Propublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates power abuse. Sign up and receive the biggest story as soon as it’s published.
This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention leaders ordered an evaluation of experts who found that they found a high risk of catching measles in areas where they were at high risk of catching measles, according to internal records reviewed by Propublica.
In a halted plan to unfold the news, the agency would have highlighted the importance of vaccinating people against the highly contagious and potentially fatal diseases that have spread across 19 states, records show.
A CDC spokesman told Propublica in a written statement that the agency had decided it had opposed the publication of the rating, “Because it doesn’t say anything that the public doesn’t know yet.” She added that the CDC continues to recommend the vaccine as “the best way to protect against measles.”
But what the nation’s top public health agencies say next shows the change in the longstanding message about the vaccine.
“The vaccination decision is personal,” the statement said it reflected lines from a column Kennedy wrote on the Fox News website. “People need to consult with their healthcare providers to understand their options for getting the vaccine and be informed of the potential risks and benefits associated with the vaccine.”
Propublica shared a new CDC statement on personal choices and risks with Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University’s Faculty of Public Health. For her, the change in messaging, and the decline of this everyday announcement, is surprising.
“I’m a little shady about the language,” Nuzzo said. “There’s no risk-free vaccine, but it sounds like a very active coin toss. There’s already more measles cases in 2025 than in 2025, and it’s spread across multiple states. At this point it’s not a coin toss.”
For many years, the CDC has not etched words about vaccines. It promoted them with confidence. One campaign was called “Get my flu shot.” The agency’s website told healthcare providers it plays an important role in helping parents choose a vaccine for their children.
Nuzzo hopes CDC predictors will reveal details of data and evidence regarding the spread of measles. “This spread and increased severity and severity of measles highlight why functional CDCs are needed with full staff and why more resources are needed for state and local health departments due to the urgent need for more data to guide responses,” she said.
Kennedy’s agency oversees the CDC and announced Thursday it is poised to eliminate 2,400 jobs.
When asked what roles played in the decision not to release risk assessments, the HHS communications director said the cancelled announcement was “part of an ongoing process to improve the communications process – nothing more.” The CDC continues to recommend vaccination as he repeatedly said, “as the best way to protect against measles.”
“Committee Kennedy believes that vaccination decisions are personal and people need to consult with healthcare providers to understand their options for getting the vaccine,” said Andrew G. Nixon. “It’s important that Americans are informed to have fundamental transparency and make personal healthcare decisions.”
Responding to questions about criticism of the decision among CDC staff, Nixon wrote:
The CDC risk assessment was conducted by the Prediction and Epidemic Analysis Center, which was partially dependent on new disease data from the Texas outbreak. The CDC has created a centre to address major bare shortcomings during the Covid-19 pandemic. It acts like the National Weather Service for Infectious Diseases, leveraging data and expertise to predict courses of outbreaks that meteorologists warn the storm.
Other risk assessments by the Centre may seem obvious to those conclusions, but have been posted by the CDC.
For example, predictors who analyzed the spread of H5N1 avian influenza in late February said that people “in contact with potentially infected animals or contaminated surfaces or liquids” face moderate to high risk of contracting the disease. They said the risk to the general population of the United States was low.
In the case of measles assessment, the center’s modelers determined that the risk of illness to the US public was low, but they found that they were at higher risk in communities with lower vaccination rates near the outbreak, or shared close social ties with outbreaks. According to an internal Q&A that explained the findings, the CDC had moderate confidence in the assessment. The agency lacks detailed data on the onset of disease in all patients in West Texas, and is still learning about vaccination rates in affected communities and travel and social contact for infected people. (The H5N1 rating was also done with moderate confidence.)
The internal plan to unfold forecast news was sought by professional physicians answering questions, the key spokesman leading the CDC’s response to measles. “It is important to note that at the local level, vaccine coverage rates vary considerably, and that pockets of people who have not been vaccinated may also be present in areas where overall high vaccination is available,” the plan said. “The best way to protect against measles is to get a measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine.”
However, more than 30 agency staff were notified by email, “Leadership doesn’t want to put this on the website,” as the number of confirmed cases increased to 483 this week. After discussions in the CDC Director’s office.
The cancellation was “not quite normal,” said a CDC staff member who spoke anonymously for fear of retaliating for the imminent layoffs. “In the process, I have never seen a plan to unsuccessfully follow that.”
The uncertainty of CDC staff has built up whether agencies have flexed public health messages and bent Kennedy’s messages, establishing anti-vaccine groups and matching lawyers who have referred clients to law firms suing vaccine makers.
During his first week at Kennedy’s work, HHS suspended the CDC campaign encouraging people to get shots of the flu during the furious flu season. The night the Trump administration began firing federal probation employees, several important CDC flu webpages were deleted. After NPR reported this, the remains of several campaign web pages have been restored.
However, some at the agency felt that the new leadership had sent out the message loud and clear.
On that day in February, when the world learned that an unvaccinated child in Texas, the first US death since 2015, HHS secretary disregarded the seriousness of the outbreak. “We have an outbreak of measles every year,” he told a cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump.
In an interview with Fox News this month, Kennedy defended a doctor in Texas. He said he is treating measles with steroids, antibiotics and cod liver oil and vitamin A supplements.
As parents near the Texas outbreak refilled vitamin A supplements, there doctors competed to assure parents that vaccinations, not vitamins, could only prevent measles.
Still, the CDC has added an entry for Vitamin A to the Measles website for Clinicians.
On Wednesday, CNN reported that several children hospitalized in Lubbock, Texas had abnormal liver function.
Political power for survivors of sexual abuse in North Carolina wins redirected funds. Women in crisis paid the price.
Texas health officials also said the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw $11 billion in pandemic-related grants nationwide would hamper their ability to respond to a growing outbreak, according to the Texas Tribune.
Measles is one of the most contagious diseases and can be dangerous. Approximately 20% of people who have not received the vaccine after measles are involved in hospitals. And one to three in one in one thousand children with measles die from respiratory and neurological complications. The virus allows an infected person to remain in the air for two hours after leaving the area, allowing patients to spread measles before they know it.
This week, Amtrak said it was notifying customers that measles passengers may have been exposed to illness this month when they boarded one of the trains from New York City to Washington, D.C.
