‘Uncertainty’ for Michigan health officials amid Trump messaging blackout

• The nation’s agencies responsible for tracking disease, food-borne illnesses, and other public health threats, are under orders to suspend all communications
• A memo noted that the order extends to Saturday, and it makes exceptions for ‘critical’ threats
• Already, at least one weekly report — in a series that dates to the 1930s — appears to have been stopped just before release

The temporary blackout on public communications from the nation’s top health organizations has cast a shadow of uncertainty over Michigan’s 45 health departments, network of hospitals and research universities but so far has not disrupted operations, officials tell Bridge. 

That’s after Dorothy A. Fink, acting secretary of the US Health and Human Services issued a memo Tuesday halting any public communications by HHS agencies. 

Those communications are suspended until “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,)” according to the memo.

HHS is made up of 13 divisions — 10 focused on public health, including US Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health. Another three focus on human services. The memo also prohibits employees from public speaking “until the event and material have been reviewed and approved by a Presidential appointee.”

Several news reports say it’s not unusual for a new administration to issue a very brief pause over such releases. The Biden administration also closely watched certain communications about COVID-19, according to the Washington Post, which originally reported on the Fink memo.

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Moreover, the memo appears to offer an exception for communications that affect “critical health, safety, environmental, financial, or national security functions,” said Norm Hess, executive director of the Michigan Association for Local Public Health.

“It does appear that if there were a national emergency, they’d act quickly,” he said.

The memo suggests the communications blackout will end on Saturday, but a "protracted" order could cause concern, Hess said. After all, communication is key to guarding the public against unchecked spread of disease, he said.

For example, Michigan doctors and other health officials under state law must report to local health departments any cases caused by 80 contagious pathogens — from acute flaccid myelitis, a condition which can cause paralysis and respiratory failure, to candida auris, which can spread quickly in hospitals and nursing homes.

The case information is reported up the chain to the CDC and used to track the spread of disease throughout the US. The data include, for example, respiratory diseases such a flu or pertussis or outbreaks of food-borne illnesses, such as the listeria outbreak on certain meat and poultry late last year. And it’s the CDC and other federal agencies that can help warn states of such threats, he said.

The last CDC’s Health Alert Network, on Jan. 16, recommended clinicians do further testing on samples of influenza A cases, given the uptick in avian flu cases.

On Thursday, there was no Morbid and Mortality Weekly Report, or MMWR — a longstanding weekly public update on disease and death that guides far-ranging public health policy.

Such reports put emergency room personnel and family doctors on the lookout for such cases, and the Michigan Health & Hospital Association also is closely watching developments, according to a statement released to Bridge.

“Hospitals rely on these agencies to share data and guidance on emerging diseases, seasonal disease outbreaks and treatments. Much of the information is used to inform clinicians, as well as to prepare proper staffing,” according to the statement, attributed to Brian Peters, CEO of the Michigan Health & Hospital Association.

Research watch

Meanwhile, leaders at two universities say they, too, are watching changes in federal health policy and practice that could threaten Michigan’s share of the $48 billion research budget at the National Institutes of Health. Among research projects with the most recent published results from Michigan-based research are those concerning breast and prostate cancers, Alzheimer’s disease, and problems with Medicare.

Those moves have “created understandable questions and concerns,” according to Wayne State University’s vice president of research and innovation, and “create some uncertainty and concern” according to Michigan State University’s leaders, including President Kevin Guskiewicz.

A University of Michigan statement said the school is a “partner in the federal research enterprise.”

Arthur Lupia, interim vice president for research and innovation, further wrote that the school had “established a process to carefully track and review all transition actions.”

“It is worthwhile to note that previous administrations have advanced their own directives in these ways,” Lupia wrote.