The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal health agencies are under a communications freeze that has affected some regular updates to public-facing health sites.
John Bazemore / AP
hiding place
switch legend
John Bazemore / AP
With federal health agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention freeze on public communicationssome data and publications were not published on their normal schedule.
The agency issued regular weekly updates Friday but no others. He updated a page on the agency’s website on the Global activity of respiratory viruses across the country and another that specifies how widely RSV and influenza spread.
But as of mid-afternoon Friday, the agency had not yet updated others, including Pleatedwhich tracks flu strains, doctor visits, hospitalizations and deaths from the disease, as well as those that detailed weekly flu vaccinations Or Weekly Covid-19 vaccinations.
And on Thursday, the CDC did not release the agency’s weekly publication, the Weekly Morbidity and Mortality Reportmarking the first time in decades the agency has not released the much-loved pillar of public health communications.
The current freeze on communications for all Department of Health and Human Services agencies has spurred alarm among public health experts. HHS includes the CDC as well as other major agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration.
“Prevent the CDC from releasing scientific data through the MMWR represents a radical departure from protocol that will undermine public confidence in the Trump administration,” Jennifer Nuzzo, who directs the Pandemic Center at Brown University, wrote in an email to NPR.
“Americans depend on this publication for insight into the health of their communities and advice on how to best protect themselves,” she added. “This obvious political tampering with this process will only cast doubt on the administration’s intentions to keep Americans safe.”
In response to a question from NPR, the CDC emailed a statement that all federal health agencies have been sending since the pause was imposed and referred additional questions to HHS:
“HHS has issued a pause on mass communications and public appearances that are not directly related to emergencies or essential to the preservation of health,” the statement said. “This is a brief pause to allow the new team to establish a review and prioritization process. There are exceptions to announce that HHS divisions believe the mission is critical, but they will be made at the case by case.”
The pause comes amid widespread concern and among the country’s scientists triggered by a Cancellation of scientific meetingsa break on travel by federal scientists and Applications for diversity, equity and inclusion, or Dei, programs.
“There’s just a lot of confusion and misinformation about exactly what researchers should be doing right now,” says David Gillumassociate vice president of Compliance and Research Administration at the University of Nevada, Reno.
Scientists don’t know whether the pause on travel applies only to federal scientists or to all federally funded scientists, for example, he said. They’re also unsure whether their grant proposals should always include DEI information or whether it would result in their grants being rejected, he says.
“There’s just a lot of chaos in the community,” Gillum says. “It’s pretty bad. It’s unprecedented.”
Others say many of these activities are not unusual during presidential transitions.
Dr. Georges Benjaminpresident of the American Public Health Association, says npr That while the communications freeze is confusing, it gave the HHS team that issued it “the benefit of the doubt that they’re just trying to move through the administration – it’s big government.”