The Disbanding of HICPAC: A Dangerous Silencing in the Fight Against Health Care-Associated Infections

CDC: HICPAC Silenced

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In the early days of the pandemic, I remember standing in the red zone of a nursing home isolation unit. The air was thick with urgency—and fear. I was fully donned in personal protective equipment (PPE), sweating beneath layers meant to shield me from an invisible threat. Infected residents, many already frail and confused, lay behind closed doors. Staff moved like ghosts—overworked, overwhelmed, and desperate for guidance.

But we had no clear roadmap then. No clear protocols for how to navigate the response to an airborne virus in long-term care settings. Supplies were limited. Emotions were raw. Staff and residents were dying, victims of a novel, unseen threat. The ethical weight of every decision—to cohort, to transfer, to test, to isolate—fell squarely on our shoulders.

But even amid that uncertainty, one thing remained steady: CDC and HICPAC—the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee. Their guidance didn’t sit untouched in binders. It was pulled from pockets, taped to walls, and referenced in huddles. I referenced and recalled their guidance as I carefully made decisions. Their work shaped how we responded, protected staff and residents, and carried on.

Today, that guiding light has gone out.

In a decision that has stunned infection preventionists and hospital epidemiologists across the country, the government has disbanded HICPAC. Quietly. Swiftly. Without transparency. After more than 3 decades of serving as the nation’s expert advisory committee on health care-associated infections (HAIs), antimicrobial resistance, and infection control, HICPAC has been dissolved under a shroud of bureaucratic restructuring.

What We Lost

Since its establishment in 1991, HICPAC has provided expert-led, science-based, consensus-driven guidelines for hospitals, long-term care facilities, outpatient centers, and beyond. From transmission-based precautions to hand hygiene, HICPAC’s work shaped how we prevent infections, save lives, and protect patients and health care workers alike.

This was never a partisan committee. It was a gathering of the nation’s sharpest minds in infectious disease, infection prevention, epidemiology, and public health from all over the country. It represented a cornerstone of evidence-based medicine, a vital communication channel between federal public health authorities and expert advisors from health care delivery systems. WE THE PEOPLE are collaborating with federal public health authorities to develop cohesive guidance for the fight against HAIs.

HICPAC was on the cusp of finalizing long-awaited updates to one of the most foundational documents in infection prevention: the Guideline for Isolation Precautions: Preventing Transmission of Infectious Agents in Healthcare Settings (last updated in 2007). The silencing of this committee halts progress on urgently needed revisions, such as these, that would have helped health care settings navigate emerging pathogens and an evolving understanding of transmission dynamics.

Now that structure is gone—without a clearly defined replacement. We are seemingly left to disjointedly navigate a future in which health care facilities face rising threats from MDROs, evolving viruses, and pandemic fatigue, with no unified voice guiding health care infection control policy.

Why It Matters

HICPAC’s absence is more than symbolic—it is operationally devastating for the American health care system. Without it, hospitals and public health professionals risk fragmentation in their infection control practices. The development and dissemination of national guidelines may fall behind emerging threats. Surveillance strategies, PPE guidance, environmental cleaning standards, and antimicrobial stewardship efforts could be left to hospital discretion.

The very real consequence of this is preventable harm: increased HAIs, misaligned infection control protocols, and widening gaps between science and practice.

And while some may see this as an opportunity for "streamlining" CDC operations, let’s be clear: Dissolving this national, expert-led committee without a transparent and collaborative process is not reform—it’s regression.

What We Can Do Now

We must act. And we must act together now.

Professional societies like the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) and the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) have launched a coordinated effort to demand the restoration of HICPAC or the immediate creation of an equivalent, expert-led, transparent body.

They have opened a platform where infection preventionists, health care professionals, and concerned citizens can sign a petition calling for action. I urge you—whether you’re a clinician, a policymaker, or simply someone who wants safe health care for your loved ones—to add your name:

👉 Sign the petition here

Final Thoughts

Infection prevention is the silent foundation of safe health care. When we do our jobs well, nothing happens. No infections. No deaths. Just lives quietly saved.

I don’t want to imagine the repercussions of what may happen if our voices are silenced.

HICPAC gave us a voice. It gave patients a safer future. We cannot afford to let that voice disappear.

Let’s raise it back up—together.