Tell the CDC: Release the Draft!

Important changes are being made to the CDC’s foundational infection control guidance – without transparency—and the CDC is poised to weaken protections for healthcare workers and patients.

Send an email to CDC/HICPAC Leaders: We are calling on the CDC to open up the process and engage experts: release the draft updates and hold public meetings to provide health care workers, patients, and other experts with the opportunity to provide input before any vote to finalize updates.

Make your voice heard

Dear Dr. Mandy Cohen, Dr. Daniel Jernigan, Dr. Michael Bell, and Dr. Alexander Kallen:

CDC’s Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) has initiated a process to update the CDC’s 2007 Isolation Precautions guidance. So far, CDC/HICPAC’s draft updates have not been made publicly available.

HICPAC’s June 2023 presentation regarding the Work Group’s draft updates caused significant concerns. The proposed draft updates would weaken current infection control protections, fail to fully recognize aerosol transmission, and rely on a biased and incomplete review of the evidence on respiratory protection. Further, the Isolation Precautions Work Group meeting summaries make it clear that the Work Group’s goal has been to weaken infection control protections for health care workers and patients to create more “flexibility” for employers to prioritize costs over care and protections. These proposals would put patients and health care workers at increased risk of a wide range of infections.

Concerningly, CDC/HICPAC lacks effective mechanisms to engage expertise from the range of stakeholders that are required to create strong, science-based guidance. It is essential to incorporate the input and expertise of direct care health care workers and their unions, as well as that from aerosol scientists, experts in respiratory protection and ventilation, patient advocates, and other public health experts beyond the infection control practitioners and hospital administrators currently represented on HICPAC.

In order to create robust, science-based guidance and to facilitate public engagement in the process to update guidance, before any HICPAC vote, I urge you to:

(1) Publicly post HICPAC’s draft Isolation Precautions guidance update in full, with ample time for review and consideration by the public,

(2) Host public meetings to engage input from all stakeholders on infection control guidance for health care settings, and

(3) Fully recognize the science on aerosol transmission of infectious diseases and respiratory protection to protect workers from hazardous exposures.

I commend you for delaying HICPAC’s vote and urge you to use the extra time to more effectively engage input from stakeholders like myself. CDC/HICPAC’s infection control guidance impacts everyone who enters a health care setting, including patients, visitors, and health care workers.

Send the Letter

CDC’s Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) is in the process of proposing updates to the 2007 Isolation Precautions guidance, which will have major implications for infection control protections for workers and patients in health care settings. But the CDC has yet to make its draft updates publicly available.

The CDC is poised to weaken protections for patients and health care workers.

Recently, CDC/HICPAC released Work Group meeting summaries to NNU, in response to multiple requests and public pressure http://nnu.org/cdc-hicpac-work-group. These documents underline that the Work Group’s goal is to weaken infection control protections for health care workers and patients while giving health care corporations more “flexibility” to prioritize costs over care.

At a public meeting in June 2023, HICPAC’s Work Group presented a biased evidence review and an outline of their draft proposals, which would weaken existing CDC guidance and put health care workers and patients at increased risk of a wide range of infections (more details here).

The CDC’s process lacks transparency and meaningful public input.

CDC/HICPAC’s process lacks transparency. HICPAC’s Work Group is dominated by industry representatives and their meetings are closed to the public. The CDC says that commenting at public meetings is the best way to provide input, but they cut off public comment in August after just 14 speakers! The document release is too little, too late; we need to see the full draft.

We demand a fair process and science-based protections for healthcare workers and patients!
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