DEVELOPING STORY:  Federal Health Agencies Go Silent

A de facto gag order has been placed on federal health officials in the wake of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, according to a memo distributed to agencies last week and obtained by the news media.

NPR published the memo in its entirety, sent Tuesday, Jan. 21 by acting U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Dorothy A. Fink, with a subject line of “Immediate Pause on Issuing Documents and Public Communications.”

“As the new Administration considers its plan for managing the federal policy and public communications processes, it is important that the President’s appointees and designees have the opportunity to review and approve any regulations, guidance documents, and other public documents and communications (including social media),” the memo read. “Therefore, at the direction of the new Administration and consistent with precedent, I am directing that you immediately take the following steps through February 1, 2025:

1. Refrain from sending any document intended for publication to the Office of the Federal Register until it has been reviewed and approved by a Presidential appointee. Please note that the Office of the Executive Secretary (Exec Sec) withdrew from OFR all documents that had not been published in the Federal Register to allow for such review and approval.

2. Refrain from publicly issuing any document (e.., regulation, guidance, notice, grant announcement) or communication (e.g., social media, websites, press releases, and communication using listservs) until it has been reviewed and approved by a Presidential appointee.

3. Refrain from participating in any public speaking engagement until the event and material have been reviewed and approved by a Presidential appointee.

4. Coordinate with Presidential appointees prior to issuing official correspondence to public officials (e.g., members of Congress, governors) or containing interpretations or statements of Department regulations or policy. Nothing in this guidance is intended to limit an employee’s personal correspondence with members of Congress or other third parties, including an employee’s whistleblower protected communications.

5. Notify Exec Sec promptly of any documents or communications that you believe should not be subject to the directives in paragraphs 1-4 because they are required by statute or litigation; affect critical health, safety, environmental, financial, or national security functions of the Department; or for some other reason. Please provide the title, a brief summary, the target release date, and the rationale for expedited release to your Exec Sec Policy Coordinator.”

NPR reported that Dr. Georges Benjamin, President of the American Public Health Association, said he was giving the HHS team that issued this memo “the benefit of the doubt that they’re simply trying to get their hands around the administration,” but added that he found the memo surprising and suggested it could create confusion.

“A source familiar with the directive said that while it wasn’t entirely unheard of for an incoming administration to ask for a pause to review information before it’s publicly released, the scope of the order appeared to be unusual,” CNN reported. “Another said there were no similar restrictions on communications issued at the beginning of the last two administrations, and said employees were fearful about their jobs.”

CNN noted that America’s health agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the National Institutes of health (NIH) “routinely release information on food recalls, drug and medical device approvals, as well as updates on evolving public health threats including natural disasters and infectious diseases.” Many of the agencies, the news outlet added, have been “closely tracking and reporting new information on the H5N1 bird flu outbreak, which is spreading in the nation’s poultry flocks and dairy cattle and among people who work with those animals.”

“Not a day goes by when CDC isn’t tracking a potential threat to our health,” Dr. Richard Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting director of the CDC, said in a statement published by CNN. “Right now they are letting us know about bird flu in cows, birds, and people. Every time there is an outbreak involving a food, they let us know how to avoid getting sick. They let us know where diseases are occurring around the world that could affect our health here or if we travel. Cutting off communications from CDC puts our health at risk and prevents our doctors, nurses, and public health leaders in our communities from doing their jobs. I urge the administration to quickly lift the pause.”

The news comes as Trump’s nominee for HHS Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., prepares to face the U.S. Senate Finance Committee for the first of two confirmation hearings.

“This is the most important hearing of all of Trump’s Cabinet picks,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, according to an article published Sunday by NBC News. “The HHS Secretary has enormous power over domestic health care, global health and directly oversees tens of thousands of scientists, doctors and nurses.”

A host of the nation’s leading medical experts have opined that RFK Jr.’s fluctuating and colorfully worded opinions about the efficacy of vaccines should be enough alone to disqualify him from consideration, notwithstanding a series of bizarre and widely reported incidents in his personal life ranging from his once dumping of a dead bear carcass in Manhattan’s Central Park to once cutting off the head of a whale that had washed up on a beach with a chainsaw. A BBC Report published last summer noted that he once said “I have so many skeletons in my closet that if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world.”

This is a developing story. More information will be reported as it becomes available.