This loophole can erase pollution from EPA records
By Molly Peterson, Dillon Bergin and Emily Zentner, with graphics by Andrew Witherspoon
Published October 16, 2023 3:01 AM
Dangerous smoke generated by the Camp Fire is among the events excluded from pollution records under the loophole.
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Topline:
A legal loophole has allowed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to strike pollution from clean air tallies in more than 70 counties, enabling local regulators to claim the air was cleaner than it really was for more than 21 million Americans.
What is this loophole? Regulators have exploited a little-known provision in the Clean Air Act called the “exceptional events rule” to forgive pollution caused by “natural” or “uncontrollable” events — including wildfires — on records used by the EPA for regulatory decisions, a new investigation from The California Newsroom, MuckRock and the Guardian reveals.
Why it matters: In addition to obscuring the true health risks of pollution and swerving away from tighter control on local polluters, the rule threatens the potency of the Clean Air Act, experts argue, at a time when the climate crisis is posing an unprecedented challenge to the health of millions of Americans.
A legal loophole has allowed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to strike pollution from clean air tallies in more than 70 counties, enabling local regulators to claim the air was cleaner than it really was for more than 21 million Americans.
Regulators have exploited a little-known provision in the Clean Air Act called the “exceptional events rule” to forgive pollution caused by “natural” or “uncontrollable” events — including wildfires — on records used by the EPA for regulatory decisions, a new investigation from The California Newsroom, MuckRock and the Guardian reveals.
In addition to obscuring the true health risks of pollution and swerving away from tighter control on local polluters, the rule threatens the potency of the Clean Air Act, experts argue, at a time when the climate crisis is posing an unprecedented challenge to the health of millions of Americans.
"Smoke, Screened: The Clean Air Act’s Dirty Secret" is a collaboration of The California Newsroom, MuckRock and the Guardian. Molly Peterson is a reporter for The California Newsroom. Dillon Bergin is a data reporter for MuckRock. Emily Zentner is a data reporter for The California Newsroom. Andrew Witherspoon is a data reporter for the Guardian.
LAist is a member of The California Newsroom.
Where the EPA — which monitors air quality — has agreed to exclude bad air days from analysis,“we may have a sort of stable, relatively rosy picture when it comes to our regulatory world in terms of air-quality trends,” said Vijay Limaye, a climate and health epidemiologist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a nonprofit advocacy group.
The truth is more complicated, and the air dirtier.
Matt Cowdrey, Mark Paiz and Kyle Ortega get ready to paddle out and surf Ocean Beach in San Francisco under an orange-red sky caused by wildfires on Sep. 9, 2020.
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“The true conditions on the ground in terms of the air that people are breathing in, day after day, week after week, year after year, is increasingly an unhealthy situation,” Limaye said.
For the summer of 2023, more than 20 states so far, from Wyoming to Wisconsin to North Carolina, have flagged air-quality readings that were far higher than normal. Most of these days came in June, as skies in the midwest and eastern U.S. were blanketed with Canadian wildfire smoke.
We pored over thousands of pages of regulatory documentation, correspondence and contracts, and analyzed hard-to-find public data to better understand how local regulators make use of the exceptional events rule, as global heating sparks extreme wildfires more often.
We found that, since 2016, when the EPA last revised the guidance on exceptional events:
Local regulators in 21 states filed requests with the agency to forgive pollution and, in 20 of those states, had them approved.
In total, local regulators made note of almost700 exceptional events. The EPA agreed to adjust the data on 139 of them.
The adjustments came in more than 70 counties across 20 states. The affected areas stretched from the forested Oregon coast to the Ohio Rust Belt, from the craggy Rhode Island coastline down to the bayous of Louisiana.
In more than half of the states where exceptional events were forgiven, industry lobbyists and business interests pressed to make that happen, sometimes as the only public voice in the regulatory process. Also, to protect the status quo, some regulators spent millions of taxpayer dollars doing research for and making exceptional events requests, sometimes working hand in hand with industry stakeholders.
Meeting air-quality standards matters a lot to industry and politicians. Violations can add up to stricter, more costly and potentially unpopular pollution controls.
