Briefing: Infectious Disease Control + Data Security
This week, our Infectious Disease Control & Prevention team has a big timeline update and a quick briefing to get you up to speed on recent events. We also have an update from our Data Security folks, who are watching key lawsuits and congressional oversight.
Infectious Disease
The Infectious Disease Control & Prevention team has a substantial timeline update this week. We are following the measles outbreaks around the country — 900+ cases since January 1, including cases in at least two ICE detention centers. After months of mixed messages from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., last week Trump administration officials at the FDA, NIH, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services encouraged people to get vaccinated.
After the FDA refused to review Moderna’s application for approval of an mRNA-based flu vaccine, the company announced that it will focus on markets outside the US for its new vaccines. The FDA then walked back its review decision eight days after the initial refusal, after Moderna proposed additional testing in one age group. Meanwhile, multiple drugmakers have scaled back or even halted vaccine research and development projects, citing federal policy changes and misinformation as major factors in their decisions.
In response to the United States’ withdrawal from the World Health Organization, California, Illinois, New York State, and New York City have joined the WHO Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network. Attorneys general from four Democrat-led states sued the federal government for withholding public health funding, and seven medical organizations banded together to sue the Department of Health over its vaccine policy changes. And after global outcry, a US-funded study in Guinea-Bissau that would have provided hepatitis B vaccine to some newborns and withheld it from others has been cancelled.
Data Security
The Data Security team added 7 new entries to the timeline. In the first two weeks of February, judges dismissed a DOJ lawsuit seeking Michigan’s voter roll data and blocked DHS from accessing data from the IRS — although in a separate lawsuit, the IRS revealed that it had already handed over confidential taxpayer information to DHS despite a legal order blocking the agencies’ data sharing agreement. A congressional report found DOGE to be an insider threat risk to the federal government, and DHS announced an audit of its use of biometric and other personal data.
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