As bird flu rises, federal health agencies are halting external communications. Are we flying blind?

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As bird flu rises, federal health agencies are halting external communications. Are we flying blind?
Under orders from the Trump admin, agencies like the CDC are pausing some public health messaging as H5N1 surges

By Nicole Karlis
Senior Writer
Published January 25, 2025 9:00AM (EST)


(Salon) Earlier this week, news broke that the Trump administration put a “pause” on federal health agency communications. According to a memo obtained by NPR, the directive told federal health agencies to stop most external communications for the time being, which includes issuing documents, guidance or notices, until they can be approved by "a presidential appointee." This also includes communication on social media. The action, according to the document, is "consistent with precedent,” and reportedly applies until February 1.

According to the NPR report, federal officials are concerned about how “temporary” this freeze will be, and if they will be allowed to release information they had already planned for this week. These concerns come at an urgent time — when public health experts have been advocating relentlessly for more surveillance around the current bird flu situation.

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“It is a major concern that amid an evolving situation with avian influenza in the U.S. that the CDC’s communications with physicians and local and state health departments is being constrained,” Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease and senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told Salon via email. “Real-time situational awareness is needed to be as proactive as possible with containing and recognizing the spread of H5N1 in the population.”

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As Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist and author of the newsletter Your Local Epidemiologist, explained in her recent newsletter, the scope of the pause is unusual to public health scientists.

“For example, CDC’s scientific publication, MMWR [Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report], wasn’t published yesterday,” Jetelina said in her newsletter. “It was the first time in 70 years this has happened, and it included three discoveries on the H5N1 (bird flu) outbreak — an active biosecurity threat to Americans.” ................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/01/25/as-bird-flu-rises-health-agencies-are-halting-external-communications-are-we-flying-blind/