A ‘hostile takeover’: ousted CDC official raises alarm over RFK Jr approach to infectious disease | Trump administration

Robert F Kennedy Jr, the Secretary of the American Department of Health and Social Services (HHS), avoided meetings with senior health officials, even if deadly epidemics have taken place and prompted unprecedented changes to the calendar of child immunization, according to a recently mentioned leader of centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

Debra Houry, the former CDC chief medicine, spoke with The Guardian after testifying before a senatorial committee of his eight months of service under Kennedy, offering an overview of a health secretary who was criticized as an expertise that issued an expertise in the disinformation, the denigration of sciences and the dismantling of the crucial institutions for the health of the Americans.

Houry’s account is added to the representations of former CDC director Susan Monarez, a distant leader and sometimes exploding angry with the American public health system – leading to Houry to call for Kennedy’s resignation.

CDC priorities have radically changed, she said.

“It really represents a hostile takeover of the agency,” she said. “It also worries me what we can trust by leaving the global agency, not just about vaccine safety.”

When Tom Price became secretary of the HHS during the first administration of Donald Trump, he called senior agency officials at Washington DC for a two -week meeting, throwing a solid and remaining base in frequent contact. Other health leaders have adopted a similar approach.

“In the previous administration of Trump, I informed the secretary, I spoke to the assistant secretary all the time,” said Houry. Two senior HHS officials from Trump’s first administration have now offered to serve as employment references after leaving the CDC post without safeguard plan, she said.

But during the first eight months of the second Trump administration, Houry never informed Kennedy on any subject. She spent a short time with him.

“I met him once,” she said-when Kennedy visited the empty offices of the CDC three days after an armed man killed the officer David Rose and left the staff of the CDC traumatized and terrified to put their names on studies on vaccines.

Constant attempts to reach the Kennedy office were unsuccessful, said Houry, who resigned on August 27.

Houry served under six CDC administrators covering four administrations, and was chosen to direct the transition between Biden and Trump administrations because it has the reputation of adopting new administrations and helping to implement politicians.

She prepared for Kennedy because she would have plunged into preparations for all circumstances when she was an emergency doctor. “I literally read three of his books, I took notes, I looked at themes, I thought of the way we present things to him, as on our vaccine security databases and to be more accessible in public,” she said.

But she never had the chance to present anything.

Even in the middle of the worst epidemic of America measles in 30 years, has resulted in three deaths, Kennedy has promoted unfounded treatments and supervised vaccination – the only way to stop the epidemic – as personal choice. He has received no contribution from Houry, Monarez or the leaders of CDC institutions specializing in subjects such as epidemics of disease and vaccinations.

“During the epidemic of measles, when he said incorrect things on the vaccines – as if they had killed people or that they had fetal parts – I sent notes to our CDC management team to share how we could help him, and if there were means of sending him discussion points,” said Houry. But his attempts to inform the secretary were rejected, she said.

Measles was not the only pathogen of concern. The death of children from the flu has climbed at the highest rate never seen outside a flu pandemic, the bird flu has become even more difficult to follow and is comfortable in circulation, invalidating and killing the Americans.

“We would have loved having the conversations with him,” said Houry at the hearing in September.

“Several times, I sent emails to our management team to share with HHS when he said things that were not scientifically correct, so that we can help support him.”

Instead, Kennedy has decided to restrict vaccines. He deleted the recommendation so that pregnant people receive cocovated vaccines, and has limited photos to children with underlying conditions-a limitation that the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) applied to all Americans when he approved vaccines.

Houry has only learned about Kennedy’s cocovid vaccine changes in an article on X. She has never received any evidence or data for the decision, she said.

Kennedy advisers have selected the CDC, the Vaccination Practices (ACIP) CDC Committee (API), voted in September to remove a recommendation for measles vaccine, mumps, rubella and chickenpox (Pouleur), around 15% of American parents chose for their children.

The AIPI also discussed the modification of the current recommendation on the fact of giving the hepatitis B vaccine at birth.

Kennedy pushed to change this recommendation when Houry left the CDC, she said. Stuart Burns, appointed politics to HHS, would have told him that Kennedy had suggested moving vaccination at the age of four.

During the ACIP meeting in September, the advisers discussed the dose of one month after birth, in consultation with a pediatrician.

It may be “perhaps” that advisers or civil servants have felt pressure to change the recommendation one month after the public offices. “It’s hard to say. I just know what I was a few weeks ago,” said Houry.

In the end, the advisers postponed the vote to modify the recommendation.

Even waiting for a month to prevent hepatitis B can damage children’s health.

“In the 90s, when there were delayed doses, we had children with a liver disease,” said Houry. “At one or two months, there were still missed cases. People get lost to follow up, you can undergo false negative tests and there is an exhibition to the household. ”

Even if the person who gives negative birth tests, there are possibilities for transmitting households – even the nail cutting or the practice of sport. About half of people with hepatitis B do not know when they acquired it.

“I was a doc.” It is this first year of life where, if a baby is infected, he will have the worst results with hepatitis infection, and that is why it is really important to give it very early. “

However, Kennedy continues to broadcast anti-vaccine messages. He recently published a video on X to “shred” the idea that vaccines have saved millions of lives.

When Monarrez was dismissed after 29 days on work, Hours and two other senior officials, Demeter Daskalakis and Daniel Jernigan, planned their joint outing. “I knew I couldn’t continue,” said Houry.

They had discussed going before “because we had many concerns in the past two months. It was really built,” said Houry. “Then, when Susan was ousted, we knew that there was absolutely no scientific leadership at that time.”

They announced resignations together “to ring a greater alarm,” she said.

Now there are few experienced leaders at the CDC; Some 80% of the managers of the experienced center were dismissed or licensed, or have resigned or withdrawn. Houry was the only permanent career official in the director’s CDC office when she left; There were 10 people named politicians, she said.

“I am really worried because if people have increased the hesitation of the vaccines, if we do not have platforms like mRNA to develop vaccines, we are not going to be prepared,” she said. “I fear for public health in our country.”