CDC purge and Covid vaccine restrictions threaten public health

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is systematically dismantling the public health infrastructure that keeps us safe from pandemics and vaccine-responsive diseases like Covid-19. 

The latest step is the firing of CDC Director Dr. Susan Monarez, and the consequent principled resignations of three other top CDC scientists, incalculable losses for an agency that has — literally — been under attack.  

Combined with FDA’s announcement restricting the eligible populations for Covid vaccines, these latest moves are a one-two sucker punch to the greatest scientific achievement of the first Trump administration — the rapid development and deployment of vaccines to stop the pandemic.  

Instead, Secretary Kennedy has chosen to foist his own personal pet theories onto the whole country with his reckless campaign to undermine vaccines and public trust in them. He has sabotaged the nation’s long-standing, science-based vaccine policies, cancelled vital vaccine and Covid research, and has now prompted an unprecedented, overnight loss of scientific talent at CDC. The nation — and its defenses against future pandemics — are all the poorer.