The flagship health journal published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has grown quiet this year, and a report from MedPage Today indicates that a variety of actions by the Trump administration may be to blame for hamstringing the critical resource.
Most strikingly, sources told MedPage that the journal's scientific articles must now obtain clearance for publication from health secretary and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—who has no health, science, or medical background. A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services disputed this claim, calling it "false."
Regardless, there's no denying that the journal appears to have been muffled in some ways since the new administration took office. Publications have slowed and press are no longer getting early access to studies under the standard embargo system. And, for the first time in its more than 60-year history, the journal—the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)—was not published on schedule amid a blanket federal communication freeze in January.
MedPage crunched the numbers, looking at published study totals for May, June, and July in past years compared to this one. The outlet included five previous years: 2022 to 2024 as well as 2018 to 2019, leaving out the peak years of the COVID-19 pandemic when public health communications could have spiked. In 2025, there were only 35 total publications in the three-month window, but in the past years, the average was 76, with a range of 55 to 89.
Sources, including a former director at CDC whose center oversaw MMWR, told MedPage that cuts to CDC funding and staff have likely thwarted the journal. About 75 percent of the journal's content comes directly from work done by CDC scientists, while the remainder comes from outside scientists. Those outsiders include academic researchers and public health officials in state and local departments, who have also seen severe funding cuts during the second Trump administration.
The sources also suggested that the journal may be receiving fewer submissions from outside scientists because they fear political interference under Kennedy.
"The shame is that this hurts all of us," James Lawler, a director at the University of Nebraska Medical Center's Global Center for Health Security in Omaha, told MedPage Today. "MMWR is not an academic journal to share knowledge among scientists. It's a practical publication to tell health care professionals what's going on with the health of the population."
MMWR studies report critical epidemiological information on things like foodborne illness outbreaks, vector-borne diseases, and emerging infectious diseases.
The decline of MMWR "makes us less safe because our hospitals and health care facilities and public health professionals are going to be less informed," Lawler said.
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