CDC

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“Lab leak” marketing page replaces federal hub for COVID resources

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After obliterating the federal office on long COVID and clawing back billions in COVID funding from state health departments, the Trump administration has now entirely erased the online hub for federal COVID-19 resources. In its place now stands a site promoting the unproven idea that the pandemic virus SARS-CoV-2 was generated in and leaked from a lab in China, sparking the global health crisis.

Navigating to COVID.gov brings up a slick site with rich content that lays out arguments and allegations supporting a lab-based origin of the pandemic and subsequent cover-up by US health officials and Democrats.

Previously, the site provided unembellished quick references to COVID-19 resources, including links to information on vaccines, testing, treatments, and long COVID. It also provided a link to resources for addressing COVID-19 vaccine misconceptions and confronting misinformation. That all appears to be gone now, though some of the same information still remains on a separate COVID-19 page hosted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While there remains no definitive answer on how the COVID-19 pandemic began, the scientific data available on the topic points to a spillover event from a live wild animal market in Wuhan, China. The scientific community largely sees this as the most likely scenario, given the data so far and knowledge of how previous outbreak viruses originated, including SARS-CoV-1. By contrast, the lab origin hypothesis largely relies on the proximity of a research lab to the first cases, conjecture, and distrust of the Chinese government, which has not been forthcoming with information on the early days of the health crisis. Overall, the question of SARS-CoV-2’s origin has become extremely politicized, as have most other aspects of the pandemic.

“Lab leak” marketing page replaces federal hub for COVID resources Read More »

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CDC struggling to fight raging measles outbreak after deep funding, staff cuts

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In now-rarified comments from experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an agency official on Tuesday evening said the explosive measles outbreak mushrooming out of West Texas will require “significant financial resources” to control and that the agency is already struggling to keep up.

“We are scrapping to find the resources and personnel needed to provide support to Texas and other jurisdictions,” said David Sugerman, the CDC’s lead on its measles team. The agency has been devastated by brutal cuts to CDC staff and funding, including a clawback of more than $11 billion in public health funds that largely went to state health departments.

Sugerman noted that the response to measles outbreaks is generally expensive. “The estimates are that each measles case can be $30,000 to $50,000 for public health response work—and that adds up quite quickly.” The costs go to various responses, including on-the-ground response teams, vaccine doses and vaccination clinics, case reporting, contact tracing, mitigation plans, infection prevention, data systems, and other technical assistance to state health departments.

In the past, the CDC would provide media briefings and other public comments on the responses to such an extraordinarily large and fast-moving outbreak. However, Sugerman’s comments are among the first publicly made by CDC experts under the current administration. He spoke about the outbreak at the very end of an all-day public meeting of the agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which discussed a broad range of vaccine and vaccine-preventable diseases over the course of the day.

The meeting was initially planned for February but was abruptly canceled and then rescheduled upon the Trump administration coming into office, including the new health secretary and longtime anti-vaccine advocate, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. But, despite concern for ACIP’s future, the meeting proceeded more or less as usual on Tuesday and continues today with additional topics. The last 30 minutes of yesterday’s agenda was set aside for an update on the measles outbreak.

“I find it absolutely devastating that we’re having this update today,” ACIP chair Keipp Talbot said at the outset of Sugerman’s update. “There’s no reason why we have healthy children dying of measles in the US when this vaccine is amazing,” Talbot said, referencing the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. “It’s highly effective and has very long-lasting immunity.” Two doses of MMR offer 97 percent protection against the virus, which is among the most infectious viruses known.

CDC struggling to fight raging measles outbreak after deep funding, staff cuts Read More »

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Autism rate rises slightly; RFK Jr. claims he’ll “have answers by September“

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Among the sites, there were large differences. Prevalence ranged from 9.7 per 1,000 children who were 8 years old in Texas (Laredo) to 53.1 in California. These differences are likely due to “differences in availability of services for early detection and evaluation and diagnostic practices,” the CDC and network researchers wrote.

For instance, California—the site with the highest prevalence among 8-year-olds and also 4-year-olds—has a local initiative called the Get SET Early model. “As part of the initiative, hundreds of local pediatricians have been trained to screen and refer children for assessment as early as possible, which could result in higher identification of ASD, especially at early ages,” the authors write. “In addition, California has regional centers throughout the state that provide evaluations and service coordination for persons with disabilities and their families.”

