The CDC team responsible for the aggregation and dissemination of best practices concerning contraception has been cut.
Liudmila Chernetska / Istockphoto / Getty Images
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Liudmila Chernetska / Istockphoto / Getty Images
For most people, the team of eight people was indistinguishable from hundreds of other scientists and researchers reduced in April during mass dismissals to centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But for many clinicians who specialize in women’s health, the loss of the team responsible for CDC contraception guidelines was a devastator Blow the health of women.
“I just remember feeling like – all things – I think contraception should not be controversial,” said Dr. Angeline Ti, family doctor in the Atlanta region, Georgia, specializing in reproductive health care.
The team was responsible for the aggregation and dissemination of best practices concerning contraception in a set of directives called Medical eligibility criteria in the United States for contraceptive use.
“I knew things were going to happen at the CDC, but I thought these guidelines were so important,” said TI. She says that she uses the guidelines “almost every time” that she sees a patient for contraceptive care.
Other doctors describe such a shocked feeling. “I mean, there is no other resource that does this,” said Dr. Andrea Braden, obstetrician in Atlanta, Georgia. “All ob-gyn uses it.”
Representatives of the Ministry of Health and Social Services and the Trump administration did not explain why the CDC team was cut. It was eliminated in April as part of the reduction of the health and fertility branch of women in the district health division.
NPR contacted HHS to comment on this story, but did not receive an answer.
An essential application
Occupied doctors who see many patients, says Braden, simply do not have time to paint all the latest medical research. Thus, the CDC team made the recommendations available in an application That doctors can download and refer easily with questions about contraception, including how to navigate the subject of patients with specific conditions and diseases. He was downloaded 440,000 timesAccording to the CDC.
“The application has changed the game for us,” explains Braden. “It was very clearly organized, really easy to digest, and it was such a beautiful quick reference for us. It was a resource in which we all trusted intuitively.”
The current directives are always accessible, while the team responsible for updating them no longer exists.
Doctors warn that even if the recommendations have been issued relatively recently, without meticulous supervision, they will soon be obsolete. “Medicine is not static,” said Dr. Deva Sharma, a hematologist who said that guidelines are an essential element of his medical practice. “It evolves and improves constantly.”
The team published the directives more recently in 2024. An example of a change which, according to Braden, had a significant impact on its conversations with their patients concerns the recommendations for breastfed mothers using contraception. The new guidelines for the first time have recognized that a certain contraception can compromise the supply of milk in mothers to nursing.
This update, she said, has represented a sea change in a way of thinking about the importance of allowing patients to make their own decisions concerning breastfeeding. “It was such an important aspect of the update,” said Braden. “It helped us guide our practice, rather than telling people what they need after having a baby. It really put the patient at the center of the conversation.”
For some patients and doctors dealing with specific conditions, conversations on contraception can be questions of life or death. Sharma specializes in the treatment of women suffering from sickle cell disease – a hereditary disorder of red blood cells – which puts patients to a much larger risk Deadly complications during pregnancy than people with no disease.
Sharma calls for the termination of the CDC team “harmful to the health of women” and also remembers alive as she discovered when a colleague sent her a message. “I remember that I felt outdated and devastated,” said Sharma.
In recent guidelines, the CDC team has changed recommendations for women with a false disease, which already puts patients at an increased risk of blood clots. Doctors who deal with this disease say they rarely prescribe certain forms of contraception to their patients due to new evidence suggesting that this type of treatment can create an even greater risk.
Braden says that she always feels confused about the reason why such a precious resource has been eliminated. “I don’t understand,” she said “why? Why this medicine sector? It is a waste.”
She warns that doctors will not be able to compensate for the medical updates that this guide provides. “Medicine changes so quickly and it is very difficult to follow all of this,” she warns. “New data are coming out – new research is out – and we discover that there is a better way to do things. Contractive medicine is not different from that.”
Missing processing options are difficult to measure
Many patients do not necessarily know the medical updates from which they do not benefit, but Teonna Woolford is a patient who includes the usefulness of CDC directives around contraception.
Born with Drépanocytose, Woolford began a non -profit organization, Education directive on the reproduction of sickle cellsThis recommends patients like her. Woolford says that the disease is often characterized by uncertainty and the difficulty in making difficult decisions around treatment.
“Having guidelines was really as a proactive approach to fight contraception,” said Woolford. “There is a lot of knowledge and research shortcomings on this subject.”
Drépanocytosis disproportionately affects people of color, a group that Woolford Note has not historically enjoyed parity in reproductive justice. “The removal of the CDC team for me just reminds me of darker times In our history, when people of color were oppressed, “she says.
In the United States, black women have High maternal mortality rate.
Dr. Braden considers the elimination of the team as a setback of women everywhere. “It really hurts those of us in health of women – to target something like contraceptives.” said Braden. “These are basic health care for the Obgyns and it was really defeated. I would say that I felt angry and sad.”
She and other doctors emphasize that many women in the United States can no longer legally terminate pregnancy. They say that it makes it particularly important for them to be able to make an enlightened choice on the best ways to avoid becoming pregnant in the first place.
“Body autonomy has been removed from women in various states,” explains Dr. Sharma, who practices in Tennessee – a state With strict abortion laws. “We have reduced people to make decisions,” she said. “Now we delete recommendations based on evidence.”