The Trump administration has ended a federal advisory committee that issued instructions on preventing the spread of infections in health care facilities.
The Consultative Committee for Infection Control Practices (HICPAC) has set the national standards for hand washing, patients who wear the mask and isolate patients followed by most American hospitals.
Four members of the committee said that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided news about the end of Hicpac to members on Friday.
A message reviewed by NBC News – which members said that the center of diseases control after a virtual meeting – says that the end is valid more than a month ago, on March 31. According to the message, the termination corresponds to The executive order for President Donald Trump Call to reduce the federal workforce.
Four professional societies previously requested the Minister of Health and Humanitarian Services Robert F. Kennedy Junior in a letter on March 26 to keep the committee amid large -scale discounts to federal health agencies. The Center for Disease Control and the Ministry of Health and Humanitarian Services did not respond immediately to request a comment on Tuesday.
Several web pages have been archived of the committee, which means that they are still available for display online but not updated.
Some members now say that they are afraid that their instructions will be frozen in a timely A special threat to hospitals.
“At some point, when things need change, the guidelines may not change, and after that people will fly on their pants seat,” said Kony Steide, a member of HICPAC since 2023 and former president of the Association of Professionals in infection and epidemiology.
Dr. Anurag Malani, a fellow of the American Infectious Diseases Association who joined HICPAC in January, said that the committee was about to finish the new instructions for air causes by air before the end. The instructions, which have not been updated since 2007, included a controversial recommendation It would allow surgical masks instead of N95 respirators to prevent the spread of some pathogens.
Malani said: “There were many important materials there, and I believe that many lessons learned from Covid helped form these instructions to put us in a better place than we were before birth,” Malani said.
Jane Thomason, a leading health specialist in the United National nurses – a professional association for registered nurses that criticized the recommendations of the new mask – expressed regret for the committee’s loss. Hicpac Thomason appointed last year’s working group.
“While we had great concerns about the composition of Hicpac and the proposed guidance, ending the committee removes important public transparency,” Thomason said in a statement on Tuesday. “Without HICPAC’s general meetings, there is no longer any public access to the process of drafting the directions of the Disease Control Center on infection control in health care settings. This undermines safety for patients, nurses and other health care workers.”
According to the CDC message on Friday, HICPAC has made 540 recommendations since its establishment more than three decades ago – 90 % of them have been fully implemented.
Malani said it is important that these recommendations continue until infection control practices remain constant throughout the country.
He said: “You want to avoid seeing local health and local departments trying to know this alone.”
