Donald Trump has reportedly ordered a communications blackout at US federal health agencies.
The CDC, FDA, HHS, and NIH have been asked to suspend external communications, including publishing scientific reports, updating websites, or issuing health advisories.
The directive came without warning, sources told the Washington Postand with little guidance on how long it may last.
Health agencies play a vital role in collecting and sharing critical information with the public, including about infectious disease outbreaks, raising the alarm about foodborne illness outbreaks and food recalls.
However, DailyMail.com received its weekly automated FDA recall email at 8am ET this morning.
It is not entirely unusual for incoming administrations to temporarily suspend external communications, which can be done to help newly appointed officials understand the scope of information being released.
But some said that if the pause lasts more than a week or two, then it could be considered worrying.
The new president, 78, singled out public health agencies in his inaugural address, saying they “fail to deliver in times of disaster,” referring to what many have seen as mishandling of Covid messaging.
The incoming Trump administration has ordered a pause on all external communications from federal health agencies.
Robert F. Kennedy Junior has been nominated to head HHS, which oversees all federal health agencies.
As part of his commitment to “Make America Healthy Again,” he has promised to reform all three agencies.
The communications cutoff was issued by Stefanie Spear, HHS deputy chief of staff who joined the agency this week. She was also RFK Jr.’s press secretary during his presidential campaign.
The pause in external communications includes blocks on the publication of scientific reports issued by the CDC, known as Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWR), notices sent to physicians in the CDC health network, data updates in the CDC website and published public health data. from the National Center for Health Statistics, including drug overdose deaths.
The CDC was scheduled to release several MMWR reports this week, sources familiar with the matter said, including three on the bird flu outbreak that alarmed scientists.
It was unclear whether the directive also prevented agencies from sharing urgent communications, such as about drug approvals or new disease outbreaks.
Dr. Lucky Tran, a Democratic-leaning science communicator at Columbia University, criticized the order as the beginning of censorship.
Jeff Jarvis, a retired journalism professor at the City University of New York, said: “This is terrible: forced ignorance about health data.”
‘Sane state officials and scientists must come together to report data on their own. “We need those shadow governments.”
The CDC publishes on average about 50 peer-reviewed articles per week, in addition to updating numerous data sets and other materials, while the FDA initiates more than 500 food recalls per year.
The CDC receives about $24.9 billion in public funding each year, while the FDA costs $8.4 billion and the NIH more than $47 billion a year.
At the beginning of Trump’s first term, administration officials also asked public health agencies to stop communicating with the public, as reported at the time.
At the time, the boundaries seemed centered on agencies that oversaw environmental and scientific policy, such as the Environmental Protection Agency.