By Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO (Reuters) – U.S. health agencies including the CDC this week canceled meetings with external groups, paused some public health publications and told employees to freeze travel after directives from the Department of Health and Human Services, two sources familiar with the situation said.
On Wednesday, a state/federal call scheduled for Thursday involving states affected by H5N1 bird flu in dairy cattle and other animals was canceled, one of the sources said. It also postponed a training session for public health practitioners, the source said.
The source said the H5N1 bird flu calls occur on a regular schedule, and was aware only that the Thursday session, which was designated a “One Health” call involving both human and animal health issues, was canceled.
Presidential transitions often involve some pause in communications but the source characterized the current scope as broad.
South Dakota’s state veterinarian Beth Thompson confirmed that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday canceled an upcoming, regularly scheduled call with state veterinarians that would normally focus on bird flu. “There was no reason given,” she said.
However, the U.S. Department of Agriculture did hold a regularly scheduled call on Wednesday on tracing the location of diseased or at-risk animals through its Veterinary Services program, Thompson said.
Scientists and public health officials are growing increasingly concerned about the spread of H5N1 bird flu, which has infected nearly 70 people in the U.S. since April. Most cases have been mild and occurred in farm workers, according to the CDC.
Earlier this month, however, the United States reported its first death from bird flu after an older person was exposed to a combination of backyard chickens and wild birds.
The cancellations followed a memo from acting HHS Secretary Dorothy Fink seen by Reuters that called for an immediate pause on issuing documents and public communications, including on any speaking engagements until the material has been reviewed and approved by a presidential appointee.
The pause is intended to extend through Feb. 1.
HHS said in a statement that its pause was for public communications not directly related to emergencies or critical to preserving health, and said exceptions for mission critical communications would be made on a case-by-case basis.
A travel ban directive was sent in a Jan. 21 memo to financial officers and travel officials within all operating divisions of HHS, including the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and the CDC, according to an HHS official who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
The travel ban is in effect until further notice, according to the HHS official, who read portions of the memo to Reuters.
It specifies that any speaking engagements that had been accepted prior to Jan. 20 must be canceled.
Travel is only authorized for people who have already departed on an official trip, and the traveler must return to the original point of departure.
Employees from the Indian Health Service are exempted from the suspension.
While a few health communications have been issued since the ban – the FDA on Wednesday put out details of a new safety warning on a drug, for instance – others were canceled.
FIRST PAUSE SINCE 1960
The CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly report, or MMWR, which includes scientific reports from the agency and outside scientists, was not published on Thursday as planned. HHS did not comment on when publication would resume.
In a post on X, former CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden said the MMWR, which is used to inform health officials about emerging threats, had been published weekly without pause since 1960. Delays in its publication put Americans’ health at risk, Frieden said.
Dr. Jeremy Faust, a Boston-based emergency physician and author of the Inside Medicine newsletter published on the Substack platform, said the NIH was told to halt the process that approves funding for new scientific and medical research, citing an email shown to him by an NIH official.
The memo noted that all such advisory meetings had been canceled, but noted that such work would be rescheduled.
(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen and Tom Polansek in Chicago; editing by Caroline Humer and Bill Berkrot)
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