Nine former leaders of the top US health body sounded the alarm Monday about the Trump administration’s evisceration of the agency and warned that vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr is “endangering every American’s health.”
The blunt guest essay in The New York Times marks the latest in snowballing attacks on the US health secretary after the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was recently fired by President Donald Trump after just weeks in her post.
Susan Monarez was fired last week after clashing with RFK Jr and reportedly refusing to commit to supporting his vaccination policy changes. The ouster triggered the resignation of at least four top officials and plunged the agency deeper into chaos.
“We ran the CDC: Kennedy is endangering every American’s health,” warned the opinion piece penned by nine former leaders of the historically independent agency who served under every president, Democrat or Republican, from Jimmy Carter to Donald Trump.
What Kennedy has done to the CDC and the nation’s public health system — “culminating in his decision to fire Dr. Susan Monarez as CDC director days ago — is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency, and unlike anything our country has ever experienced,” the experts wrote.
They mentioned how Kennedy has fired thousands of federal health workers; weakened programs aimed at protecting Americans from cancer, heart attacks and more; and, during the country’s largest measles outbreak in decades, focused on “unproven ‘treatments’ while downplaying vaccines.”
He also championed federal legislation that is expected to kick millions of people off their health insurance, they said.
“This is unacceptable, and it should alarm every American, regardless of political leanings,” said the experts, including doctor Anne Schuchat, who served as CDC acting director in Trump’s first term.
The blistering criticism comes one day after Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned in protest from his role as director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases after Monarez was ousted, warned that “the firewall between science and ideology has completely broken down” at the agency.
Meanwhile Trump said he wants more information released publicly about the “various Covid Drugs” introduced during the pandemic.
“Many people think they are a miracle that saved Millions of lives. Others disagree!” Trump posted on Truth Social.
“With CDC being ripped apart over this question, I want the answer, and I want it NOW.”
