PUBLIC HEALTHHealth Leaders, Medical Groups: CDC Leader Exodus Puts Nation's Health at Risk
As news broke of the ouster of newly confirmed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Susan Monarez, PhD, and the resignations of some of the agency’s top scientists, reactions came fast and furious from public health leaders, professional groups, and lawmakers.
As news broke of the ouster of newly confirmed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Susan Monarez, PhD, and the resignations of some of the agency’s top scientists, reactions came fast and furious from public health leaders, professional groups, and lawmakers.
The upheaval at the CDC comes just weeks after a gunman attacked the campus, reportedly fueled by grievances about the COVID vaccine. The CDC has also been rocked by watered-down COVID vaccine recommendations that came from Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his surrogates who have announced new reviews of autism causes and COVID vaccines, both hot-button issues of Kennedy and other vaccine critics.
Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota, publisher of CIDRAP News, said the loss of top CDC staff is the result of failed leadership of extremists at HHS, which oversees the CDC. “These departures are a serious loss for America. They make our country less safe and less prepared for public health emergencies.”
Public Health Experts Speak Out
Celine Gounder, MD, an infectious disease specialist and senior fellow at KFF, said on X that the losses leave the CDC with a leadership vacuum at a critical time. “Already this year, 25% of CDC staff have been laid off, including many center directors.”
She pointed out that the three top officials who resigned yesterday, Debra Houry, MD, MPH, (chief science and medical officer), Demetre Daskalakis, MD, MPH (director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases), and Dan Jernigan, MD, MPH, (director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases), didn’t have jobs lined up elsewhere.
“This isn’t about making big pharma bucks. They jumped without a parachute. There is no plan B,” she wrote. “They did this out of their sense of moral conscience & professional duty.”
