Trump administration officials are touting greater control over the U.S. federal health department after the president’s inauguration this week. Stopping public communication And suddenly Cancellation of scientific meetings.
While the temporary communication hiatus is not entirely unusual as the new administration finds its footing, the orders come at a time of great concern for American scientists and public health workers.
Trump’s allies Demanded major restructuring. of scientific agencies during their expeditions; Trump has nominated one of the world’s The most important vaccine skepticismRobert F. Kennedy Jr., will lead the Department of Health, and the previous Trump administration had a track record of moving forward. Censor scientists.
“[The Department of Health and Human Services] (HHS) has issued a moratorium on mass communications and public exposures that are not directly related to an emergency or critical to health protection, a National Institutes of Health (NIH) spokeswoman said. State News In a statement
“This is a brief pause to allow the new team to establish a process for review and prioritization. There are exceptions for announcements that HHS divisions believe are mission critical, but they are will be done on a case by case basis.
Acting Health Secretary Dorothy Fink told staff that regulations, guidance, announcements, press releases, social media posts and website posts have been ordered to “immediately pause” until a political appointee. Communication should not be approved. Association Press.
HHS officials oversee the world’s largest public funding of biomedical and behavioral research at the NIH, the gold standard scientific review agency for drugs at the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (CDC) is the world’s largest public health authority. , and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, which provides or administers health insurance for 136 million Americans.
The department controls a nearly $1.8tn budget that helps keep Americans safe and makes America a world leader in scientific research.
The new administration has also broken with past precedent by failing to appoint an acting head of the CDC. Leaving a leadership vacuum At the agency tasked with protecting Americans from infectious disease outbreaks, CBS reported.
And, in just one example of notably absent scientific communication, the CDC has failed to send out the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, known in scientific and medical circles simply as the MMWR. The report details outbreaks and investigations by agency scientists, and is a resource for infectious disease managers nationally.
Along with the lack of communication, scientific meetings within the NIH were also canceled. These meetings are required by law to issue grant funding to research laboratories across the country, and cancellations can result in delays because grant funding advisors often have busy schedules. The NIH is the world’s largest public funder of biomedical and behavioral research, with a budget of approximately $47 billion.
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The new administration has also canceled meetings of the Vaccine Advisory Committee and the Antibiotic Resistance Committee. According to the stat.
Along with the pause in communications, the Senate is also considering Trump’s nominees for cabinet-level positions, with the potential for far-reaching health implications.
Trump’s nominee to run the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Russell T. Vote, has expressed support for work requirements in Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income Americans that covers 69 million people (including about 40 million children) are included.
Traditionally, the program has not included work requirements, which Research has shown Doesn’t result in more employment but manages to keep people out of social safety net programs because of heavy paperwork.
“It’s informed not only Medicaid, but other programs, to get people back into the workforce, to increase labor force participation, and to give people the dignity of work again,” he told members of the Senate Budget Committee. can be made.” gave The New York Times.
In the first Trump administration, officials approved programs to establish work requirements in 13 states — programs that were largely rescinded by the Biden administration. At the time, the Trump administration outlined a way to increase work requirements.Community engagement“
