How well is the CDC communicating about infectious diseases these days? An NPR analysis suggests that this public health agency has cut back on infectious disease info and alerts to health professionals.
Is Infectious Disease Info Part of the CDC’s Mission?
CDC (the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) sees itself as the nation’s premiere health promotion, disease prevention and preparedness agency. In the past, it has worked at achieving the goal of health education and guidance through public communication of health risks and how to avoid them.
In the past few months, however, it has cut back on the newsletters distributed to health professionals. There has also been a dramatic reduction in social media outreach. The NPR reporter was told that staff cutbacks, especially in the communications section of the CDC, have affected the organization’s ability to respond promptly to infectious threats such as listeria or salmonella. Some viruses threatening the public health include measles and influenza A/H5N1 (bird flu). However, as ProPublica has reported, CDC’s infectious disease info on measles has been hard to find despite an ongoing outbreak in numerous states.
We know that many visitors to this website do not trust the CDC ever since COVID entered the US. We too have criticized this agency for lots of reasons. But cutting back on communications to health professionals about infectious threats such as listeria or salmonella does not make sense to us. We need highly trained epidemiologists alerting public health personnel to outbreaks in a timely fashion.
Is Vaccine Messaging the Problem?
In addition to understaffing, the CDC may be wrestling with a policy shift. For decades, the agency has worked to promote vaccination against infections such as measles and influenza. The measles information that ProPublica had such trouble finding included recommendations for preventing the disease with vaccination, a message that is now unpopular with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Mr. Kennedy caused confusion and some consternation recently with a minute-long video announcing a change in COVID-19 vaccination policy. Until very recently, the CDC recommended vaccination against this infection for pregnant women. That is because women are far more susceptible to severe illness and complications from COVID-19 when they are pregnant. In addition, the newborns of vaccinated mothers also have a degree of protection. On May 27, 2025, Mr. Kennedy announced that HHS no longer stands by this recommendation. Pregnant women and their doctors are now wondering what to make of this reversal. Another HHS official, Dr. Vinay Prasad, was critical of COVID-19 vaccines prior to his appointment as Director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.
We will wait to see how the CDC handles infectious disease info that has no vaccination component.
