Silencing science: How Trump is reshaping U.S. health

by Issam AHMED

Medical researchers left to compile national data by hand, contraceptive guidelines deemed essential by doctors erased, and the nation's largest tuberculosis outbreak left unreported: President Donald Trump's administration has thrown the US health system into uncharted territory.

Here's a look at some of the biggest impacts.

- Key medical journal goes silent -

Within days of Trump taking office last month, the Health and Human Services Department imposed an indefinite "pause" on communications.

One of its first casualties was The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), a venerable epidemiological digest published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

For the first time in 60 years, the journal -- which once published the first case studies of what would become the AIDS crisis -- has missed two editions, with no word on when it will return.

"MMWR is the voice of science. The delay in publishing is dangerous," wrote former CDC director Tom Frieden on BlueSky.

Meanwhile, Jeremy Faust, a physician and Harvard instructor who runs the Inside Medicine Substack, reported that CDC scientists have been instructed to retract or pause all papers submitted to external journals to remove language deemed offensive -- including the word "gender."

- Critical resources for doctors scrubbed -

Doctors nationwide are reeling after the sudden removal of a CDC app that helped determine the suitability of contraceptives based on patients' medical history and medications.

Also deleted: Clinical Guidance for PrEP (a critical HIV-prevention tool), resources on intimate partner violence, and guidelines on LGBTQ+ behavioral health.

Some pages have been restored but now carry an ominous banner: "CDC's website is being modified to comply with President Trump's Executive Orders." Others remain missing, causing widespread confusion.

Jessica Valenti, a feminist author and founder of the Abortion Every Day Substack, has been archiving the deleted materials on CDCguidelines.com to preserve the original, inclusive versions.

"The hope is to have it be a resource for the people who need it," she told AFP, adding that even if documents are restored, words like "trans" may be scrubbed from them.

- Infectious outbreaks unreported -

As medical associations sound the alarm over the lack of federal health communication, outbreaks are slipping under the radar.

In Kansas City, Kansas, the largest tuberculosis outbreak in US history is unfolding with 67 active cases since 2024 -- yet no national health authority has reported on it.

"The National Medical Association (NMA) is calling for a swift resolution to the federal health communications freeze, which has the potential to exacerbate this outbreak and other public health threats," wrote the group, which represents African American physicians.

Similarly, a measles outbreak among unvaccinated schoolchildren in Texas has gone unreported at the national level.

Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist who studies influenza trends, wrote on her blog that she has resorted to manually tallying cases from all 50 state health departments because the CDC's central data repository has been taken down.

© Agence France-Presse