\n See all topics<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
Facebook<\/p>\n
Tweet<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Email Link<\/p>\n \n Politically engineered chaos is destabilizing the top of America\u2019s vital public health institutions, as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.\u2019s tenure challenges the historic role of government in widening access to vaccines.\n <\/p>\n \n The ouster Wednesday of Dr. Susan Monarez<\/a> as director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention \u2014 less than a month after she was sworn in \u2014 deepened concerns about the role of Kennedy, who has a history of vaccine skepticism<\/a>. It will fuel fresh concerns the Trump administration is politicizing medicine<\/a>, rejecting science<\/a> and creating new risks to public health<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n Several other top CDC officials also announced they were quitting Wednesday, sending shock waves through an agency long regarded as the global gold standard that has been seriously diminished by the Trump administration.\n <\/p>\n \n Top health experts described the loss of senior staffers as \u201creckless,\u201d a \u201cdisaster,\u201d and ruinous to evidence-based public health policy \u2014 leaving the country more vulnerable.\n <\/p>\n \n CNN reported that Monarez\u2019s firing comes after days of pressure from Kennedy\u2019s deputy chief of staff and confidante Stefanie Spear, according to two people familiar with the situation. Monarez also clashed with Kennedy and his team over vaccine policies, including an impending announcement that could draw links between immunizations and autism, a person familiar with the situation told CNN.\n <\/p>\n \n The latest drama at the CDC follows an attack by a gunman<\/a> on the agency\u2019s headquarters in Atlanta earlier this month, which killed a police officer. The horror further fractured morale at an agency devastated by mass layoffs<\/a> by RFK Jr.\u2019s Department of Health and Human Services.\n <\/p>\n \n Combined with vast changes to health guidance and policy being pushed through by the Trump administration, and huge cuts to federal health funding at elite research universities<\/a> that have forged lifesaving breakthroughs, the latest shocks are plunging American public health into deep uncertainty.\n <\/p>\n \n The administration has also made massive reductions to US-funded health programs worldwide<\/a>, including with the demolition of the US Agency for International Development<\/a>, tarnishing the country\u2019s reputation as a global health superpower.\n <\/p>\n \n All of this raises the risk that an administration devoted to \u201cMaking America Healthy Again\u201d could end up complicit in many unnecessary deaths in years to come.\n <\/p>\n \u2018Destructive chaos\u2019 and an \u2018absolute disaster\u2019 for public health<\/p>\n \n RFK Jr.\u2019s nomination as Health and Human Services secretary owes much to the synergy between his past vaccine skepticism and the distrust of public health agencies<\/a> among Trump\u2019s conservative base that ballooned during the Covid-19 pandemic.\n <\/p>\n \n His tenure is already precipitating transformations in top health agencies that would take many years to reverse under future administrations.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cOusting the first Senate-confirmed CDC director weeks into the start of her tenure makes absolutely no sense and underscores the destructive chaos at RFK Jr.\u2019s Department of Health and Human Services,\u201d said Dr. Robert Steinbrook, health research group director at Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cTo make matters even worse, there are reports of additional resignations of critical high-ranking CDC staff,\u201d Steinbrook said. \u201cThe CDC is being decapitated. This is an absolute disaster for public health.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Dr. Tina Tan, the president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, warned that politically motivated attacks on the country\u2019s public health system must end.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe mass resignations of CDC expert leaders present a clear and present danger to Americans of all ages and leave our nation extremely vulnerable to a wide range of public health threats from outbreaks to bioterror attacks,\u201d Tan said. \u201cAs we near respiratory virus season, it is imperative that our country have expert public health leadership for effective surveillance, communications and responses.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Tam added, \u201cThe administration\u2019s current trajectory for destroying the public health system is reckless and cannot continue.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Monarez\u2019s lawyers said in a statement that \u201cSecretary Kennedy and HHS have set their sights on weaponizing public health for political gain and putting millions of American lives at risk.\u201d They also made clear that she had not resigned nor received notice of her dismissal from the White House as of late Wednesday.\n <\/p>\n \n The White House responded with a statement explicitly firing Monarez. \u201cAs her attorney\u2019s statement makes abundantly clear, Susan Monarez is not aligned with the President\u2019s agenda of Making America Healthy Again. Since Susan Monarez refused to resign despite informing HHS leadership of her intent to do so, the White House has terminated Monarez from her position with the CDC,\u201d White House spokesperson Kush Desai said on Wednesday night.\n <\/p>\n \n The fact that Monarez has been ousted just weeks after she was confirmed by the Senate underscores the administration\u2019s contempt for the legislative branch and its constitutional oversight role at a time when Trump is dismantling constraints on presidential power every day.\n <\/p>\n \n Monarez, a longtime government scientist, wasn\u2019t even the president\u2019s first choice to run the CDC. His initial pick, Dr. Dave Weldon, a former Florida lawmaker, was withdrawn in March<\/a> amid concerns in the White House about his public comments expressing skepticism about vaccines.