomes of vaccinated/partially vaccinated children with completely unvaccinated children and more. 

HHS was unable to answer any of the questions with relevant, thorough assurance and adequate scientific rigor. A second letter was sent to HHS in 2018 explaining the gravity of the agency’s reliance on such insufficient and improper science to assure the safety of pharmaceutical vaccine products for all American children.    

In 2019, after failing to produce the clinical trials and safety studies relied upon to license both the flu and TdaP vaccines for use in pregnant women after being presented with an ICAN FOIA request, the FDA was taken to court.

The FDA, under Scott Gottlieb’s leadership, conceded, “Clinical studies for TdaP and inactivated influenza vaccines did not specifically enroll pregnant women.” The FDA legal response went on to admit they “have no records responsive to your [plaintiff’s] request.” 

In short, the licensed the shots for use in pregnant women without the required scientific studies to ensure safety. In addition to the FDA licensing the flu and TdaP vaccines outside of law and their own policy, the agency has went on to actively promote and market the flu shot to pregnant women. Embodying the very spirit of revolving door phenomenon, then FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb left the agency prematurely to join Pfizer’s board of directors. 

In 2015, CrossFit revealed Coca-Cola was behind the Global Energy Balance Network (GEBN), a soda industry front group that blamed chronic disease exclusively on inactivity while casting doubt on the role of nutrition. 

In 2017, CrossFit broke the news that the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was in league with Coca-Cola. And 

in 2018, with information brought to light by CrossFit, Congress reprimanded the CDC Foundation and Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for neglecting to disclose money they had received from Coca-Cola and Pepsi. This was followed by CrossFit suing the CDC and NIH’s parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), over noncompliance with the Freedom of Information Act.

In 2018, CrossFit, Inc. CrossFit exposed the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Foundation and the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for neglecting to disclose money they received from Coca-Cola and Pepsi. 

CrossFit then submitted FOIA requests to the CDC and NIH in order to access both foundations’ full donor reports, but the CDC and NIH delayed. CrossFit then went foward to sue (HHS) to compel them to comply with the FOIA request and release any donor list-related internal communications.

Now, breaking news from CrossFit’s website states,

“The CDC released internal communications, at least initially. After noticing the information it produced included incriminating and embarrassing emails, however, HHS attorneys tried to retroactively redact the content of those emails…”

HHS later backed down after CrossFit challenged the redaction. 

CrossFit, Inc. goes on to report what was discovered in those redacted internal emails:

“The CDC’s official in charge of public-private partnerships wondered whether the CDC’s affiliated nonprofit could “skate by” on its transparency reports by lumping contributions together and not delineating which donor contributed what, as the law requires. In effect, the CDC official asked whether the CDC Foundation can launder contributions it receives in order to mislead the public. This constitutes a massive conflict of interest.”

CrossFit’s conclusion, like so many others exposed to this information, speaks to the urgency America finds itself in when they proclaim, “At least one CDC researcher has described the CDC Foundation as a “professional money-laundering facility,” and it is increasingly clear that the organization turns food/beverage and pharmaceutical industry dollars into information and recommendations favorable to those industries, all with the federal government’s seal of approval.”