CDC leaders who resigned said RFK Jr. undermined vaccine science, risking lives

As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reeled from the ousting of its director, three senior leaders who resigned in protest told The Washington Post they were asked to participate in an unscientific vaccine recommendation process that they believe could harm the health of Americans.

The officials spoke shortly before security officials escorted them off the CDC’s Atlanta campus Thursday morning. Staff and leaders of the agency are openly revolting against the Trump administration and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime critic of the CDC and anti-vaccine activist, after months of tension over vaccine policy and staffing cuts.

Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned as the agency’s top respiratory illness and immunization official, said the CDC had reached an “unfettered situation where undue influence and ideology would drive the science.”

The criticism from departing CDC leaders prompted Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), who chairs the Senate’s health committee and cast a pivotal vote to confirm Kennedy, to call for a delay in an upcoming meeting of Kennedy’s vaccine advisers to review vaccine recommendations. “These decisions directly impact children’s health and the meeting should not occur until significant oversight has been conducted,” Cassidy said in a statement.

Kennedy, for his part, criticized the CDC Thursday, describing it as a source of misinformation during the covid-19 pandemic and suggesting bigger changes were to come.

“There’s a lot of trouble at CDC,” Kennedy said at a news conference at the Texas Capitol, during which he also faulted the CDC for listing vaccines among the top 10 advances in medical science. “And it’s going to require getting rid of some people over the long term in order for us to change the institutional culture.”

The White House on Wednesday announced the firing of CDC Director Susan Monarez, a longtime federal government scientist nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate in July. Her attorneys have challenged the legality of her firing and said she would not resign after she refused to follow “unscientific, reckless directives.” Kennedy and other officials pressured Monarez to change vaccine policy and fire senior staff, people familiar with the conversations previously told The Post.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday that Monarez was not aligned with the president’s mission to Make America Healthy Again, a slogan popularized by Kennedy, and that a replacement will be announced soon.

“This woman has never received a vote in her life,” Leavitt said. “And the president has the authority to fire those who are not aligned with his mission.”

The move to oust Monarez prompted three career officials at the agency to coordinate and announce their resignations Wednesday: Daskalakis, Deb Houry, the chief medical officer, and Dan Jernigan, who helped oversee the CDC’s infectious-disease response.

Houry said she left in part because Monarez’s firing makes it easier for Kennedy’s appointees to a key panel to change its vaccine recommendations. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices - which Kennedy purged, replacing its members with individuals who have criticized long-standing U.S. vaccine policy - is scheduled to meet in mid-September. The group may vote on recommendations for coronavirus, hepatitis B and the combined measles, mumps, rubella, varicella vaccines, as well as RSV immunizations, according to an agenda published Thursday.

Houry said she was worried ACIP members would unravel vaccine recommendations before CDC staff could finish critical research.

“I hoped to have a CDC director who would review the science and be able to ensure that we stood behind it,” Houry said. “And so when we didn’t have scientific leadership, that was it.”

Cassidy said the CDC departures requires oversight from his health committee and called on ACIP to delay its September meeting.

“Serious allegations have been made about the meeting agenda, membership, and lack of scientific process being followed for the now announced September ACIP meeting,” Cassidy said. “If the meeting proceeds, any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy given the seriousness of the allegations and the current turmoil in CDC leadership.”

Kennedy has criticized the use of the hepatitis B vaccine in infants, saying the vaccine was made for “prostitutes” and “promiscuous gay men.” Public health experts say children can still be exposed and the vaccine is most effective when given at birth.

As the founder of an anti-vaccine group, Kennedy has a history of falsely linking vaccines to autism and other unscientific claims. Kennedy has criticized the CDC often, calling it a “cesspool of corruption” and arguing it’s in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry.

Since taking the nation’s top health job, Kennedy has continued to disparage those that work in public health, saying in an interview after a gunman who opposed coronavirus vaccines fired hundreds of rounds at the CDC’s Atlanta headquarters that public health agencies “have not been honest.” CDC employees grew angry at Kennedy’s response to the shooting, arguing that he is responsible for misinformation that has turned citizens against public health workers. Hundreds of current and former HHS and CDC workers called for Kennedy to resign following the shooting over a week ago.

Monarez wrote an op-ed about the attack on the CDC buildings and how vaccine misinformation can be harmful and drive violent rhetoric, according to Houry. But when Monarez sent the op-ed to HHS for clearance, it was returned to her with “significant revisions” and Monarez no longer wanted to submit it “because it was no longer her voice,” according to Houry, who said Monarez told her what happened.

An HHS spokesman did not immediately return requests for comment on Houry’s account.

In an interview with The Post, Daskalakis said Kennedy’s tenure has been “death by a thousand cuts” for U.S. public health and that Monarez’s ouster eliminated a key guardrail.

“Our science is going to be compromised and that I can’t really guarantee its quality or its veracity because of the way that the ACIP is being refashioned,” said Daskalakis, who published a scathing resignation letter on Wednesday.

Jernigan said the last straw for him was being forced to work with David Geier, a proponent of the false claim that vaccines cause autism who was hired by HHS to review old vaccine safety data and study a possible link between the two. In recent weeks, an HHS official asked for Geier be given access to additional up-to-date vaccine safety data, which Jernigan said raised patient privacy and ethical concerns.

“The current administration has made it very difficult for me to stay,” Jernigan said. “We have been asked to revise and to review and change studies that have been settled in the past, scientific findings that were there to help guide vaccine decisions.”

The leadership departures sent shock waves through the ranks of CDC employees in Atlanta. Some planned to rally Thursday afternoon to support the outgoing officials.

One current employee, Elizabeth Soda, a physician who worked under Jernigan, said she was fearful of who would replace the senior leaders. Soda, speaking in her personal capacity, called on Kennedy to resign and said he “is creating an environment where it’s becoming very difficult to do our jobs, support science.”

Kennedy’s comments Thursday offered little comfort to CDC employees.

In a Fox News appearance, he echoed Republican complaints that the CDC mishandled guidance on testing, social distancing and school closures during the pandemic. He said the agency was hampered by a “deeply embedded malaise.”

“We need strong leadership that will go in there and that will be able to execute on President Trump’s broad ambitions,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy on Thursday said CDC had listed abortion on its website among the top 10 medical advancements. A Post review found a no such mention exists on the CDC website. A 10 great public health achievements CDC page from 1999 lists vaccines, fluoridation and family planning, but does not mention abortion. Another page on family planning as an accomplishment says family planning reduced the number of abortions. The White House and HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Kennedy’s claim.

Some anti-vaccine activists cheered the firing of Monarez.

The departure of her and others are “a liberation for the CDC,” said Mary Holland, the head of Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group Kennedy founded, in a statement to The Post. “The agency’s mission is to serve the public, but for the last two decades, it has served the pharmaceutical industry at the expense of public health.”

On Capitol Hill and beyond, the CDC drama drew condemnation from Democrats and prominent public health officials.

Richard Besser, a former CDC official and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, told reporters Thursday that he was “dumbstruck by how little oversight Congress has shown to the devastating moves that this administration has taken when it comes to public health.”

Senators will have an opportunity to question Kennedy during a previously planned Sept. 4. hearing of the Senate Finance Committee.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), who leads Democrats on the health committee, called for a bipartisan investigation into Monarez’s firing.

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Dan Diamond contributed to this report.