NPR: Diseases are spreading and CDC isn’t warning the public like it was months ago.

Since the Trump administration assumed power in January, an NPR analysis has found that “many of the platforms the CDC used to communicate with the public have gone silent.”

“Health alerts about disease outbreaks, previously sent to health professionals subscribed to the CDC’s Health Alert Network, haven’t been dispatched since March,” Chiara Eisner reports for NPR.

“Public health functions best when its experts are allowed to communicate the work that they do in real time, and that’s not happening,” Kevin Griffis, who served as the director of communications at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention until March, told Eisner. “That could put people’s lives at risk.”

The silence doesn’t mean health emergencies have paused, and the decline in communications could put people at risk, current and former CDC workers told Eisner.

“Cases of measles, salmonella, listeria and hepatitis A and C have spread throughout the country,” Eisner writes. “More than 100 million Americans continue to suffer from chronic diseases like diabetes and breast cancer.”

Eisner digs into the details of how communications were handled before and after the Trump administration took over, noting that at this time, all posts that CDC workers want to make to their social media accounts must first be reviewed by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Since HHS approval was instituted as a requirement for posting, almost no newsletters have been sent to the tens of thousands of people who subscribe to them, CDC workers said.

Later in the story, Eisner writes that the CDC is not locked out of its X account, but Andrew Nixon, the director of communications at HHS, did not respond to a request for comment regarding whether the CDC was still locked out of its other social media accounts.

When asked for comment about the communication practices at the CDC, Nixon cast doubt on what the workers said, Eisner reports, saying they were “spreading false rumors.”

The workers continued to give examples of the decrease in communication since the Trump administration took over.

“Since HHS approval was instituted as a requirement for posting, almost no newsletters have been sent to the tens of thousands of people who subscribe to them,” CDC workers told Eisner.

Further, they said some CDC publications have been delayed or missing information, such as the lack of data on PrEP coverage, referring to the medication taken to prevent HIV infections, in an HIV news release.

Eisner also notes that CDC employees have said less than half of the public health posts they’ve sent to HHS for approval have been cleared for publication on social media.