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Remember back on April 1 when Trump and his brainworm sidekick RFK, Jr. laid off tens of thousands of employees from across all our national health agencies, only the joke was on us because it wasn't an April Fool's gag? True story: that April slaughter included all of those agencies' communications departments. Prior to Trump (the scurvy of presidents) trudging his way back to office, the CDC had a robust circulatory system (medical pun!) of 150+ newsletters and regularly posted to their socials with over 12 million subscribers. We've come a long way from the Pony Express, hooray. Or we had, before RFK, Jr. seized control of CDC's communications writ large -- including taking ownership of their social media accounts -- to essentially halt the CDC's fundamental mission to warn and inform the public.
A grim diagnosis: "Public health functions best when its experts are allowed to communicate the work that they do in real time, and that's not happening," said Kevin Griffis, who served as the director of communications at the CDC until March. "That could put people's lives at risk." ... "We are functionally unable to operate communications," said one of the CDC workers. "We feel like our hands are tied behind our backs."
In-house comms were better: Before Trump was inaugurated, the CDC managed most of its communication. HHS, the agency that oversees the CDC and more than 20 divisions and agencies, rarely reviewed the content in CDC social media posts or newsletters, CDC workers said. That allowed the CDC to communicate quickly and often. "The whole goal is to say, this is what we know. And here are the best recommendations from experts in the field," said Dr. Jodie Guest, a professor and senior vice chair of the Department of Epidemiology at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health. "And this is the best advice about the way the general population should handle things in order to protect their health."
Social distancing: More than 12 million people subscribe to the CDC's main Facebook, Instagram, X and LinkedIn accounts. ... On April 24, some employees were sent an email from a supervisor that confirmed that HHS now owned the CDC's main social media platforms, including its X, Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook accounts. "We were also notified that HHS is not accepting content for those channels at this time," the email added.
HHS is blocking nearly all posts: Since HHS approval was instituted as a requirement for posting, almost no newsletters have been sent to the tens of thousands of people who subscribe to them, CDC workers said. ... Two CDC employees who work in communications told NPR that fewer than half of the public health posts they've sent to HHS for approval have been cleared for publication on social media. Even posts that include basic information about recent disease outbreaks, like the number of people sickened or hospitalized, have not been posted as requested by employees, NPR confirmed after reviewing posts submitted for approval by an employee.
Locked out: Removing all the CDC's web developers, graphic designers and social media staffers simultaneously caused a problem. The CDC was suddenly locked out of its main social media accounts, said three people close to the situation. "The passwords to those accounts were kept on a password protected Word doc," said one worker at the CDC. "And that Word doc was inaccessible for anyone left, because all of the people that could have opened that document were fired."
[From KQED]
You know what hasn't had a severe reduction in workforce this year? Germs, diseases, chronic illnesses, and all the joys our bodies experience if we're lucky enough to age. Measles in particular has had a very strong start to 2025, with former health officials declaring the West Texas outbreak is putting America on track for the worst outbreak this century. Oh, and speaking of measles spreading from a largely unvaccinated community, remember when RFK, Jr. finally set foot in Texas at Measles HQ, to visit with parents who'd rather let their children get gravely ill -- and in some cases, die -- than get vaccinated, after hearing wingnuts like him espouse anti-vaxx nonsense? Yeah, well, true story: one of the few official CDC tweets this spring was words of praise for RFK, likely written by some underling at HHS and tagged onto a retweet from Bobby's own account about the visit. Current CDC workers view the move as propaganda. Because it is. RFK, Jr. -- the brainworm that keeps on giving... illness.