Citing a growing lack of confidence in federal public health reporting, the New England Journal of Medicine and the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy are creating a private sector alternative to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s long-running Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).
To be launched in the next month or so, the two organizations will begin publishing what they call “public health alerts” that will be available for free, and published as needed, in a new section of the NEJM Evidence.
In creating the new feature, the two groups cited a growing distrust of federal public health reporting, delays in sharing information because of communications pauses, and the current federal government shutdown, which has resulted in suspension of the MMWR, which began publishing in 1952. In addition, MMWR’s former editor and chief has reported that the administration sought to change how the journal shares public health information.
Learn more about this new venture, why the groups behind it believe it is necessary, and how they envision launching their new venture in the Stat article “NEJM and public health group are launching rival to CDC’s MMWR publication.”