Even in the rapidly evolving environment created by the new administration, it was hard to miss the news last Friday that more than 1,000 pages on the CDC website had disappeared last Friday. In the days since, some pages have been restored, in varying degrees of their former completeness. Going forward, it’s unclear how much we can rely on the CDC for ongoing, reliable, consistent data related to infectious disease. Every page features a note that “CDC’s website is being modified to comply with President Trump’s Executive Orders.”
Future steps to protect health data
On Feb. 4, AHCJ convened the representatives of roughly a dozen news nonprofits and journalism scholars to talk about future steps for protecting health data. Stay tuned for updates on where to find this critical health data. In the meantime, use these resources to find public health data and learn how you can contribute to these ongoing projects:
Although things will continue to be in flux, here’s a broad overview of what we know and don’t know and where you can get certain data or documents no longer on the CDC site or that may go missing again. I provide a lot of links to CDC pages below because if they disappear again, you can enter those same URLs into the Internet Archive (previously known as the Wayback Machine) to access archived versions of them. You can also navigate *within* the Internet Archive to other CDC pages and search within archived CDC pages.
Sometimes, however, you may not know what CDC page existed previously. To aid with that, health care data analyst Charles Gaba has created a list of archived versions of all the individual HTML pages (approximately 7,200 pages) that were available at the CDC as of January 27, 2025. It is across 15 pages, starting here. While a lot of data besides webpages, such as data tables, was also downloaded or preserved before the purge, some of that is still waiting to find an accessible home.
HIV and tuberculosis data
Much of the HIV data that went missing was restored, including Estimated HIV Incidence and Prevalence; HIV Diagnoses, Deaths, and Prevalence; HIV Data Guidelines and Resources and HIV Surveillance Reports. However, several other pages on HIV remained inaccessible except on the Internet Archive, including the National HIV Prevention Program Monitoring and Evaluation Data and the HIV Statistics Center.
Most of the pages on the National HIV Surveillance System also were inaccessible and require Internet Archive. If any pages go down within HIV.gov, these can also be accessed through the Internet Archive. The National Center for Health Statistics Data Query System appeared to be functional. See the next section for PrEP.
All tuberculosis data appeared to be available — particularly important in light of the Kansas TB outbreak — but can be accessed via the Internet Archive or Gaba’s site if it disappears.
Guidelines and reports
One of the biggest shocks was the removal of the 2021 Sexually Transmitted Infections Treatment Guidelines, which was later restored. However, many pages on contraception and HIV prevention remained unavailable, including the CDC Guidelines for PrEP. Jessica Valenti, author of the newsletter Abortion, Every Day, is hosting these guidelines and related resources on contraception, antiretroviral drugs, substance use, intersex health, intimate partner violence, and LGBTQ youth reports.
Bird flu
While the CDC pages on the current bird flu outbreak still appear on the site, one of the most troubling effects of Trump’s order to halt outgoing federal health communications is that the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports have not been published for the past two weeks for the first time in the publication’s history. The report was first published on July 1, 1960.
That has paused the release of at least two studies related to bird flu outbreaks, KFF reported. We will find out this week if MMWRs resume. This is particularly important given the recent discovery of H5N9 avian flu — different from the ongoing outbreak of H5N1 — at a California duck farm last week. In the meantime, consult state agriculture and public health departments for the most recent regional data on bird flu, and see the recent SciLine media briefing on trends and impacts.
Vaccines
Among the many pages that vanished last week were several related to vaccines, including pages about the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and Vaccine Information Statements (VISs), which are required by federal law to be provided to patients before they receive a vaccine. The ACIP pages remained accessible including its upcoming meetings, though it’s still not clear whether or how many of those ACIP meetings will occur.
The VISs were also restored but at a different URL. Pages on vaccine safety were also available, including vaccine safety monitoring programs (VSD, V-safe, VAERS, and CISA). However, if Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist, is confirmed as secretary of Health and Human Services, it’s possible some or all of these pages could disappear again, requiring Internet Archive to access them. Kennedy’s nomination narrowly passed committee on Feb. 4, with a full Senate vote expected in the coming days.
If the VIS sheets disappear again, they are all available at Immunize.org (along with a wealth of other vaccine documents and info).
Other data
Although the executive order to cease outgoing health agencies’ communications was on Jan. 22, the interactive FluView dashboards show U.S. influenza data through Jan. 25. However, another executive order on Jan. 27 required the CDC to cut off communication with the WHO, one of the coordinating data partners for some of the FluView data. There was no Feb. 1 update on FluView data for any of the surveillance data portals, including the ones that do not use WHO data, such as hospitalizations. It’s unclear if and when flu data will be updated again. In the meantime, most individual states have their own flu surveillance data (such as Texas and New York.)
It’s possible to get some sense of national flu activity from GoodRx’s Cold & Flu Tracker, which shows weekly, live updates on prescription fills for flu, COVID-19 and RSV treatments. The obvious limitation is that a huge proportion of people do not fill any antiviral prescriptions for these three illnesses, so it can only be used to show a trend rather than estimates of actual infections.
Other data related to infectious disease did not appear affected on the CDC site, but the plan is to keep it all accessible through Gaba’s site. Several groups were coordinating attempts to capture CDC databases, including AHCJ, which will provide updates on accessing those if and when they become available. In the meantime, note that non-governmental organizations that receive federal money may be changing their pages as well. STAT reported that the American Society for Microbiology was altering its pages.
