Secretary Kennedy puts Americans 'in danger,' former health agency directors warn
Nine former directors of the top US health agency warned Monday about the Trump administration's dismantling of the agency and warned that anti-vaccine minister Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is "endangering the health of all Americans."
The scathing column in The New York Times is the latest in a series of attacks against the health secretary after the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was recently fired by Trump after just a few weeks in the job.
Susan Monarez was fired last week after confronting RFK Jr. and refusing to commit to supporting his changes to vaccination policies.
The dismissal led to the resignation of at least four high-ranking officials and plunged the agency into further chaos.
“We Run the CDC: Kennedy Is Endangering the Health of All Americans,” warned the op-ed written by nine former directors of the historically independent agency who served under every president, Democrat or Republican, from Jimmy Carter to Donald Trump.
What Kennedy “did to the CDC and the nation’s public health system – culminating in his decision to fire Dr. Susan Monarez as director (…) – is something we have never seen at the agency, and something our country has never experienced,” the experts wrote.
They noted that Kennedy laid off thousands of federal health workers; weakened programs designed to protect Americans against cancer, heart attacks, and more; and during the largest measles outbreak in decades, focused on “unproven treatments while downplaying vaccines.”
He also championed federal legislation that would leave thousands of people without health insurance, they said.
"This is unacceptable and should alarm all Americans, regardless of their political leanings," the experts emphasized, including Dr. Anne Schuchat, who served as acting CDC director during Trump's first term.
The harsh criticism comes a day after Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned as director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases in protest of Monarez's dismissal, warned that "the wall between science and ideology has been completely broken down" at the agency.
Meanwhile, Trump said he wants more information to be made public 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 his platform, Truth Social.
"With the CDC being torn apart by this issue, I want the answer, and I want it NOW!" Trump added.
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