Critics say the growing use of the exceptional events rule for wildfires is of deep concern. “You need to level with the public about the number of days when the air quality was unhealthy,” said Eric Schaeffer, a former regulator who directs the Environmental Integrity Project.
“We have saved more lives in this country because we cleaned up the air than almost any other environmental policy,” said Michael Wara, the director of the climate and energy policy program at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment. “And that’s what’s being undermined.”
“The world has changed,” he said. “We are living in a different world when it comes to wildfire and all of its consequences, including air pollution.”
In response to written questions, the EPA said it takes all air pollution seriously.
The 49 Bridge over the south Yuba River in Nevada county, California, is a popular area for hikers and advanced river activities. A legal loophole has allowed regulators to strike pollution from clean air tallies in more than 70 counties, including Nevada county.
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“Wildland fire and smoke pose increasing challenges and human health impacts in communities all around the country,” Khanya Brann, an EPA spokesperson, wrote. “EPA works closely with other federal agencies, state and local health departments, tribal nations, and other partners to provide information, tools, and resources to support communities in preparing for, responding to, and reducing health impacts from wildland fire and smoke.”
The EPA also pointed to “mitigation plans,” in which air districts that have experienced repeated exceptional events must create plans for educating and notifying the public about the pollution risk, as well as “steps to identify, study, and implement mitigating measures” like limiting use of wood-burning stoves and wetting down unpaved roads before dust storms.
More ‘toxic soup’ and more paperwork
In the US, clean-air policy long allowed local governments to write off some wildfire smoke on a case-by-case-basis as “unrealistic to control” or “impractical to fully control”. But in 2005, the Republican senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, who has long denied the climate crisis, won a years-long battle to amend the Clean Air Act. The new rule gave local officials more opportunity to exclude pollution from regulatory consideration for an array of events, from fireworks displays and volcanic eruptions to wildfires and even unusual traffic events.
At first, the rule was used most successfully in a handful of south-western communities where high winds created a recurring problem of dust pollution. Over time, local regulators have turned to exceptional events for wildfires more and more often to reach air-quality goals.
Our analysis of local and EPA records found that in 2016, air agencies flagged 19 wildfire events as potential exceptional events. In 2018 and 2021, 52 and 50 wildfire events were flagged. In 2020, 65 were.
“The uptick in exceptional events is absolutely consistent with what we see in the air pollution data,” said Marshall Burke, an associate professor of global environmental policy at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. Smoke is accounting for a higher proportion of overall air pollution, and it’s going up quickly, Burke said — not just in the western U.S., but nationwide.
The Nevada County Consolidated Fire District office in Nevada City, Calif., on Oct. 4, 2023.
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No state is blamed more for smoke pollution than California, followed by Oregon and Canadian provinces, according to our analysis. Western states are more likely to point fingers at each other, while states in the midwest and north-east place the blame on Canadian provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Wildfire smoke is a dirty and complicated polluter. Limaye, of the NRDC, called it a “toxic soup of air pollution.” It carries soot and ash, regulated as particulate pollution, as well as hydrocarbons and other gases that, cooked in sunlight, help form ground-level ozone. It’s a growing concern for public health, both near the source and thousands of miles away. Smoke, especially from a long-burning fire, can travel long distances and linger at dangerous levels for weeks at a time.
We analyzed data recorded at air monitors nationwide. For every U.S. county, on a day where the EPA excluded any data, we counted that day. Our analysis found that the total number of wildfire-related bad air days erased from regulatory consideration in counties nationwide was nearly double that of bad air days related to high winds: 236 compared to 121.
When wildfire caused air pollution, the rule was applied to more monitor readings over multiple days, not just to exclude particulate pollution but also smog or ozone.
“It is a lot of time,” saidJohn Walke, a lawyer for the NRDC.
One or two violations at a single air monitor can flip an area from meeting air standards to missing the mark, according to Walke. Three or four violations over several years can prompt increasingly strict local pollution controls. “So a lot is riding on one, or two, or three violations,” he said.
A smokier future
The recent experience of California’s Nevada County may offer a glimpse of a smokier future. So far, the exceptional events rule has removed 16 days from the record there in the last five years.