\n <\/p>\n \n News of Monarez\u2019s departure broke after Kennedy announced changes that will narrow access to Covid-19 vaccines<\/a>. He celebrated the move, on X, claiming that emergency use authorizations had been used by the Biden administration to justify \u201cbroad mandates\u201d on the population. His comment underscored how the lingering politics of the pandemic are a motivating force for Trump\u2019s presidency.\n <\/p>\n \n The FDA approved updated vaccines for Covid-19 but constrained criteria for their use. The dose is permitted for adults 65 and older and younger people at higher risk from Covid-19. At a time when Covid-19 cases are spiking<\/a>, it is now likely to become harder for the general population and especially younger children to get the vaccines.\n <\/p>\n \n This decision comes a few weeks after Kennedy announced that the government would terminate investments in 22 mRNA vaccine projects<\/a>, claiming that they \u201cfail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like Covid and flu.\u201d This is despite the role of such vaccines in preventing severe disease<\/a> and ending the Covid-19 pandemic. Such inoculations can be developed quickly and produced at a massive scare during an emergency and were demonstrated to be safe.\n <\/p>\n \n Kennedy has also fired the entire 17-member panel of outside vaccine experts who sit on the CDC\u2019s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices<\/a> that reviews vaccine data and replaced them with his own selections, some of whom have expressed anti-vaccine views in the past.\n <\/p>\n \n Many observers expected divisions between RFK Jr. and Monarez to emerge \u2014 but perhaps not quite so soon.\n <\/p>\n \n During her confirmation hearing in June, Monarez described vaccines as \u201clifesaving\u201d and pledged to prioritize vaccine availability. She said that she had no prejudices against the mRNA platform. And she said she had seen no \u201ccausal\u201d link between vaccines and autism.\n <\/p>\n \n Kennedy\u2019s boss, President Donald Trump, claimed Tuesday that his first-term Operation Warp Speed, which helped push out mRNA Covid vaccines, was \u201cone of the greatest achievements ever in politics.\u201d But Trump is also leery of highlighting the vaccines since the Republican Party\u2019s base is laced with vaccine skepticism and hostility toward US health institutions that developed it.\n <\/p>\n \n At the same Cabinet meeting, Kennedy promised announcements in September and mentioned \u201ccertain interventions now that are clearly, almost certainly causing autism.\u201d Trump replied that \u201cthere has to be something artificially causing this, meaning a drug or something.\u201d The CDC has previously published several studies looking at a possible link between vaccines and vaccine ingredients and autism. None has found any evidence to suggest that vaccines increase the risk of autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders.\n <\/p>\n \n Kennedy\u2019s moves on vaccines in recent months and his comments on autism are heightening anxiety among his critics that vital public health decisions are now being overly influenced by political goals.\n <\/p>\n \n It was clear during Monarez\u2019s confirmation hearing that some senators on both sides of the political aisle were hoping that she would emerge as a constraint on Kennedy, who once described the Covid-19 inoculations as \u201cthe deadliest vaccine ever made.\u201d<\/a> <\/a>Several senators extracted promises from Monarez to follow science. But Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said that while he had no concerns about her qualifications, he had questions about \u201cyour willingness to follow through on your values.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n In the event, Monarez\u2019s lawyers said Wednesday that she \u201crefused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, (and) she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n In his own confirmation hearing earlier this year, Kennedy repeatedly denied he was anti-vaccine \u2014 even though his denials contradicted on-the-record comments he\u2019d made in the past.<\/a> <\/a>\n <\/p>\n \n While his record on vaccines at HHS appears to be validating the fears of many Democrats who voted against him \u2014 and some Republicans who trusted his undertakings \u2014 his views on other issues enjoy more support. Kennedy\u2019s warnings that unhealthy food and lifestyles are making many people sick are based in fact. But his recent implications that some conditions are purely the result of lifestyle and that some victims of Covid-19 might have died because of other health conditions<\/a> have been disputed by numerous health experts.\n <\/p>\n \n Following Kennedy\u2019s purges at HHS, CDC and other agencies, such views will get less pushback.\n <\/p>\n \n And with Monarez\u2019s departure, RFK\u2019s control over the government\u2019s public health infrastructure \u2014 and by extension, the treatment and health-care options of tens of millions of Americans \u2014 is more unchallenged than ever.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vaccines Federal agencies Disability issues Donald Trump See all topics Facebook Tweet Email Link Politically engineered chaos is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":["post-102760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n <\/a><\/p>\n![\"Susan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/c-2025-06-25t144207z-83012990-rc2q9famm56p-rtrmadp-3-usa-trump-cdc.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Bullet](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/gettyimages-2228550535.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Robert](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/gettyimages-2196801068.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Former](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/ap25070589123547-20250313123346070.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Dr.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/gettyimages-2222107394.jpg\")
<\/p>\n