Is there a way to "sink" a topic?

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Does ROS provide the option to "sink" the contents of a topic temporarily? If there's a node A that publishes a topic called foo, and another node B that subscribes to foo, can I suppress foo completely, such that B can not see it advertised?

Extension (and actual intent!): Is there a way to republish foo as foo (no change in name), but at a different rate this time? I suppose some combination of <remap> and topic_tools throttle messages would make it happen.

EDIT: As some additional info, assume foo is coming from a remote system I have no access to, so I cannot change anything about it there. My ROS setup, which depends on foo, now needs it at a lower rate.