The Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) Urgently Needs to Be Restored

Dr. Steven Hatfill

During the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, a covert struggle unfolded within the US medical community. A schism developed between certain unelected senior health officials and pharmaceutical partners, and a burgeoning group of independent medical experts. The latter advocated for early use of established antiviral medications to mitigate hospitalizations and deaths, fostering enduring immunity against the virus and its variants.

Conversely, federal health authorities endorsed remdesivir, a hospital-administered experimental drug, which was later deemed toxic and ineffective against COVID-19. In 2021, the Biden Administration initiated a controversial mandatory vaccination drive with mRNA “pseudo-vaccines” that were never properly tested by the pharmaceutical manufacturers for their ability to prevent infection, reduce the risk of hospitalization, or decrease mortality.¹ Predictably, both the in-hospital treatment and the mass vaccination program. failed to halt the pandemic’s progression.

Meanwhile, Congress, largely uninformed about the scientific details, opted to provide substantial funding to the federal health agencies without any critical evaluation of their underlying strategies.

This issue was not unprecedented. It had happened before.

Post-World War II, the US made exponential advancements in science, medicine, civilian, and military technology, overwhelming Congress and leading it into inefficient and expensive policy decisions. To address this knowledge gap, Congress eventually founded the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) in 1974.

Managed by a twelve-member bipartisan board, the OTA featured an Advisory Council of ten esteemed external experts who directed a skilled staff of approximately 100 to 140 professionals across various disciplines spanning the physical and social sciences, law, and medicine, with additional outside expertise derived from academia, think tanks, and industry. The OTA was soon providing comprehensive expertise to bridge the divide between rapid technological progress and Congressional legislative understanding of both chronic and urgent issues.

During its tenure, the OTA produced approximately 750 studies on diverse subjects like randomized clinical drug trials, health policy, and federal vaccine strategies, providing Congress with unbiased analyses and the implications of potential legislative decisions for both chronic and urgent issues. ^{2, 3}

Despite its contributions, the OTA was disbanded in 1995 during the “Contract with America” era, led by Republican lawmaker, Newt Gingrich. Gingrich criticized the OTA as an “unnecessary agency,” that was contrary to GOP interests. This was a characterization that many disputed.²

Eventually realizing its error in January 2019, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) established a Science, Technology Assessment, and Analytics (STAA) team to try and fill the void left by the defunct OTA. ^{4, 5}

During the COVID-19 pandemic, our nation’s leaders needed impartial, accurate and timely assessments. Yet, the STAA did nothing productive concerning the hydroxychloroquine or the lockdown debate. This indicated either a limited knowledge base on the part of the STAA or a political consideration to not get involved.

Easily detectable critical failures of the pandemic response were missed or ignored. The STAA’s absence from these discussions brings into question the usefulness of the structure of the office in its present form.

A functional OTA would have ensured a successful COVID-19 pandemic response.

From the time of the first recognized outbreak of COVID-19 on US soil, the Congressional need for decisive and expert guidance was paramount.

Based on the early known pathology of COVID-19 and the successful early antiviral drug use in India and Brazil, the OTA would have correctly valuated the data concerning the use of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin for the early treatment of COVID-19. 

By March 2021, the OTA would have begun reviewing the unacceptable safety and low efficacy of the mRNA pseudo-vaccines, properly analyzed the adverse vaccine events and given an early recommendation to withdraw the EUA for these biological products.

The OTA would have also examined definitive evidence that indicated that Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) testing was being conducted at too high of a Cycle Threshold (CT)—a threshold which indicates how many times a machine needs to try to copy a particular virus’s genetic material before being able to detect that material on a PCR test—to avoid rampant false positive COVID-19 results, which the GAO’s STAA failed to do.

It also could have placed pressures on the accuracy of the medical and scientific journals as well as the faulty antiviral drug studies conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Kingdom concerning the pharmaceutical manufacturer–conducted clinical trials of remdesivir and the large UK Recovery Trial involving hydroxychloroquine.

And most importantly, the OTA could have stopped the federal government from invoking nationwide lockdowns and spending over 4 trillion dollars on economic relief, prevented at least 700,000 virus-related American deaths, and averted the hundreds of thousands of vaccine injuries and deaths associated with the Biden Administration’s forced vaccine mandates.

The existing GAO’s STAA produced nothing of effect on any of the above topics.

In short, based on its previous performance, had the OTA not been defunded,  it would have exerted proper oversight over the dysfunctional COVID-19 White House Task Force, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and also provided necessary independent oversight over major drug companies involved, all by “following the science.”

      It is time to reestablish the OTA in its original form with aggressive leadership.^{6, 7, 8}

Dr. Steven Hatfill is a leading physician and virologist with expertise in pandemic preparedness and response, and is a guest columnist for Peter Navarro’s Taking Back Trump’s America.

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Further Reading

1. Fraiman J, Erviti J, Jones M, Greenland S, Whelan P, Kaplan RM, Doshi P. Serious adverse events of special interest following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination in randomized trials in adults. Vaccine. 2022 Sep 22;40(40):5798-5805. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2022.08.036. Epub 2022 Aug 31.  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36055877/

2. M. Anthony Mills, "Reviving technology assessment: Learning from the founding and early history of Congress’ Office of Technology Assessment", American Enterprise Institute, May 2021.

3. What OTA is, What OTA does, How does OTA work?file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/INetCache/IE/JQCDB1F3/whatotais1986.pdf

4. GAO Science, Technology Assessment, and Analytics (STAA)https://www.gao.gov/about/careers/our-teams/STAA

5. Ash Carter, Laura Manley, et al., "Building a 21st Century Congress: Improving Congress’s Science and Technology Expertise", Harvard Belfer Center, September 2019.

6. Brooks, Chuck; Logsdon, David (November 16, 2016"Congress had an office that gave expert tech analysis; let's bring it back". The Hill.

7. Zach Graves and Kevin Kosar, “Bring in the Nerds: Reviving the Office of Technology Assessment”, R Street Institute policy study, January 2018

8.  Dr. Joel Hirschhorn PhD. https://www.theepochtimes.com/how-the-power-of-the-federal-health-agencies-could-have-been-countered_4272737.html