Health officials are questioning President Donald Trump’s direction to suspend all external communication from various health agencies housed in the Department of Health and Human Services.
Staff members at agencies inside HHS, including officials at the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and National Institutes of Health, received the order to halt all public communication and reports earlier this week. The pause in communications extends through Feb. 1.
The Trump administration has since defended the decision to pause all public communication.
“HHS has issued a pause on mass communications and public appearances that are not directly related to emergencies or critical to preserving health. This is a short pause to allow the new team to set up a process for review and prioritization,” HHS said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “There are exceptions for announcements that HHS divisions believe are mission-critical, but they will be made on a case-by-case basis.”
Stefanie Spear, a deputy chief of staff at HHS who joined the agency this week, gave the order. She most recently worked as the press secretary for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during his 2024 presidential campaign. Kennedy is Trump’s pick to lead the agency but awaits Senate hearings and a confirmation vote before assuming the role.
Some health officials told the Washington Post that they had been approved to post data updates that were considered mission-critical, such as case counts of bird flu.
However, all travel related to health agencies has been canceled.
Victoria Seewaldt, chairwoman of population sciences at City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center, was scheduled to lead an NIH study session on Thursday, but it was canceled. She was not given guidance on when it would be rescheduled.
The session was scheduled to review grants focused on cancers and other chronic illnesses. Seewaldt told the Washington Post that there is no precedent for the pause.
“Everything is basically in chaos. And frankly, everyone is terrified,” Seewaldt said. “We’ve never seen anything like this. This is like a meteor just crashed into all of our cancer centers and research areas.”
The CDC canceled its monthly call scheduled for Monday with the entire clinical laboratory community, including lab leaders, pathologists, and laboratory scientists across the country. These calls are typically used to share updates about emerging threats and testing changes.
“It is hard to imagine a worse time to prohibit federal officials from communicating directly with the clinical laboratory community and the public health workforce,” a laboratory leader said. “Viruses don’t care who the CDC director or HHS secretary is, or what spin newly appointed political leadership want to put on their agencies’ efforts.”
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Many health agencies in the United States have been tracking the H5N1 bird flu outbreak, which has been spreading increasingly in recent weeks across the country. It has spread to commercial poultry and dairy plants and those who work with animals. Last week, Georgia shut down all of the state’s poultry farms after the state documented the first case of bird flu at a commercial operation.
The first human death of bird flu was recorded in Louisiana earlier this month.