The CDC appeared to defy President Donald Trump‘s will by taking part in a vaccine meeting with the World Health Organization this week.
Under executive orders, the CDC was banned from communicating from WHO as the US started its withdrawal from the global health agency.
Trump cited the UN agency’s failings during Covid close ties to China as reasons for pulling the US out of the WHO.
But a spokesperson for the CDC told DailyMail.com members from the organization ‘will be actively participating virtually’ at a WHO conference on flu vaccines this week.
The weeklong meeting began in London on Monday, with leaders from both the CDC and FDA in attendance. Neither agencies publicly announced their plans to attend.
But the two government agencies would likely have had to seek an exemption from the Trump administration due to its ban on all communications with the WHO.
Twice annually, WHO organizes consultations with an advisory group of experts to analyze global flu data, with recommendations issued on the composition of vaccines for the next flu season.
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These recommendations are used by vaccine regulatory agencies and pharmaceutical companies to develop, produce and license flu vaccines over the course of several months.
This week’s meeting is being held at the Francis Crick Institute in London and will focus on vaccines for flu strains in the Northern Hemisphere, while the next meeting for the Southern Hemisphere will take place in September.
Health experts feared America’s absence in the meeting would could potentially lead to less effective flu vaccines.
The WHO group also looks at what is happening with flu viruses like H5N1 bird flu, which is spreading in the US, and and other flu viruses that pose a pandemic risk.
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Major nations like the US manufacture and stockpile supplies of vaccines to use in the event that these viruses begin spreading widely in people.
Last month, Trump issued an executive order to begin the process of withdrawing the US from WHO, but that did not take immediate effect.
Leaving WHO requires the approval of Congress and that the US meets its financial obligations for the current fiscal year.
The US also must provide a one-year notice.
His administration also told federal health agencies to stop most communications with the public through at least the end of the month.
The communications ban with the WHO created uncertainty about whether CDC and FDA scientists could attend the strain selection meeting, raising concerns about how the FDA would guide flu vaccine suppliers on the targets for next winter’s shots in the US market.
Susan Coller Monarez is an American health scientist who is Principal Deputy Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The CDC deploys nearly 30 people to WHO and sends many millions of dollars to it through cooperative agreements.
The US agency also has some of the world’s leading experts in infectious diseases and public health threats, and the two agencies’ staffers are in daily contact about health dangers and how to stop them.
The collaboration halt isn’t the only global health effect of Trump’s executive orders.
In another move, the president froze spending on another critical program, PEPFAR or the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
The anti-HIV program is credited with saving 25 million lives, including those of 5.5 million children, since it was started by Republican President George W. Bush.
It was included in a Trump administration freeze on foreign aid spending slated to last at least three months.
PEPFAR provides HIV medication to more than 20 million people ‘and stopping its funding essential stops their HIV treatment,’ International AIDS Society President Beatriz Grinsztejn said in a statement. ‘If that happens, people are going to die and HIV will resurge.’