On the other hand, the low ASD rates at the network’s two Texas sites could “suggest lack of access or barriers to accessing identification services,” the authors say. The two Texas sites included primarily Hispanic and lower-income communities.

The newly revealed higher rates in some of the network’s underserved communities could link ASD prevalence to social determinants of health, such as low income and housing and food insecurity, the authors say. Other factors, such as higher rates of preterm birth, which is linked to neurodevelopmental disabilities, as well as lead poisoning and traumatic brain injuries, may also contribute to disparities.

Anti-vaccine voices

The detailed, data-heavy report stands in contrast to the position of health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine advocate who promotes the false and thoroughly debunked claim that autism is caused by vaccines. Last month, Kennedy hired the discredited anti-vaccine advocate David Geier to lead a federal study examining whether vaccines cause autism, despite numerous high-quality studies already finding no link between the two.

Geier, who has no medical or scientific background, has long worked with his father, Mark Geier, to promote the idea that vaccines cause autism. In 2011, Mark Geier was stripped of his medical license for allegedly mistreating children with autism, and David Geier was fined for practicing medicine without a license.

In a media statement Tuesday in response to the new report, Kennedy called autism an “epidemic” that is “running rampant.” He appeared to reference his planned study with Geier, saying: “We are assembling teams of world-class scientists to focus research on the origins of the epidemic, and we expect to begin to have answers by September.”

Autism rate rises slightly; RFK Jr. claims he’ll “have answers by September“ Read More »

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RFK Jr.‘s bloodbath at HHS: Blowback grows as losses become clearer

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Last week, Health Secretary and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the Trump administration would hack off nearly a quarter of employees at the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees critical agencies including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

The downsizing includes pushing out about 10,000 full-time employees through early retirements, deferred resignations, and other efforts. Another 10,000 will be laid off in a brutal restructuring, bringing the total HHS workforce from 82,000 to 62,000.

“This will be a painful period,” Kennedy said in a video announcement last week. Early yesterday morning, the pain began.

It begins

At the FDA—which will lose 3,500 employees, about 19 percent of staff—some employees learned they were being laid off from security guards after their badges no longer worked when they showed up to their offices, according to Stat. At CMS—which will lose 300 employees, about 4 percent—laid-off employees were instructed to file any discrimination complaints they may have with Anita Pinder, identified as the director of CMS’s Office of Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights. However, Pinder died last year, The Washington Post noted.

At the NIH—which is set to lose 1,200 employees, about 6 percent—new director Jay Bhattacharya sent and email to staff saying he would implement new policies “humanely,” while calling the layoffs a “significant reduction.” Five NIH institute directors and at least two other senior leaders have been ousted, in addition to hundreds of lower-level employees. Bhattacharya wrote that the remaining staff will have to find new ways to carry out “key NIH administrative functions, including communications, legislative affairs, procurement, and human resources.”

At CDC—which will lose 2,400 employees, about 18 percent—the cuts slashed employees working in chronic disease prevention, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV, tuberculosis, global health, environmental health, occupational safety and health, maternal and child health, birth defects, violence prevention, health equity, communications, and science policy.

Some leaders and workers at the CDC and NIH were reportedly reassigned or offered transfers to work at the Indian Health Services (IHS), an HHS division that provides medical and health services to Native American tribes. The transfers, which could require employees to move to a remote branch, are seen as another way to force workers out.

RFK Jr.‘s bloodbath at HHS: Blowback grows as losses become clearer Read More »

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The CDC buried a measles forecast that stressed the need for vaccinations

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ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

Leaders at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ordered staff this week not to release their experts’ assessment that found the risk of catching measles is high in areas near outbreaks where vaccination rates are lagging, according to internal records reviewed by ProPublica.

In an aborted plan to roll out the news, the agency would have emphasized the importance of vaccinating people against the highly contagious and potentially deadly disease that has spread to 19 states, the records show.

A CDC spokesperson told ProPublica in a written statement that the agency decided against releasing the assessment “because it does not say anything that the public doesn’t already know.” She added that the CDC continues to recommend vaccines as “the best way to protect against measles.”

But what the nation’s top public health agency said next shows a shift in its long-standing messaging about vaccines, a sign that it may be falling in line under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime critic of vaccines:

“The decision to vaccinate is a personal one,” the statement said, echoing a line from a column Kennedy wrote for the Fox News website. “People should consult with their healthcare provider to understand their options to get a vaccine and should be informed about the potential risks and benefits associated with vaccines.”

ProPublica shared the new CDC statement about personal choice and risk with Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health. To her, the shift in messaging, and the squelching of this routine announcement, is alarming.

“I’m a bit stunned by that language,” Nuzzo said. “No vaccine is without risk, but that makes it sound like it’s a very active coin toss of a decision. We’ve already had more cases of measles in 2025 than we had in 2024, and it’s spread to multiple states. It is not a coin toss at this point.”

For many years, the CDC hasn’t minced words on vaccines. It promoted them with confidence. One campaign was called “Get My Flu Shot.” The agency’s website told medical providers they play a critical role in helping parents choose vaccines for their children: “Instead of saying ‘What do you want to do about shots?,’ say ‘Your child needs three shots today.’”

Nuzzo wishes the CDC’s forecasters would put out more details of their data and evidence on the spread of measles, not less. “The growing scale and severity of this measles outbreak and the urgent need for more data to guide the response underscores why we need a fully staffed and functional CDC and more resources for state and local health departments,” she said.

Kennedy’s agency oversees the CDC and on Thursday announced it was poised to eliminate 2,400 jobs there.

When asked what role, if any, Kennedy played in the decision to not release the risk assessment, HHS’s communications director said the aborted announcement “was part of an ongoing process to improve communication processes—nothing more, nothing less.” The CDC, he reiterated, continues to recommend vaccination “as the best way to protect against measles.”

“Secretary Kennedy believes that the decision to vaccinate is a personal one and that people should consult with their healthcare provider to understand their options to get a vaccine,” Andrew G. Nixon said. “It is important that the American people have radical transparency and be informed to make personal healthcare decisions.”

Responding to questions about criticism of the decision among some CDC staff, Nixon wrote, “Some individuals at the CDC seem more interested in protecting their own status or agenda rather than aligning with this Administration and the true mission of public health.”

The CDC’s risk assessment was carried out by its Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics, which relied, in part, on new disease data from the outbreak in Texas. The CDC created the center to address a major shortcoming laid bare during the COVID-19 pandemic. It functions like a National Weather Service for infectious diseases, harnessing data and expertise to predict the course of outbreaks like a meteorologist warns of storms.

Other risk assessments by the center have been posted by the CDC even though their conclusions might seem obvious.

In late February, for example, forecasters analyzing the spread of H5N1 bird flu said people who come “in contact with potentially infected animals or contaminated surfaces or fluids” faced a moderate to high risk of contracting the disease. The risk to the general US population, they said, was low.

In the case of the measles assessment, modelers at the center determined the risk of the disease for the general public in the US is low, but they found the risk is high in communities with low vaccination rates that are near outbreaks or share close social ties to those areas with outbreaks. The CDC had moderate confidence in the assessment, according to an internal Q&A that explained the findings. The agency, it said, lacks detailed data about the onset of the illness for all patients in West Texas and is still learning about the vaccination rates in affected communities as well as travel and social contact among those infected. (The H5N1 assessment was also made with moderate confidence.)

The internal plan to roll out the news of the forecast called for the expert physician who’s leading the CDC’s response to measles to be the chief spokesperson answering questions. “It is important to note that at local levels, vaccine coverage rates may vary considerably, and pockets of unvaccinated people can exist even in areas with high vaccination coverage overall,” the plan said. “The best way to protect against measles is to get the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine.”

This week, though, as the number of confirmed cases rose to 483, more than 30 agency staff were told in an email that after a discussion in the CDC director’s office, “leadership does not want to pursue putting this on the website.”

The cancellation was “not normal at all,” said a CDC staff member who spoke anonymously for fear of reprisal with layoffs looming. “I’ve never seen a rollout plan that was canceled at that far along in the process.”

Anxiety among CDC staff has been building over whether the agency will bend its public health messages to match those of Kennedy, a lawyer who founded an anti-vaccine group and referred clients to a law firm suing a vaccine manufacturer.

During Kennedy’s first week on the job, HHS halted the CDC campaign that encouraged people to get flu shots during a ferocious flu season. On the night that the Trump administration began firing probationary employees across the federal government, some key CDC flu webpages were taken down. Remnants of some of the campaign webpages were restored after NPR reported this.

But some at the agency felt like the new leadership had sent a message loud and clear: When next to nobody was paying attention, long-standing public health messages could be silenced.

On the day in February that the world learned that an unvaccinated child had died of measles in Texas, the first such death in the U.S. since 2015, the HHS secretary downplayed the seriousness of the outbreak. “We have measles outbreaks every year,” he said at a cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump.

In an interview on Fox News this month, Kennedy championed doctors in Texas who he said were treating measles with a steroid, an antibiotic and cod liver oil, a supplement that is high in vitamin A. “They’re seeing what they describe as almost miraculous and instantaneous recovery from that,” Kennedy said.

As parents near the outbreak in Texas stocked up on vitamin A supplements, doctors there raced to assure parents that only vaccination, not the vitamin, can prevent measles.

Still, the CDC added an entry on Vitamin A to its measles website for clinicians.

On Wednesday, CNN reported that several hospitalized children in Lubbock, Texas, had abnormal liver function, a likely sign of toxicity from too much vitamin A.

Texas health officials also said that the Trump administration’s decision to rescind $11 billion in pandemic-related grants across the country will hinder their ability to respond to the growing outbreak, according to The Texas Tribune.

Measles is among the most contagious diseases and can be dangerous. About 20 percent of unvaccinated people who get measles wind up in the hospital. And nearly 1 to 3 of every 1,000 children with measles will die from respiratory and neurologic complications. The virus can linger in the air for two hours after an infected person has left an area, and patients can spread measles before they even know they have it.

This week Amtrak said it was notifying customers that they may have been exposed to the disease this month when a passenger with measles rode one of its trains from New York City to Washington, DC.

The CDC buried a measles forecast that stressed the need for vaccinations Read More »

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“This will be a painful period”: RFK Jr. slashes 24% of US health dept.

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Health Secretary and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is slashing a total of 20,000 jobs across the Department of Health and Human Services—or about 24 percent of the workforce—in a sweeping overhaul said to improve efficiency and save money, Kennedy and the HHS announced Thursday.

Combining workforce losses from early retirement, the “Fork in the Road” deferred resignation deal, and 10,000 positions axed in the reductions and restructuring announced today, HHS will shrink from 82,000 full-time employees to 62,000 under Kennedy and the Trump administration. The HHS’s 28 divisions will be cut down to 15, while five of the department’s 10 regional offices will close.

“This will be a painful period,” Kennedy said in a video announcement posted on social media. Calling the HHS a “sprawling bureaucracy,” Kennedy claimed that the cuts would be aimed at “excess administrators.”

“I want to promise you now that we are going to do more with less,” he said in the video.

Kennedy and HHS said the cuts will save $1.8 billion each year. That’s about 0.027 percent of total federal spending, based on the $6.75 trillion the government spent in 2024, and about 0.06 percent of the $2.8 trillion HHS budget for that year.

The downsizing announced today includes significant cuts to the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health.

Cuts upon cuts

The FDA will lose 3,500 employees, which The Wall Street Journal reported was about 19 percent of its staff. HHS did not provide current staff levels at the agency level or percentage cuts. The CDC, which will absorb the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), will lose 2,400 employees (1,400 from CDC and 1,000 from ASPR). The Journal reported that to be about 18 percent of the total workforce. NIH will lose 1,200 employees, about 6 percent of its workers.

“This will be a painful period”: RFK Jr. slashes 24% of US health dept. Read More »

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RFK Jr. claws back $11.4B in CDC funding amid wave of top-level departures

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Those departures follow Kevin Griffis, head of the CDC’s office of communications, who left last week; Robin Bailey, the agency’s chief operating officer, left late last month; and Nirav Shah, a former CDC principal deputy director.

Pulled funding

Meanwhile, NBC News reported this afternoon that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is pulling back $11.4 billion in funding from the agency, which it allocated to state and local health departments as well as partners.

NBC reported that the funds were largely used for COVID-19 testing and vaccination, and to support community health workers and initiatives that address pandemic health disparities among high-risk and underserved populations, such as rural communities and minority populations. The funds also supported global COVID-19 projects.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago,” HHS Director of Communications Andrew Nixon said in a statement. “HHS is prioritizing funding projects that will deliver on President Trump’s mandate to address our chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again.”

State health departments told NBC News that they’re still evaluating the impact of the withdrawn funding. On Monday, some grantees received notices that read: “Now that the pandemic is over, the grants and cooperative agreements are no longer necessary as their limited purpose has run out.”

