US health agency employees are now banned from almost all travel and some agencies and programs have been ordered to stop awarding new contracts and grants until further notice.
The limits on travel and spending, announced internally on Wednesday, come on top of previous indefinite shutdowns of external communications, including the release of new reports or even posting on social media, as well as review and review. approval of new medical research, a nearly $50 billion industry in the United States.
Employees of the 13 agencies overseen by the United States Health and Human Services (HHS) may only travel to return from missions or to escape life-threatening situations. This means that regular meetings with state and local health officials, training sessions and grant reviews are now suspended.
All federal agencies have been ordered stop funding for foreign projects, including global health, and stop work immediately on any program involving the World Health Organization. Some agencies have also been ordered to stop cutting checks for projects and programs.
The mood within health agencies is “just gloomy and gloomy,” said a CDC employee who requested anonymity because of the communication ban.
Most staff members have previously experienced administrative transitions under Democratic and Republican presidents, but this transition marked “a sea change” in the second Trump administration’s approach to federal agencies, particularly those working in health and science, the employee said.
Agencies are still grappling with the influx of executive orders and how to interpret them, the staffer said. The uncertainty brought on by these changes has left federal employees with “an immense sense of dread and hopelessness.”
Halting vital response and search efforts, even temporarily, could take years, the employee added.
The outbreak response will suffer from travel and communications bans, which is particularly dangerous given the evolving outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza among animals and humans, experts said.
“The United States is at a critical time in its response to H5N1,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center and professor of epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health. “Any action that slows or prevents the ability of American scientists to collect, analyze and disseminate data will weaken our ability to track and protect against this virus.”
If, for example, a state detects a new mode of transmission or a new cluster of cases in humans, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may not receive authorization for a “mission critical” exception for travel to that state to assist in the response to an outbreak or even to communicate with the state or the public.
“Stifling the ability of these agencies to participate in public health conversations and mount frantic responses to outbreaks is a terrible idea with predictable consequences that will include unnecessary infections, disabilities and deaths,” said Ilan Schwartz , an infectious disease physician in North Carolina.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which tracks the avian flu outbreak in animals, is not an agency of HHS and therefore can continue its work.
But HHS agencies like the CDC and FDA, as well as others, including the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Indian Health Service, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Substance Abuse and Mental Administration Health Services, are now forced to reduce their spending. their activities.
The unprecedented shutdown of U.S. medical research through the NIH, also announced Wednesday, has led to the cancellation of meetings, some just ahead of schedule and others midway.
Social media researchers have talked about it cancer research shutting down while participants wait for experimental treatments and the effects the shutdown would have on universities and scientific progress across the world.
NIH funding is “the lifeblood of the entire American biomedical research enterprise, which is the cornerstone of the American economy,” Schwartz said. The agency directly funds more than 400,000 jobs, and every dollar the NIH spends generates $2.46 in economic activity.
The transition to the new administration has created uncertainty in other ways. There is currently no official lead at the CDC, with no interim leader is appointed.
Trump’s nominee for CDC director, Dave Weldon, who previously proposed break up the vaccine division of the agency, has not yet been scheduled for a nomination hearing before the Senate.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the nominee to oversee HHS, is expected to appear before the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday.