The Trump administration of the weekly scientific report of CDC stalls the studies of influenza birds

The Trump administration intervened in the release of important studies on the bird flu, while an epidemic degenerates in the United States.

One of the studies would reveal whether the veterinarians who treat cattle have been infected without knowing it by the bird flu virus. Another report documents the cases in which people carrying the virus could have infects their cat cats.

Studies were to appear in the Official Journal of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the weekly ratio of morbidity and mortality. The Distinguished Journal has been published without interruption since 1952.

His scientific reports were swept away in an “immediate break” on communications by federal health agencies commanded by Dorothy Fink, interim secretary of the Ministry of Health and Social Services. The Mémo de Fink covers “any document intended for publication,” she wrote, “until he was revised and approved by a presidential man”. He was sent on the first full day of President Donald Trump.

It is worrying, said former CDC officials, because a firewall has long existed between scientific reports from the agency and people appointed politicians.

“MMWR is the voice of science,” said Tom Frieden, former CDC director and CEO of non -profit organization resolves to save lives.

“This idea that science cannot continue as long as there is a political objective on it is unprecedented,” said Anne Schuhat, former main assistant director of the CDC. “I hope it will be very short duration, but if it is not short -lived, it is censorship.”

The managers of the White House got involved in scientific studies on COVID-19 during the first Trump administration, according to interviews and emails collected in a 2022 report with convention investigators. However, the MMWR came out as expected.

“What is happening now is quite different from what we have experienced in Covid, because there was no stop in the MMWR and other scientific manuscripts,” said Schuhat.

Neither the White House nor HHS officials responded to requests for comments. CDC spokesperson Melissa Dibble said: “This is a short break to allow the new team to set up a revision and prioritization process.”

The news of the interruption suddenly struck last week, as was Fred Gingrich, executive director of the American Association of Bovine Practitioners, a group of veterinarians specializing in cattle medicine, was preparing to hold a webinar with members. He planned to disclose the results of a study he helped to direct, provided for the publication in the MMWR later this week. In September, around 150 members answered questions and gave blood for the study. CDC researchers have analyzed the samples of antibodies against the bird flu virus, to find out if the veterinarians had been infected without knowing it earlier last year.

Although it is too late to treat previous cases, the study has promised to help scientists understand how the virus spreads from cows to people, what symptoms it causes and how to prevent infection. “Our members were very happy to hear the results,” said Gingrich.

Like agricultural workers, livestock veterinarians are at risk of bird flu infections. Study results could help protect them. And having fewer infections would reduce the chances that the H5N1 bird flu virus is evolving within a person to propagate effectively between people – the gateway to a bird flu pandemic.

At least 67 people were tested positive for the bird flu in the United States, the majority obtaining the virus of cows or poultry. But studies and reports suggest that many cases have remained not detected because the tests have been uneven.

Just before the webinar, said Gingrich, the CDC informed it that because of an HHS order, the agency could not publish the report last week or communicate its conclusions. “We had to cancel,” he said.

Another study on bird flu that should be published in the MMWR last week concerns the possibility that people working in the Michigan dairy industry have infected their pets. These cases were partly revealed last year in the emails obtained by Kff Health News. In an email of July 22, an epidemiologist pushed to publish the group’s investigation to “inform others on the potential for indirect animals”.

Jennifer Morse, medical director of the Mid-Michigan district health department and scientist of the current study, said that she had obtained a colleague’s note last week by saying that “there are delays in Our publication – out of our control ”.

A person close to the CDC, speaking on condition of anonymity due to concerns about reprisals, expected the MMWR to be at least on February 6. February 1.

“It’s surprising,” said Frieden. He added that it would become dangerous if the reports are not restored. “It would be the equivalent to discover that your local fire service has been invited not to bring to any fire alarm,” he said.

In addition to publishing studies, MMWR maintains the country up to date on epidemics, poisoning and maternal mortality, and provides cancer surveillance data, heart disease, HIV and other diseases. The delay or manipulation of reports could harm Americans by slowing the American government’s ability to detect and slow down health threats, said Frieden.

The frost is also a reminder of how the first Trump administration interfered with CDC reports on COVID, revealed in detailed email in 2022 by congress investigators with the chamber subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis. This survey revealed that people appointed politicians in HHS have changed or delayed the publication of five reports and tried to control several others in 2020.

In one case, Paul Alexander, then scientific advisor to HHS, criticized a July 2020 report on an epidemic of coronavirus in a Georgia summer camp in an email to MMWR publishers, which was disclosed in the Congress investigation. “He simply sends the bad message as written and reads in fact to send a message not to reopen,” he wrote. Although the report data remained the same, the CDC deleted the remarks on the implications of the results of the schools.

Later that year, Alexander sent an email to the spokesman for the time, Michael Caputo, citing this and another example of his grip on reports: “Small victory but a victory nevertheless and Yippee !!! “

Schuchat, who was at the CDC at the time, said that she had never experienced such attempts to run or influence the agency’s scientific relationships in more than three decades with the agency. She hopes it will not happen again. “MMWR cannot become a political instrument,” she said.

Gingrich hopes that the veterinary study will be released soon. “We are an apolitical organization,” he said. “Maintaining open communication and continuous research with our federal partners is essential because we fight this epidemic.”

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