Since the public health emergency for COVID-19 was declared over in the US on May 11, 2023, over 92,000 Americans died from the pandemic virus, according to CDC data. In total, the pandemic killed over 1.2 million in the US.

RFK Jr. claws back $11.4B in CDC funding amid wave of top-level departures Read More »

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US measles outlook is so bad health experts call for updating vaccine guidance

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With measles declared eliminated from the US in 2000 and national herd immunity strong, health experts have recommended that American children get two doses of the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine—the first between the ages of 12 and 15 months and the second between the ages of 4 and 6 years, before they start school.

Before 12 months, vulnerable infants in the US have been protected in part by maternal antibodies early in infancy as well as the immunity of the people surrounding them. But if they travel to a place where population immunity is unreliable, experts recommend that infants ages 6 to 11 months get an early dose—then follow it up with the standard two doses at the standard times, bringing the total to three doses.

The reason they would need three—and the reason experts typically recommend waiting until 12 months—is because the maternal antibodies infants carry can interfere with the vaccine response, preventing the immune system from mounting long-lasting protection. Still, the early dose provides boosted protection in that 6-to-11-month interval.

In the past, this early, extra dose was recommended for infants traveling internationally—to countries that hadn’t achieved America’s enviable level of herd immunity and were vulnerable to outbreaks. But now, with US vaccination rates slipping, herd immunity becoming spotty, cases rising by the day, and outbreaks simmering in multiple states, the US is no longer different from far-off places that struggle with the extremely infectious virus.

In an article published today in JAMA, prominent health experts—including former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky—call for the US to update its MMR recommendations to include the early, extra dose for infants who are not only traveling abroad, but domestically, to any areas where measles is a concern.

“With some local immunization levels inadequate to avert outbreaks and ongoing disease spread in various regions of the country, a dichotomy between domestic and international travel is not appropriate,” the experts write. “For many travel itineraries, there may even be a higher risk of measles exposure at the US point of departure than at the international destinations.”

Vaccinating at-risk infants early is critical to their own health—as well as the people around them, the experts note. “[I]nfants younger than one year face a heightened risk of severe measles-related complications such as pneumonia, encephalitis, and death. Younger infants are also at increased risk of developing subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE), a rare measles complication that has a high fatality rate and may surface years after initial infection,” according to the experts.

US measles outlook is so bad health experts call for updating vaccine guidance Read More »

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Doctors report upticks in severe brain dysfunction among kids with flu

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Doctors around the US have anecdotally reported an uptick of children critically ill with the flu developing severe, life-threatening neurological complications, which can be marked by seizures, delirium, hallucinations, decreased consciousness, lethargy, personality changes, and abnormalities in brain imaging.

It’s long been known that the seasonal flu can cause such devastating complications in some children, many with no underlying medical conditions. But doctors have begun to suspect that this year’s flu season—the most severe in over 15 years—has taken a yet darker turn for children. On February 14, for instance, health officials in Massachusetts released an advisory for clinicians to be on alert for neurological complications in pediatric flu patients after detecting a “possible increase.”

With the anecdata coming in, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed all the data it has on neurological complications from flu this year and seasons dating back to 2010. Unfortunately, existing surveillance systems for flu do not capture neurological complications in pediatric cases overall—but they do capture such detailed clinical data when a child dies of flu.

An analysis of that data, published today in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, can’t definitively say that this year is out of the norm. For one thing, the flu season is not yet over. But the data so far does suggest it may be one of the more severe seasons in the last 15 years.

Specifically, the CDC received reports of a severe neurological complication called influenza-associated acute necrotizing encephalopathy (ANE). ANE is a severe form of the more general category of influenza-associated encephalopathy or encephalitis (IAE), meaning brain dysfunction or inflammation from the flu.

When a child dies of the flu, clinicians are required to fill out a standardized case report form from the CDC, which collects a large variety of data, including complications. Encephalopathy or encephalitis are included as a checkbox on the form.

Between 2010 and February 8, 2025, 1,840 children died of the flu. Of those, 166 had IAE checked off as a complication. IAE was most prevalent in children aged 2 to 4 but affected children in all age groups under 18. More than half of the cases (54 percent) had no underlying medical conditions, and most (80 percent) were unvaccinated against the flu.

Doctors report upticks in severe brain dysfunction among kids with flu Read More »

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RFK Jr. promptly cancels vaccine advisory meeting, pulls flu shot campaign

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Indefinite changes

Stat asked the HHS specifically about the Wild to Mild campaign as well as promotional campaigns for other vaccines, but an HHS spokesperson puzzlingly responded with a statement saying: “No, the CDC was not told to take down the flu vaccination campaign webpage,” which wasn’t what the outlet had asked about.

