Trump Administration Puts Immediate Pause on FDA, CDC, and HHS Reports and Posts

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta on April 23, 2020. (Tami Chappell/AFP via Getty Images

The Trump administration’s has placed a freeze on many federal health agency communications with the public until at least the end of the month.

In a Jan. 21 memo, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Acting Secretary Dorothy Fink told agency staff officials that an “immediate pause” had been ordered on announcements, press releases, social media posts, regulations, and guidance until those communications were approved by an appointee.

Agencies that are affected include HHS-supervised agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and many others. The pause is in effect through Feb. 1, according to the memo.

The pause announced by Fink includes anything that may be published in the Federal Register as well as in the CDC’s publication, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which offers studies and alerts on a range of health-related subject matter. Nothing has been published in the CDC publication since Jan. 16, or four days before President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Fink said in the memo that some exceptions would be made for communications that affect “critical health, safety, environmental, financial or nation security functions.” However, such statements would have to be reviewed beforehand, she said.

On Jan. 21, the FDA posted notices about warning letters sent to companies. The CDC, meanwhile, posted several news releases, announcements, and research papers on its website on Jan. 21 and Jan. 22.

Fink, an endocrinologist and career civil servant who had led the HHS Office on Women’s Health, was selected by Trump as his interim HHS secretary on the afternoon of Jan. 20, according to a notice published by the White House. She will remain in that position until Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the president’s choice to lead the agency, is confirmed by the Senate.

Hearings for Kennedy, formerly an independent presidential candidate before dropping out and endorsing Trump last year, will start in the Senate as soon as the paperwork is sent to the upper chamber, a senator from Louisiana confirmed to local media outlets.

“I’m told the paperwork might come today, at which point we can schedule the hearings,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) told the Shreveport Times on Jan. 21.

Long a critic of certain vaccines, Kennedy has endorsed a Trump-related slogan, “Make America Healthy Again,” while Trump said at a pre-election rally in New York City that he would have Kennedy “go wild” on U.S. health agencies. During a conference last year, Kennedy said that he wanted to fire 600 people working at the NIH, which oversees vaccine research, and replace them with 600 new hires.

“We need to act fast, and we want to have those people in place on Jan. 20, so that on Jan. 21, 600 people are going to walk into offices at NIH and 600 people are going to leave,” Kennedy said.

To lead the CDC, Trump has chosen former Florida Republican Rep. Dave Weldon, a medical doctor. Trump also selected Johns Hopkins surgeon Marty Makary to lead the FDA.

The Epoch Times contacted the FDA, CDC, and HHS for additional comment on Jan. 22.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.