Government “pause” on health agency communications may threaten public safety

It’s day three of the Trump administration and already government science seems under attack, with the so-called “pause” on health agency public communications first reported by the Washington Post.

The instructions, issued on Tuesday by the new administration to federal health agencies, are vaguely worded and appear to apply to all external communications, leaving federal workers confused about the scope. For an administration that has pledged transparency, it’s worth noting that the instructions for this pause are themselves not public. One key question is how the gag order will impact urgent communications, such as public health alerts issued by FDA and CDC during an outbreak of foodborne illness.

Americans depend on timely information from the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and other agencies to avoid foodborne illnesses like E. coli and Salmonella, and to navigate other health concerns. When it comes to stopping outbreaks, every second counts. Confusion around the vaguely worded gag order is likely to lead to unnecessary delay in publishing urgent public alerts during active outbreaks.

It’s hard not to miss the irony that while one new Trump executive order prohibits government censorship of social media, this “pause” seems to instruct the government to censor itself. In addition to outbreak notices, the pause might delay the publication of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), scheduled this week to include new studies on the H5N1 avian influenza virus outbreak.

During the first Trump administration political operatives were caught interfering with publication of COVID-19 information in the MMWR. If the MMWR indeed goes unpublished tomorrow we should be prepared for the aberrant behavior of the first Trump administration to become the standard operating procedures of the second.