Many of the CDC's databases have been updated, most of them related to vaccines

Nearly half of the databases the CDC used to update — tracking health information like Covid vaccination rates and RSV hospitalizations — have been suspended, according to new research.

Nearly half of the databases that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention used to regularly update — monitoring systems that track public health information such as Covid vaccination rates and respiratory syncytial virus hospitalizations — have been paused without explanation, according to new research.

The CDC maintained 82 databases that were updated at least once a month in early 2025, according to findings published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine.However, an investigation at the end of October found that 38 cases had expired and 34 cases showed no new records in the past six months.

"These unexplained breaks began mostly in March and April 2025, shortly after Trump took office and Kennedy was confirmed Secretary of Health and Human Services," the researchers wrote.

While the CDC may be best known for issuing public health recommendations and advisories, the agency also plays a key role as a national registrar, tracking the spread of infections and vaccination uptake in real time to the greatest extent possible.

But the CDC appears to be straying from part of its mission, the new study suggests.The study found that nearly 90% of the suspended databases were related to vaccination.

As examples, researcher Dr.Jeremy Jacobs, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University, pointed to one database that tracked weekly Covid vaccinations among pregnant women and another that tracked Covid vaccinations among US adults (disaggregated by population and location).All of this was last updated in late April, he said.

Other older databases looked at respiratory illnesses treated in emergency departments and the use of an injectable drug that can protect children from RSV.

"It's interesting that all of these changes are primarily, and almost exclusively, in the area of ​​vaccination," said Noel Brewer, one of the study's authors and a professor of public health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"On the surface, everything seems to be a fair decision, but we don't know why these websites are quiet," he said.

Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said the CDC reports on Covid and RSV activity through respiratory virus surveillance systems and reports on flu activity weekly through a database called FluView.

"Changes to individual panels or update schedules reflect routine decisions about data quality and system management, not political strategy," Nixon said in a statement.

Without new information from these databases, some public health experts said, it will be harder to know what vaccination coverage looks like at the national or regional level — which could make it harder to control new outbreaks.

Dr. Lisa Lee, senior vice president for research and innovation at Virginia Tech, spent 14 years at the CDC, including as chief scientific officer of the agency's division of diagnostics and epidemiology.He said local health officials often rely on CDC data to guide their response to public health crises.

"If, for example, we see wild polio again in our country because we're under-vaccinating, it's the surveillance system that gives us that information," he said.

Dr.Jeanne Marazzo, chief executive of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, wrote in an editorial also published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine that the failure to update — whether intentional or not — shows "a profound disregard for human life."

"The evidence is overwhelming: the administration's protectionist practices are disrupting the flow of reliable data that we need to protect Americans from preventable diseases," he said. He is suing Kennedy and other Trump administration officials, saying he was allowed to participate because of his strong defense of defense.

In a new study, the authors - a group of health and medical experts and a law professor - say that the CDC may have stopped updating databases due to staff reductions, budget cuts or changing attitudes about vaccines among the agency's health officials.

Their findings reflect a larger trend of changes on the CDC's website, some of which include false information that contradicts the scientific consensus.

"This is especially troubling given the broader context. There is misinformation about vaccines and vaccine safety being spread by non-health professionals through official channels at HHS," Lee said.

In November, a webpage that once clearly stated that vaccines do not cause autism was rewritten to say that "research has not ruled out this possibility." This information contradicts decades of scientific research that has found no link between autism and vaccines. Previously, the CDC removed language about gender identity and diversity, equity and inclusion, including information about HIV and contraception.

The site changes are part of a broader overhaul of the nation's health agencies led by Kennedy.In the year since he became health secretary, the United States has stopped recommending routine Covid shots for healthy children, cut funding for mRNA vaccine research and changed its childhood vaccination schedule to include fewer universal recommendations.Kennedy is also the previous CDC vaccine fired an advisory committee on hepatitis B and replaced them with a group skeptical of the shot.In December, a new panel overturned a decade-old recommendation to vaccinate all newborns against hepatitis B.

"I'm sorry to say that you need to watch some of these recommendations carefully," Marrazzo said. "If I were a parent, I would trust my board-certified pediatrician, who hopefully is a member of or affiliated with the American Academy of Pediatrics."

On Monday, the academy released its guidelines for childhood vaccines as recommended by the CDC before Kennedy announced sweeping changes earlier this month.