Julie Hunter, the interim director of the Northern Sierra Air Quality Management District, in her office in Grass Valley, California, on Oct. 4, 2023. Wildfire smoke is like a “pancake,” settling flat across the rural valley, she says.
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Ozone levels are rising in the background in this foothill community, according to Julie Hunter, the interim chief for the northern Sierra air quality management district. She said more trucks and warmer temperatures are to blame. More frequently now, she said, wildfire smoke is like a “pancake,” settling flat across the rural valley, stuck until conditions change.
During one fire in 2021, a thick plume of smoke covered the sun in the town of Grass Valley. “We couldn’t see past down the driveway,” said Dr. Alinea Stevens, the medical director at the Chapa-De Indian Health clinic in town.
Stevens remembered doctors and nurses moving among patients under the menacing amber skies, N95 masks snug on their faces to protect against COVID-19 — and wildfire smoke.
Over hours, the clinic’s security guards got lightheaded and developed headaches. “We told them, you need to wear N95 masks, too,” Stevens said. “That kind of prolonged exposure to those things was very real.”
After fires in 2018 and 2020, the EPA wiped more than two weeks of ozone pollution in the district from the record. That didn’t get Nevada county all the way to a clean bill of health, but local regulators avoided having to tighten rules on local emissions. Hunter, the local regulator, said her district is likely to seek more exceptional events there, including for fires in the last two years.
Firefighters from Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach battle the Bond Fire in Santiago Canyon.
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“If we take out wildfire smoke as one of the things that we look at, then we’re not going to be addressing problems that really affect our community here,” said Stevens, who directs the health clinic.The surge of asthma and other health problems from smoke can be overlooked when it happens in a rural community, she said: “I think it’s maybe a way that we don’t put enough attention into fixing something that can be fixed.”
Officials at the California air resources board (CARB) stress that state law works toward mitigating the effects of climate change, and state policies are supposed to minimize the risk of catastrophic fire.
“We really are trying to pull out all the stops,” Michael Benjamin, the chief of CARB’s air-quality planning and science division, said. Practically, he added: “We and the air districts in California will continue to take advantage of the exceptional events provisions in the Clean Air Act to try to show attainment.”
When it comes to showing attainment, the stakes are high.
Scrubbing smoke from regulatory accounting allows local governments and business to continue as usual, since the practice obscures the toll wildfires take on public health.
It also ignores the ways that the climate crisis is altering how people decide where to live across the U.S.
Alinea Stevens, the medical director at the Chapa-De Indian Health Clinic, on Oct. 4, 2023 in Grass Valley, California. During a fire in 2021, a thick plume of smoke covered the sun in Grass Valley.
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‘We are all inheriting this’
In 2017, Maitreyi Siruguri and her husband woke in the night to a sky lit unnaturally orange. They left their Santa Rosa home with their young children in the early hours of the morning; the fire that eventually swirled through went on to kill 22 people and destroy more than 5,600 structures.
Afterward, “I was starting to sense the emotional drain, from everyone having to go through this,” she said. She searched the internet with worry about how smoke could harm her children, then three and seven years old.
In 2021, they left for the suburbs of Chicago. They could afford to buy a house; the family would be closer to friends and relatives — and further, she hoped, from wildfire and smoke.
Growing up in India in the 1980s and 1990s, and working as a climate educator, Siruguri knows very well that there is no escape hatch leading away from environmental problems. “We are all inheriting this, in every part of the world,” she said.
Wara, of Stanford’s Woods Institute, argues that such an inheritance requires investment. Rather than trying to protect the status quo, he said, governments could make a new cost-benefit analysis.
“It would not be unreasonable” to boost spending significantly to manage public and private lands to minimize smoke, “something like what we think is reasonable when it comes to coal-fired power plants, which is billions of dollars per year,” he said. “Because the harms that are being created by the smoke are large.”
This summer, as air quality worsened across Illinois from Canadian fires, Siruguri worried anew in Naperville. On a late July day, when smoke pollution had returned, she brought her child to soccer camp, and asked the camp’s director whether the air was healthy.
Downtown Nevada City on Oct. 5, 2023.
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He didn’t have an answer. “He was like, well, we kind of wait till somebody tells us what to do or you make the decision for your child,” she said.