The statement went on to say: “Unfortunately, officials inside the CDC who are averse to Secretary Kennedy and President Trump’s agenda seem to be intentionally falsifying and misrepresenting guidance they receive.” NPR received the same statement.

Meanwhile on Thursday, The Washington Post reported that the HHS told the CDC to indefinitely postpone a meeting of its vaccine advisory committee (the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP), which Kennedy has criticized. ACIP, comprised of independent experts, meets regularly to review and discuss vaccine safety and efficacy data and vote on recommendations.

ACIP was previously scheduled to meet February 26 to 28 to discuss a large number of vaccines, including those against meningitis, influenza, RSV, chikungunya, HPV, mpox, pneumococcal infections, Lyme disease, COVID-19, and CMV. An HHS spokesperson told the Post that the meeting was “postponed to accommodate public comment in advance of the meeting,” but there is no rescheduled date.

Leading medical experts and organizations, such as the American Medical Association, quickly sent a joint letter urging Kennedy to preserve the meeting. “Each ACIP meeting holds tremendous weight and relevance,” the letter states. ‘Infectious diseases are constantly evolving opponents; vaccines are among the best tools for constantly adapting and responding to the latest public health threats. … Making America healthy requires healthy discussion and timely, evidence-based decisions. This meeting should be no different.”

But, also on Thursday, Politico reported that Kennedy is preparing to remove ACIP members. And, the AP noted earlier that during a speech to HHS employees on Tuesday, Kennedy vowed to investigate the CDC’s childhood vaccine schedule, despite assuring senators prior to his confirmation that he would not make changes to it.

RFK Jr. promptly cancels vaccine advisory meeting, pulls flu shot campaign Read More »

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“The country is less safe”: CDC disease detective program gutted

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The cadre of elite disease detectives at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to be left in ruin today as the Trump administration continues to slash the federal workforce.

Many members of the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service, EIS—a globally revered public health training program—were informed earlier Friday that they were about to be fired, according to reporting from Stat News. Multiple sources told CBS News that half of EIS officers are among the ongoing cuts.

The Trump administration is ousting thousands of probationary federal workers in a wide-scale effort to dramatically slim agencies.

The EIS is a two-year program filled with competitively selected, highly educated and trained experts. EIS officers are the ones deployed in critical public health situations, such as deadly outbreaks or bioterror attacks. The program has a long, rich history since its establishment in 1951, which includes contributing to the eradication of smallpox, among other achievements.

The deep cuts to the program have horrified those in the public health sphere.

“The country is less safe,” Dr. Anne Schuchat, a former top-ranking CDC official and alumna of the program, told CBS News. “These are the deployable assets critical for investigating new threats, from anthrax to Zika.”

“It’s almost beyond belief,” former CDC director Bill Foege told Stat. He noted that the EIS trainees were critical to stopping the spread of the disastrous West Africa Ebola outbreak of 2014–2016.

The cuts to EIS are just some of those that CDC is facing. CBS News reports that around 1,270 are being cut from the agency, which is around 10 percent of its staff.

“The country is less safe”: CDC disease detective program gutted Read More »

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H5N1 testing in cow veterinarians suggests bird flu is spreading silently

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Three veterinarians who work with cows have tested positive for prior infections of H5 bird flu, according to a study released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The finding may not seem surprising, given the sweeping and ongoing outbreak of H5N1 among dairy farms in the US, which has reached 968 herds in 16 states and led to infections in 41 dairy workers. However, it is notable that none of the three veterinarians were aware of being infected, and none of them worked with cows that were known or suspected to be infected with H5N1. In fact, one of them only worked in Georgia and South Carolina, two states where H5N1 infections in dairy cows and humans have never been reported.

The findings suggest that the virus may be moving in animals and people silently, and that our surveillance systems are missing infections—both long-held fears among health experts.

The authors of the study, led by researchers at the CDC, put the takeaway slightly differently, writing: “These findings suggest the possible benefit of systematic surveillance for rapid identification of HPAI A(H5) virus in dairy cattle, milk, and humans who are exposed to cattle to ensure appropriate hazard assessments.”

H5N1 testing in cow veterinarians suggests bird flu is spreading silently Read More »