The premier U.S. public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), founded in 1946 to promote post-World War II nationwide health, has been in turmoil for months, clashing with MAHA ideology demanded in Washington, in particular over vaccination science and practice, but also on other points. In this past week’s extreme tumult, CDC Director Susan Monarez, an infectious disease expert, was ordered out of office; four top officials then resigned in protest, and on Aug. 28, CDC staff staged a demonstration at the CDC’s Atlanta, Georgia headquarters, in support of the exiting officials, and of science.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), under which the CDC is administered, on Aug. 28 appointed as the new acting Director of the CDC Jim O’Neill, infamous for his hedge fund bankster career, and being a crony of Peter Thiel. O’Neill otherwise has spent some time at the HHS in the past, and since June 2025 has been HHS Deputy Secretary.
Susan Monarez was nominated by President Trump as permanent CDC Director in March (she had been acting director), and was approved by the Senate in July (a requirement set by a new law in 2023). She came to have open differences with the anti-vaccine stance demanded by RFK, Jr. of the HHS agencies. This week, the RFK, Jr./Trump administration demanded she quit her post.
The heads of the top CDC agencies who quit in protest have all been speaking out about the pressure they have come under to publish health information they know to be untrue, and otherwise to submit to political meddling. They are: Dr. Debra Houry, CDC’s Chief Medical Officer and Deputy Director for Program and Science. Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, leader of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. He issued a letter critical of the “manipulation of data to achieve a political end rather than the good of the American people.” Dr. Daniel Jernigan, a CDC staff member since 1994, most recently Director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases. Jennifer Layden, an epidemiologist who led the CDC’s Office of Public Health Data.
Over the last seven months, HHS has downplayed in many ways vaccine benefits and scientific approaches concerning many illnesses, from COVID to measles, and for respiratory illnesses. For example, COVID vaccine accessibility has been under pressure, so that in a number of states at present, a person now must have a doctor’s prescription for a COVID inoculation.
