Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed built a CNN essay around the claim that anti-Muslim "discrimination and marginalization" after September 11 caused premature births among Muslim and Arab American mothers. He cited a 2006 California study to make his case. What he did not mention was his own peer-reviewed research, published two years later, analyzing more than 129,000 births in Michigan, that found "no difference" in birth outcomes for Arab and Muslim mothers before and after the attacks.
The omission, first reported by the Washington Free Beacon, raises pointed questions about a candidate who markets himself as a rigorous scientist. El-Sayed did not respond to requests for comment.
El-Sayed, a Democrat running against Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan's Aug. 4 primary, holds a Ph.D. and an M.D., though he never completed a residency, and boasts of "more than 100 peer-reviewed publications that have been cited thousands of times." In a recent CNN interview, he described himself as "a scientist." The record suggests he is selective about which science he shares with the public.
The story begins with a 2006 study published in the journal Demography. Researchers analyzed California birth records and concluded that Arab American women were 34 percent more likely to deliver premature or low-birthweight babies after September 11. The study's author attributed the finding to "ethnicity-related stress or discrimination." The research drew national attention, including a Washington Post story headlined "Babies, Bigotry and 9/11" and a 2021 segment on WHYY, a Philadelphia NPR affiliate.
El-Sayed knew that study well. In 2008, he and two coauthors published their own analysis in the journal Ethnicity & Disease, examining 129,384 births in Michigan between September 2000 and March 2002. Their conclusion flatly contradicted the California findings.
The Michigan data showed no difference in rates of premature or low-birthweight births among Arab and Muslim mothers before and after 9/11. In fact, the study found Arab and Muslim women were at "significantly" lower risk of delivering premature or low-weight babies than women overall. Roughly 8 percent of Arab mothers gave birth prematurely during the study period, compared with about 9 percent of white mothers and approximately 15 percent of black mothers.
El-Sayed's own paper stated it plainly: "Our findings contrast with the only other published study that has assessed the relationship between mass trauma and birth outcomes of a specific group." The paper went further, suggesting the California result "may have been due to chance alone."
This was not a minor footnote in El-Sayed's career. His CV shows he presented the Michigan research at the Michigan Epidemiology Conference in 2008 and won second prize for it at the annual meeting of the Society for Epidemiologic Research that same year. He cited the study in at least eight subsequent academic articles, including a 2021 paper in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Yet when El-Sayed sat down to write a CNN essay marking the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, published on the web page of host Fareed Zakaria, he chose the California study as his evidence. He also cited his own 2011 study, which found Arab Americans had lower life expectancy rates than whites. The 2008 Michigan study, the one he knew best, the one that earned him a prize, the one that directly addressed and contradicted the California findings, that one did not appear.
The essay's thrust was unmistakable. El-Sayed wrote that "we regularly see the toll this climate of discrimination takes upon these communities," framing Muslim Americans as ongoing victims of post-9/11 prejudice. The piece's title, visible in an archived URL, described the "health of Muslims, Arab Americans" as "another victim of 9/11."
A scientist who omits his own contradictory data to support a political narrative is not doing science. He is doing advocacy. And when that scientist is running for the United States Senate, voters deserve to know the difference.
El-Sayed's handling of the birth-outcomes research fits a broader pattern of convenient omissions and post-hoc revisions. Fox News reported that El-Sayed was confronted on CNN about past statements supporting "defund the police", statements he now denies making. In a resurfaced radio interview from the aftermath of the 2020 George Floyd riots, El-Sayed said: "I believe that we do need to defund the police insofar as defunding the police is disinvesting in the means of incarcerating or killing them on the streets." He deleted several tweets criticizing law enforcement prior to launching his Senate campaign, including a June 2020 post supporting the #Defund movement.
The deleted-post habit extends beyond policing. Newsmax reported that El-Sayed scrubbed a September 2021 post in which he called Border Patrol agents "white supremacists." The original post read: "How about asking how our policies decimate Caribbean & Central American (and so many other) countries, and why we allow white supremacists to police our borders?" That post disappeared after the Washington Free Beacon accessed it.
El-Sayed's campaign finances have drawn scrutiny as well, adding another layer to a candidacy built on progressive credentials and academic prestige.
On the 20th anniversary of September 11, El-Sayed posted on social media that while he mourned those killed in the attacks, he would the following day "mourn ~1M lives, millions of injuries, & infrastructural devastation in 3 countries, perpetrated ignorantly in the name of my country." That post was later deleted. He also drew criticism for appearances with left-wing influencer Hasan Piker, who previously remarked that "America deserved 9/11."
The Washington Examiner noted that the broader Michigan Senate primary has narrowed to a two-way contest after state Sen. Mallory McMorrow dropped out, leaving El-Sayed to face Rep. Haley Stevens. The ideological divide between the two candidates is sharp.
In his 2020 memoir, Healing Politics: A Doctor's Journey into the Heart of Our Political Epidemic, El-Sayed reflected on the Michigan research in revealing terms. He wrote that "in that paper, science, social science, and my own life experiences collided in a way I had never known was possible. It was exhilarating and devastating at the same time." He added: "I had found social epidemiology, the discipline that would shape my work for years to come."
El-Sayed described the Michigan study as a formative moment, the paper that launched his career in social epidemiology. He did not explain why a study so personally significant was absent from his CNN essay on the very subject it addressed.
The memoir's framing is itself instructive. El-Sayed found the Michigan data "devastating", not because it showed Muslim mothers were harmed, but apparently because it did not confirm the discrimination narrative he wanted to tell. The data showed Arab and Muslim women in Michigan faring better than average. That was the finding he chose to bury when he had a national audience.
The Michigan Democratic primary has already exposed deep fractures in the party. El-Sayed has positioned himself as the progressive alternative, drawing high-profile endorsements from the party's left flank.
The 2,977 Americans killed on September 11, 2001, deserve honest accounting of that day's aftermath, not narratives shaped to fit a political career. The question of whether post-9/11 discrimination affected Muslim Americans' health is a legitimate one. El-Sayed's own research answered it for Michigan: it did not affect birth outcomes. Arab and Muslim mothers there delivered premature babies at lower rates than white mothers and far lower rates than black mothers.
That finding did not fit the essay El-Sayed wanted to write. So he left it out, cited a study from a different state that reached a different conclusion, and told CNN's audience that discrimination was taking a measurable toll on Muslim communities. His own data said otherwise.
El-Sayed has also drawn scrutiny for accepting endorsements that raise questions about his judgment, a thread that runs through a campaign marked by deleted posts, reversed positions, and inconvenient research quietly set aside.
A candidate who suppresses his own findings when they conflict with his preferred narrative is not practicing science. He is practicing politics, and doing it dishonestly. Michigan voters heading to the polls on August 4 should know exactly which version of Abdul El-Sayed they are being asked to trust.
When a man hides his own research to sell a story, the story he is really selling is himself.
