Trump administration political appointees have taken steps in recent weeks to exert unprecedented influence over the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s flagship medical research publication, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, multiple federal health officials tell CBS News. The interference included dictating what to cover and withholding studies on the growing bird flu outbreak.
The Trump administration’s moves to control the research published by the agency ends a decades-long streak of independence for the journal, known as the MMWR.
Health officials and experts have long considered the MMWR as the “voice of CDC” and a respected source where federal scientists release research of public health importance. It ranks as among the most-cited health journals in the world.
“The MMWR has lost its autonomy,” one health official told CBS News.
Efforts by Trump officials to control the publication have stalled the release of three studies about bird flu for weeks, as the virus continues spreading through wild birds, poultry farms and cows around the country.
That delay was initially attributed to the communications “pause” ordered by the Department of Health and Human Services, which stalled many releases across the government.
Spokespeople for the CDC and HHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Trump officials initially said the gag order was needed for the administration to catch up in staffing its public relations team to oversee the vast amount of communications coming out of the nations’ federal health agencies.
But as that pause has started to lift, Trump officials at HHS, and acting CDC Director Susan Monarez, refused repeated requests by career health officials to publish the completed research, officials say.
The stalled research includes findings about pet cats owned by dairy workers being infected with bird flu, plus wastewater testing results and antibody testing of cow veterinarians.
Instead, health officials say Monarez relayed orders by the Trump administration to come up with research to publish this week about the health risks from wildfires, days after President Trump criticized California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom’s handling of fires in the state.
Federal scientists say they scrambled to find studies to comply with the order, which was unexpected and not related to any studies that had been scheduled to come out.
The research that was ultimately published looked at exposure to worrying chemicals for firefighters who responded to the 2023 wildfires in Hawaii and emergency room visits in Los Angeles during the wildfires.
Multiple health officials said they complied fearing their jobs. Scientists within the agency say they have been bombarded with daily requests to accept the “fork in the road” offer to resign by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, task force, headed by Elon Musk.
Glimpse at a study taken offline
A technical glitch resulted in a table from one of the bird flu studies accidentally being published on Thursday, before officials scrambled to take it down.
That bird flu study was supposed to lay out the details of an investigation into how two indoor cats could have contracted the virus. One of the cats’ owners was a dairy worker who transported unpasteurized raw milk, which health officials warn is one of the main ways that H5N1 bird flu virus is spreading between farms in the U.S.
Multiple federal health officials and outside experts have unsuccessfully lobbied the Trump administration to allow the publication to maintain its independence, citing the importance of allowing federal public health researchers to publish their findings without fearing political interference.
While researchers often have to jump through multiple hoops of “clearance” within the agency to satisfy questions and concerns raised by scientists and career health officials about the accuracy of their research, officials said political appointees usually steered clear of meddling in its content.
Now health officials fear that a precedent has been set for the Trump administration to cross further lines in its attempts to influence the research and data published by the CDC.
Previous efforts by Trump-appointed officials to exert control over the publication came under scrutiny during the COVID-19 pandemic, in Mr. Trump’s first term, after aides sought to influence reports at the time.
It is now unclear to co-authors of the bird flu research outside the agency when the research will ever be published, weeks after it was ready to go.
“The study is completed and was to be published in MMWR last month until the order from the new administration halted communication from CDC,” K. Fred Gingrich II, executive director of the American Association of Bovine Practitioners, said in an email.
The association had worked with Ohio’s health department and the CDC to sample the blood of veterinarians who treat cows at an annual conference late last year, looking for antibodies that would help answer an outstanding question: had bird flu cases infected veterinarians under the radar?
“I do not know when it will be allowed to be published,” said Gingrich.
