CDC Infection Control Committee Terminated Amid Federal Cuts

The Trump administration has disbanded a critical federal advisory committee responsible for establishing national standards for infection prevention in healthcare settings, with the termination taking effect on March 31 but only revealed to committee members last week, raising concerns about future healthcare safety guidance and pandemic preparedness.

The Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC), which has operated for more than three decades, crafted guidelines that most U.S. hospitals follow for essential practices including hand-washing protocols, mask-wearing requirements, and patient isolation procedures.

Termination Revealed Weeks After Implementation

According to multiple reports, committee members were informed of the termination during a virtual meeting on May 3, more than a month after the decision had already taken effect. A CDC letter reviewed by NBC News indicated the committee was terminated on March 31 as part of President Donald Trump’s broader executive order calling for reductions in the federal workforce.

“At some point, when things need to change, the guidelines likely won’t change, and then people will be sort of flying by the seat of their pants,” warned Connie Steed, a HICPAC member since 2023 and former president of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology in a statement to NBC News.

Several of the committee’s web pages have already been archived, meaning they remain accessible but will no longer be updated with new information or guidelines, potentially freezing infection control recommendations even as new scientific evidence emerges.

Public Health Experts Sound Alarm

Four professional societies, including the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America and the Infectious Diseases Society of America, had anticipated the potential termination and sent a joint letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on March 26 requesting the committee be preserved.

“The decision to terminate HICPAC creates a preventable gap in national preparedness and response capacity, leaving healthcare facilities without timely, evidence-based and expert-driven recommendations at a time when threats from emerging pathogens and antimicrobial resistance are on the rise,” the professional societies stated in a joint release cited by the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.

Jane Thomason, lead hygienist at National Nurses United who was appointed to a HICPAC work group last year, expressed significant concerns about the impact on transparency. “Without HICPAC’s public meetings, there is no longer any public access to the process for drafting CDC guidance on infection control for health care settings. This further undermines safety for patients, nurses, and other health care workers,” she said in a statement reported by U.S. News & World Report.

Legacy of Healthcare Improvements

According to the CDC letter sent to members, HICPAC has made approximately 540 recommendations to the agency since its inception, with 90% of those recommendations being fully implemented. These guidelines have shaped healthcare practices nationwide, establishing consistent standards across facilities.

The committee was particularly active during the COVID-19 pandemic, though not without controversy. Its most recent draft proposal in 2023 to update the CDC’s 2007 isolation precaution guidelines drew criticism for suggesting that surgical masks could be as effective as respirators for preventing airborne pathogens like SARS-CoV-2, according to CIDRAP reporting.

Dr. Anurag Malani, a member who joined HICPAC in January, noted that the committee was close to finalizing new guidelines for airborne pathogens before the termination. “There was really a lot of important material in there and, I think, a lot of lessons learned from Covid that helped shape those guidelines to put us in a better place than we were pre-pandemic,” he told NBC News.

Implications for Healthcare Standards

Healthcare experts are particularly concerned about the potential for fragmentation in infection control practices across different states and healthcare systems without centralized guidance. “You’d want to avoid seeing state and local health departments try to figure this out on their own,” Dr. Malani warned in his NBC News interview.

This termination comes at a time when the healthcare system continues to face challenges from evolving infectious threats. The committee had been instrumental in standardizing responses to healthcare-associated infections, which affect approximately one in 31 hospital patients on any given day, according to HealthLeaders Media.

Of particular concern is the committee’s role in addressing emerging drug-resistant organisms. Without updated guidelines, hospitals may struggle to implement evidence-based protocols for preventing the spread of these potentially deadly pathogens, which the CDC has identified as urgent threats to public health.

Part of Broader Health Agency Restructuring

The termination of HICPAC is part of a larger pattern of cuts to federal health agencies since the beginning of the second Trump administration. The reductions align with the president’s February 23 executive order calling for a reduction in the federal workforce.

The CDC has not provided specific details about how infection control guidance will be developed and disseminated without HICPAC. Neither the CDC nor the Department of Health and Human Services immediately responded to requests for comment from multiple news outlets reporting on this development.

Public health experts emphasize that while the committee’s existing guidelines will remain available for reference, the inability to update recommendations based on new scientific evidence could leave healthcare facilities increasingly vulnerable to emerging infectious threats in the years ahead.