CDC Journal Resumes Publication, but Without H5N1 Studies

The CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) resumed publishing after an unprecedented 2-week hiatus, but without the three H5N1 avian influenza papers that were slated to publish on Jan. 23.

A CDC spokesperson told MedPage Today that these papers “are still in the pipeline” but they did not have a confirmed publication date.

One of the studies discussed whether veterinarians who have been treating cattle infected with the virus became infected themselves, according to KFF Health News. Another documented cases of people with the virus potentially infecting their pet cats, the outlet reported.

The 2-week pause in publishing was the first time in MMWR‘s more than 60-year history that it did not go out as scheduled. It has even published during government shutdowns after being put together by a skeleton crew, a former CDC employee previously told MedPage Today.

The delay is due to a communications pause at federal health agencies issued by the Trump administration that went into effect on Tuesday, Jan. 21 and was supposed to end on Feb. 1. It applied to public communications including press releases, social media posts, and websites, as well as anything intended to be published in the Federal Register.

Thursday’s MMWR contained two studies on the health effects of the 2023 wildfires in Hawaii and recent wildfires in Los Angeles.

The hold-up of the H5N1 papers comes amid new developments with the virus. On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced that the more severe genotype of the virus that had only been detected in birds, D1.1, had now been detected in dairy cattle. Previously, all dairy herd detections involved the B3.13 genotype, which appeared to be associated with more mild disease.

And last week, the World Organization for Animal Health announced that another subtype of avian influenza, H5N9, was detected in the U.S. for the first time — on a duck farm in California where the H5N1 subtype had also been detected. Virologists raised concerns that such an event could lead to reassortant viruses.

“The bottom line is every day the publication is delayed, doctors, nurses, hospitals, local health departments, and first responders are behind the information curve and less prepared to protect the health of all Americans,” Tom Frieden, MD, MPH, who served as CDC director from 2009 to 2017 and is now president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, previously told MedPage Today.

The missing H5N1 papers are set on a backdrop of a number of Trump administration policies — particularly diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) mandates — that have made things difficult for CDC workers. For instance, web pages related to DEI issues were scrubbed from the CDC’s website last week — though some have returned — and CDC researchers were directed to pull articles that were under consideration at journals in order to edit out words relating to gender.

Please enable JavaScript to view the

comments powered by Disqus.