Thursday, January 29, 2026-Dozens of vaccination and disease surveillance databases in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have gone dark, with routine updates halted under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s leadership.
According to recent research, nearly half of the CDC’s databases that once provided monthly updates on vaccination rates and respiratory disease trends stopped receiving new data late last year, with at least 34 systems showing no new entries for six months or more. The pause began soon after Kennedy took office, disrupting real-time insights that health officials, doctors, and public health planners rely on to manage outbreaks and vaccine uptake.
The frozen systems disproportionately affect vaccine-related tracking, with roughly 90 percent of inactive databases focused on immunization and related surveillance. These federal datasets have historically been central to identifying gaps in coverage, steering vaccine distribution, and guiding prevention strategies for influenza, COVID-19, RSV, and other infectious threats. Without regular updates, public and private health systems are forced to operate with outdated snapshots of disease spread and vaccine uptake.
Public health experts warn that the loss of timely federal data is creating dangerous blind spots at a moment when vaccination rates are already under strain and preventable diseases are resurfacing in some regions. With national surveillance weakened, states and healthcare providers may be pushed to rely on fragmented local reporting or costly private data, reducing accuracy and slowing response times.
Critics argue the freeze undermines the country’s ability to detect and respond quickly to emerging public health threats and are calling for immediate restoration of full data reporting.
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