The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is facing a leadership upheaval — and at the center of the shakeup is concern about the agency’s approach to vaccines and U.S. public health.
The White House on Thursday said President Donald Trump had fired CDC Director Susan Monarez after she refused to resign. Lawyers for Monarez said she was “targeted” for “protecting the public over serving a political agenda.”
Meanwhile, four other top health officials at the CDC announced Wednesday they were quitting the agency. That includes Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, who said he could no longer serve because of the “weaponizing of public health.”
The loss of those respected leaders and efforts to oust Monarez follow a string of measures by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – a prominent vaccine skeptic – to overhaul federal health agencies and change immunization policy in the U.S. That includes mass firings, gutting a key government vaccine panel, canceling studies on mRNA shot technology and hiring those with like-minded views.
Kennedy has a long track record of making misleading and false statements about the safety of vaccine shots, but in his current role, he wields enormous power over the agencies that regulate the immunizations and determine both who can get them and which ones insurance plans should cover.
Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said the leadership overhaul at the CDC represents Kennedy’s “failed leadership and reckless mismanagement,” adding that he has a “blatant disregard for science and evidence-based public health.”
The agency is also reeling from funding cuts and an Aug. 8 attack by a gunman at its headquarters in Atlanta.
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