Siruguri believes the government must work to stop climate change, including by switching energy sources away from fossil fuels. She believes that when officials talk to the public, they should be honest about how smoke is changing air over time.
“It’s hard for the general public to know. The next time I see bad air quality, I will be looking for how that’s getting recorded,” Siruguri said. “It is concerning that these decisions are made behind the scenes, almost.”
Walke of the NRDC agreed: “The worst possible outcome is lying to the American people about whether the air they breathe is safe or unsafe
.”
In Southern California
Why SoCal is largely absent from this data
In the early years after the exceptional events rule was added to law, the South Coast Air Quality Management District applied to remove some events from the record, including related to wildfires, winds, and fireworks.
But since 2016, the EPA has guided local regulators to apply for exceptional events only when it really matters, like when excluding that data could help a region meet federal air quality goals.
In Southern California — which consistently ranks at or near the top of U.S. metropolitan regions for worst air quality — that just hasn’t happened. Ships, aircraft, and other heavy-duty sources like trucks contribute heavily to ozone and soot pollution, not to mention traffic, local construction, and development. Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, and Riverside counties are so far out of attainment for these pollutants that exceptional events wouldn’t help here the way it does in other places.
Nevertheless, the EPA has asked the South Coast Air Quality Management District to write up plans to mitigate the effects of wildfire and fireworks exceptional events; those plans are due next year.
A note on high winds
Airborne dust is becoming a bigger problem in Southern California, partly because of development and partly because of weather conditions.
Data obtained from the EPA show that the use of the exceptional events rule every year since 2016 has helped Imperial County meet its air quality goals.
But other areas in Southern California where coarse airborne particulates (called PM10) are also a problem continue to miss goals — specifically, the Coachella Valley and the southeast desert of San Bernardino.
Dodgers center fielder Andy Pages celebrates after hitting a two run RIB-single during the seventh inning in Game 4 of the National League Division Series against the Atlanta Braves.
Topline:
The Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 4-1 on Wednesday night to clinch their NL Division Series, as they seek to become the first NL team to win three straight World Series.
What happened: Andy Pages drove in two runs with a bases-loaded single in the seventh inning to give Los Angeles the lead.
What's next: The Dodgers will face Milwaukee or San Diego in Game 1 of the NLCS on Sunday.
Andy Pages drove in two runs with a bases-loaded single in the seventh inning to give Los Angeles the lead, and the Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 4-1 on Wednesday night to clinch their NL Division Series.
The Dodgers won back-to-back games in Atlanta to take the best-of-five matchup 3-1 and advance to the National League Championship Series as they seek to become the first NL team to win three straight World Series.
Pages lined a 3-2 pitch from Robert Suarez up the middle to drive in Teoscar Hernández, who singled off starter Tyler Mahle, and pinch-runner Tommy Edman for a 3-1 lead. Didier Fuentes walked pinch-hitter Josue De Paula and Kyle Tucker to load the bases. Edman ran for De Paula.
Max Muncy’s solo shot off Raisel Iglesias in the ninth padded the lead and gave the slugger 19 postseason homers with the Dodgers, extending his franchise record.
Dodgers right-hander Tyler Glasnow, making his first start since Sept. 24, allowed only one hit but walked five batters in 4 2/3 innings. After he issued two walks in the fifth, left-hander Alex Vesia ended the inning on Matt Olson’s groundout to second base.
The missed opportunity left the Braves with 18 walks in the series, and none scored.
Glasnow and four relievers combined to give up just three hits. Tanner Scott pitched a perfect eighth before Edwin Díaz got three quick outs for the save.
Mahle, a native of Newport Beach, California, who grew up a Dodgers fan, allowed two runs — one earned — in 6 1/3 innings.
Michael Harris II hit Glasnow’s first pitch for a single before stealing second and eventually scoring from third on a wild pitch that bounced off catcher Will Smith’s chest protector.
The Dodgers pulled even in the second with the help of two Atlanta errors. Shohei Ohtani walked, stole second and advanced to third on catcher Sean Murphy’s errant throw into center field. Muncy’s pop fly into shallow left field was dropped by shortstop Mauricio Dubón for another error, allowing Ohtani to score.
