A number of other health agencies are also operating without acting heads, including the FDA and the National Institutes of Health.

The Trump Administration has placed a communications embargo on critical health agencies, including HHS, FDA, and CDC, suspending updates on data, publications, and health advisories. Concerns over censorship,

HHS, CDC, FDA, NIH -- to pause all external communications, including weekly scientific reports, health advisories, data updates, and other information. (AP) Meanwhile, the HHS website scrubbed search results for the word "abortion,

Employees of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services were told to halt all public communications Tuesday.

The Trump administration told federal public health agencies like the CDC that they are not to communicate health messages for now. The hold includes memos, reports, online posts, website updates and other forms of communication. Scientific meetings were also canceled for the time being, including of advisory panels.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is going dark, along with other federal agencies within the umbrella of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This week, the returning Trump administration told these agencies to stop talking to the public—for how long, no one knows.

Xavier Becerra, President Joe Biden’s outgoing Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary, is lamenting Americans’ abysmal distrust in federal health agencies while defending the administration’s censorship efforts and vaccine mandates on his way out the door.

The memo says staff should coordinate with presidential appointees before issuing official communications to public officials.

An executive order from President Trump freezes all mass communication from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention unless it’s approved by the White House.

Moderna has been awarded approximately $590 million from the federal government to help speed up the development of an mRNA-based bird flu vaccine, health officials said.

The funding, which follows the $176 million the government awarded Moderna in June 2024, aims to get mRNA vaccines ready before bird flu strains currently circulating in the wild and on farms can potentially cause human outbreaks.