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The CDC crisis and Republican complicity

Will the destruction of the Centers for Disease Control finally push the Republican Congress to constrain Trump’s science deniers?

Sometimes, events turn on the bravery of ordinary people. On Thursday, hundreds of employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) demonstrated outside their agency, all risking their jobs, to give a grateful send-off to three senior officials who had finally had enough and resigned in protest.

The three were Dr. Daniel Jernigan, who headed the center that oversees new diseases and vaccine safety; Dr. Debra Houry, the agency’s chief medical officer; and Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, an infectious disease specialist who led the center that reviews respiratory illnesses such as COVID and issues vaccine recommendations.

These senior scientists were the heart of the CDC. All objected to statements by new members of the agency’s vaccine advisory panel, which made clear that they would try to reduce access to several vaccines. “It really is transparent that these decisions have all been predestined,” Dr. Daskalakis said.

The advisory panel, which includes several science deniers newly appointed by anti-vax Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is scheduled to meet in mid-September. Its agenda includes votes on recommendations for COVID, hepatitis B, RSV vaccines, and the combined measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella vaccine. The administration has already set back vaccine science by withdrawing funding for new mRNA vaccine development.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved new COVID vaccines for people over age 65, or younger people who have an underlying medical condition that puts them at risk. This makes COVID vaccines less available for the first time since the outbreak. But the CDC advisory panel must add its recommendations, and could roll access back even further.

On Thursday, anticipating the shifts and proving the point, CVS, the nation’s largest drug chain, announced that it was temporarily not offering COVID vaccines, even to elderly people and others at special risk, in 16 states and the District of Columbia, citing “the current regulatory environment.” In some states, pharmacists may not administer vaccines not approved by the CDC.

For the three who resigned, the last straw was the firing of CDC director Susan Monarez, a government scientist confirmed by the Senate only in July. She served barely a month. She was fired after she resisted RFK Jr.’s pressure to change vaccine policy and to fire senior staff. Her attorneys have challenged the legality of her firing.

In a public letter of resignation, Dr. Daskalakis wrote: “I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health. The recent change in the adult and children’s immunization schedule threaten the lives of the youngest Americans and pregnant people … My grandfather, who I am named after, stood up to fascist forces in Greece and lost his life doing so. I am resigning to make him and his legacy proud.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt did not address any of the substantive issues raised by the three who resigned, but whined that Dr. Daskalakis “identifies pregnant women as ‘pregnant people,’ so that’s not someone who we want in this administration.” This makes clear once again that the right’s version of politically correct language trumps science.

The CDC had already been reeling from cuts in April that closed down entire divisions and laid off thousands of people, including Dr. Jonathan Mermin, who served as director of the CDC’s center for HIV and sexually transmitted infections.

If anyone has blood on his hands from the latest turn of events, it is Louisiana’s Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, who cast a decisive vote to confirm RFK Jr. to head the CDC, even though Cassidy, a physician, was well aware that Kennedy is a crackpot. On Thursday, Cassidy put out a statement calling for cancellation of the vaccine committee’s September meeting.

“Serious allegations have been made about the meeting agenda, membership, and lack of scientific process,” said Cassidy, who chairs the Senate Health Committee. “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.”

The Senate Finance Committee has a previously scheduled oversight session with Kennedy on September 4. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has called for a full investigation. Will the courage of the CDC staff and the plain political risks of the debacle inspire any Republicans to demand the ouster of Kennedy and the restoration of science to protect the public’s health?

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

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