Hernández crashed into the wall while attempting to catch Ozzie Albies’ double off Vesia leading off the sixth. Hernández pointed to his head and neck when talking to an athletic trainer but remained in the game.
Edgardo Henriquez stranded Albies at second. Henriquez allowed one hit in 1 2/3 scoreless innings for the win.
Injury report
Dodgers second baseman Miguel Rojas was held out after leaving Tuesday night’s 3-1 win during an at-bat in the eighth inning with lower back soreness. Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts said Rojas would not be available off the bench.
Ronald Acuña Jr. started in right field for Atlanta one day after being moved to designated hitter in a late lineup change due to right knee soreness.
Up next
The Dodgers will face Milwaukee or San Diego in Game 1 of the NLCS on Sunday.
Jordan Rynning
holds local government accountable, covering city halls, law enforcement and other powerful institutions.
Published October 7, 2026 3:49 PM
A pedestrian is walking past City Hall in Los Angeles on Tuesday, July 8, 2025.
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Allen J. Schaben
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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
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Listen
0:39
LISTEN: LA joins other local governments that have banned nitrous oxide sales
Topline:
The L.A. City Council voted Wednesday to ban tobacco and cannabis shops from selling nitrous oxide, a drug often called laughing gas or whippits. The new city ordinance will add penalties that include up to a $1,000 fine or six months in county jail if approved by Mayor Karen Bass.
Why it matters: The FDA warns that inhaling or misusing nitrous oxide, which is sometimes used by dentists and medical doctors to sedate patients, can lead to serious health problems or death. Many community members say they have seen the drug’s recreational use become normalized. Among those who advocated for the City Council to approve the ban were several students from Bert Corona High School in Pacoima.
“ I want to grow up in a community that's drug-free, where we feel safe just walking around, where this isn't just accepted as a part of everyday life,” Mayra Rodriguez said during public comment at the City Council meeting. “We shouldn't have to grow up around this.”
Other laughing gas bans: Local governments have banned nitrous oxide in places like Rialto, Huntington Beach, Santa Ana and unincorporated areas of Orange County. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two bills last month that put statewide bans on nitrous oxide from being sold at retail locations, with added flavors or in containers larger than 8 grams.
More context: It has been a misdemeanor under state law to knowingly sell or possess nitrous oxide for use as a recreational drug for more than a decade, but the state allows it to be used for things like medical care, vehicle performance and cooking.
Councilmember Imelda Padilla, who introduced the motion that passed Wednesday, said the city ordinance will strengthen existing protections enacted by the state. She asked community members to report any cannabis or tobacco shops selling nitrous oxide to the City Attorney’s office at TEP@lacity.org.
Keep up with LAist.
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President Donald Trump speaks during an event on health care affordability in the Oval Office at the White House on Thursday in Washington.
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Topline:
The Democratic National Committee on Wednesday sued President Donald Trump’s administration for recent television advertisements that promoted his political message while costing taxpayers millions of dollars. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the ads are illegal government-sponsored propaganda and accuses Trump of personally directing them. It asks the court to declare the ads illegal and stop the use of federal funds to pay for them.
The backstory: The spots, which began airing in September, already have cost more than $12 million to run, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact, and a total of $20 million in Homeland Security Department funding has been tapped to pay for them. Responding Monday to the criticism, Trump defended the ads as “positive promotion for our Great U.S.A.” but said he’d pay for them using his MAGA Inc. super PAC going forward.
What's next: The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the ads are illegal government-sponsored propaganda and accuses Trump of personally directing them. It asks the court to declare the ads illegal and stop the use of federal funds to pay for them. Trump has faced bipartisan backlash for the ads, which glorify him and echo his campaign pitch as voters cast early ballots with the midterm elections less than a month away.
The Democratic National Committee on Wednesday sued President Donald Trump’s administration for recent television advertisements that promoted his political message while costing taxpayers millions of dollars.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the ads are illegal government-sponsored propaganda and accuses Trump of personally directing them. It asks the court to declare the ads illegal and stop the use of federal funds to pay for them.
