Senior CDC officials resign after Monarez ouster, cite concerns over scientific independence

Four senior centers for the Siseease Control and Prevention American have announced their resignation in recent days, citing what they have described as an increasing political interference in the agency’s scientific work, in particular with regard to vaccines.

Two of them – Dr. Debra Houry, the chief science of the CDC and the doctor, and Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who directed the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases – resigned on Wednesday, a few hours after the White House announced the shot of the CDC director Susan Monarez.

Monarez, confirmed by the Senate At the end of July was withdrawn from less than a month in his mandate. The White House spokesman Kush Desai said that Monarez “was not aligned with the president’s agenda to make America healthy.” Monarez lawyers argue that the dismissal is illegal, saying that only the president can withdraw a confirmed director of the Senate.

Thursday, the assistant secretary for health and social services Jim O’Neill was chosen To serve as an interim director of the CDC, several managers of the White House confirmed to CBS News. And in an internal email sent to CDC staff Thursday evening, the secretary of health and social services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. confirmed O’Neill as acting director of the CDC, but did not approach the departure of Monarez.

“I undertake to work with you to restore confidence, transparency and Credibility to the CDC,” Kennedy told CDC employees, writing later that “President Trump and I are aligned on the vision of sponsorship for the CDC: strengthen the public health infrastructure by avoiding, detecting and responding to future threats of the Americans.”

Houry and Daskalakis said they had become more and more uncomfortable about how vaccine policy was managed. The two indicated preparations for the Consultative Committee for Vaccination Practices meeting, who recommends vaccine times.

Houry said they feared that “certain decisions had even been made before data or science to support them. We are scientists, and that concerned us.”

Daskalakis added that he was “very concerned about the fact that there would be an attempt to revive vaccines that have already had clear recommendations with the science that has been examined”, which he warned could undermine the public’s confidence. “If you can’t attack access, then why not attack trust? And that’s what I think the game book is,” he said.

The two officials cited cases in which the evidence exams have been modified or withdrawn. A CDC analysis of Thimérosal, a vaccine curator, was briefly published before being withdrawn towards HHS. “If there is something that does not align with the recommendations, then this information will be deleted, and this is not for the public to see opening and transparency,” said Houry.

The two also criticized what they described as a lack of direct communication between CDC scientists and HHS leadership. Daskalakis said that his team had never been invited to informed Kennedy about subjects ranging from measles to the cocoan.

Asked about Kennedy’s calls to “radical transparency”, Horyy and Daskalakis described the learning of changes The Covid Vaccinal Calendar For children not through internal channels but via social media.

“Radical transparency was manifested by a Twitter article, this is how Dr. Houry and I learned that the secretary had forced change in the vaccine calendar for children for Covid,” said Daskalakis. “What is the context that led to this decision? And we were refused access to this information. So I don’t think it is radically transparent,” said Daskalakis.

CBS News contacted HHS to comment on some of the allegations made by Houry and Daskalakis, but did not immediately hear.

The two officials said they had no jobs when they had resigned. Houry described the decision as an effort to relaunch the alarm on the management of the agency.

“For us, it really sent a bat signal,” said Houry. “We were very senior scientists and career leaders at the CDC. We thought it was time to stay together and try to do what we could to trigger the alarm around public health in our country.”

Daskalakis said that staying at the CDC in the current conditions would have made them accomplices of what he called “the armament” of public health.

“Security has already been compromised … We fly blind in the United States already. If we continue … We would be accomplices and facilitate the ability to go from theft to the blind to actively harm people,” he said.

Houry highlighted the severity of the moment by noting that she left without backup plan.

“My unemployed departure was really to show how disastrous circumstances had become,” said Houry.

Daskalakis said his decision was also shaped by his medical oath.

“As a doctor, I take the oath of the hippocrates: first, I do not hurt. I see the ideology impregnating science in a way that will harm children and adults … I think we see things that occur that make our country less ready to respond to daily pathogens … but also … to the next thing.”

The two also expressed concerns for their personal safety in the current climate.

“The environment in which we live … delighted by a disinformation, in particular on the part of the people considered by some as health authorities, makes me worried about all of us in public health,” said Daskalakis. “I am worried, but that is part of our work … to be courageous and to continue to tell the truth even when we are outside the CDC.”

Resignations occurred for weeks After a shoot Apart from the headquarters of Atlanta of the CDC, which the police have linked to the cocvid disinformation.

Houry said that the White House response to the shooting was silent. Kennedy toured the site, but then gave an interview expressing distrust of experts. “It was after the attack. It was based on a cocovable disinformation. It was then that we were trying to strengthen confidence,” she said.

Daskalakis added that even if Kennedy later described mass shots as a public health crisis, he thought that the secretary should consider disinformation as a deep cause. “The disinformation on the cocvid vaccine which was documented by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation as the reason for the CDC shooter. I really recommend that the secretary take his own advice and addresses the basic problem that has also led to this shoot,” he said. He also noted that the CDC armed violence prevention programs had been sharply reduced. “We are talking about violence as a public health problem. It is, and there are things that we can do to prevent it. Unfortunately, the majority of this program, the staff are terminated.”

The layoffs and resignations have aroused calls for surveillance. Independent senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont called for a bipartite investigation, the Democratic Senator Patty Murray from Washington urged Kennedy and Kennedy’s dismissal and The Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana – who voted to confirm the appointment of Kennedy as HHC secretary – said that developments “require surveillance”.

Events arise as the Food and Drug Administration has reduced the eligibility for Vaccines updated COVID-19 to the elderly and to people with risk factors for severe COVID.