Trump has faced bipartisan backlash for the ads, which glorify him and echo his campaign pitch as voters cast early ballots with the midterm elections less than a month away.
The spots, which began airing in September, already have cost more than $12 million to run, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact, and a total of $20 million in Homeland Security Department funding has been tapped to pay for them.
Responding Monday to the criticism, Trump defended the ads as “positive promotion for our Great U.S.A.” but said he’d pay for them using his MAGA Inc. super PAC going forward.
But on Tuesday, the fifth ad in the campaign began airing with the notice “paid for by the U.S. Government,” promoting Trump’s military actions in Venezuela earlier this year. The same day, Trump made it clear he hasn’t committed to reimbursing any money that has already been spent, telling reporters “we’ll decide.”
DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a statement that Trump is misusing taxpayer dollars in “a last-ditch attempt to save Republicans in November.”
“Americans deserve better than to have their hard-earned tax dollars used for Trump’s illegal schemes,” he added.
Legal experts have suggested the ads run afoul of a federal statute against congressionally appropriated money being used for “publicity or propaganda,” and potentially other federal laws. The Homeland Security money tapped for the ads comes from a $175 million package Congress gave to the department as part of Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda.
The White House has defended the ads as public service announcements akin to what past administrations have done to promote various policies. Legal experts have said the recent ads differ from many past public service announcements because they aren’t aimed at helping members of the public benefit from specific government programs.
The defendants in the lawsuit — Trump, the White House, DHS and the Office of Management and Budget — didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The annual flu season usually starts in October or November. But this year, it looks like the flu started to pick up in early September.
Why now: The timing of the flu season isn't the only thing that's odd. It's also unusual that flu activity seems to have started in Western states, such as California, Washington, Hawaii and Alaska, experts say.
The backstory: It's unclear why flu activity would have started so early, and in such an unusual part of the country. But one clue might be a new variant that evolved a mutation, which appears to make it better at evading existing immunity, especially among teenagers.
What's next: Experts suggest scheduling your flu shot.
Fall has only just begun, but it's already time to start thinking about the quintessential winter bug: the flu.
The annual flu season usually starts in October or November. But this year, it looks like the flu started to pick up in early September.
"There are enough signs pointing in the same direction to make me think, 'OK, yes. This is the start of flu season,'" says Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The percentage of people testing positive for the flu in the West has been rising steadily since around the beginning of September, she says. And the number of people showing up in emergency departments because of the flu has also been rising for weeks, she adds.
"It's very uncommon to see flu activity rising this early. It's activity that we might normally see more like November or December," she says.
The timing of the flu season isn't the only thing that's odd. It's also unusual that flu activity seems to have started in Western states, such as California, Washington, Hawaii and Alaska.
"It typically starts in the South and then expands from there," Rivers says. "So two uncommon developments there."
Rivers stresses that the amount of flu activity is still very low in most parts of the country. But that's starting to change as the flu picks up nationwide.
It's unclear why flu activity would have started so early, and in such an unusual part of the country. But one clue might be a new variant that evolved a mutation, which appears to make it better at evading existing immunity, especially among teenagers.
"That's our best argument for what's going on right now in terms of this early flu season," says Dr. Alex Greninger, a virologist who heads infectious disease diagnostics at the University of Washington. Doctors there are seeing as much flu right now as they usually would around Christmas, and the mutated variant appears to be common, he says.
So Greninger, Rivers and others are urging people to think about getting their flu shot earlier than usual.
"It's crucial that people get an influenza vaccine," says Scott Hensley, a virologist at the University of Pennsylvania. "And this might be a year that people might want to get a vaccine early."
But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn't been promoting flu shots as it usually does. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees the CDC, is a long-time vaccine skeptic.
"It is disappointing that CDC is quiet given that flu kills of hundreds of kids a year and can result in tens of thousands of hospitalizations and tens of thousands of deaths," says Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned last year as the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to protest what he called political interference at the agency.
The CDC declined to make an official available to NPR for this story. In a statement, a CDC spokesperson said, "CDC is developing a communications strategy to provide clear, accessible information about influenza vaccination and other critical steps people can take to protect themselves during respiratory virus season. This includes information about the benefits and risks of vaccination to support informed decision-making."
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