One hundred days ago, at the end of August, I left his position as chief medical officer of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), along with two colleagues. We left because we could no longer remain silent as scientific integrity was undermined and the country's public health infrastructure was destroyed. dismantled under the leadership of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). At that moment, we called on Congress, professional societies, and public health stakeholders to intervene before irreparable damage was done. I left with a feeling of hope.
In the weeks following my resignation, the nation took notice. The Secretary's misinformation, the chaos in the response to the measles outbreak, the unprecedented firing of members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), and changes in how the CDC communicates with the public were scrutinized.
This public scrutiny culminated in a Senate HELP Committee hearing in September, in which former CDC Director Susan Monares told senators that she had been asked to approve vaccine recommendations and fire senior scientists. I also described how I learned about changes to CDC guidelines through tweets, the secretary's promotion of untested drugs during the measles outbreak, and HHS officials requesting data outside of standard processes.
But today, 100 days later, the situation has not improved. They have gotten worse. And Congress has still not taken any action.
Earlier this summer, the Senate Appropriations Committee interrogated the continued hiring of political leaders at the CDC in their budget language. HHS again ignored congressional guidance. Since September, the CDC has hired at least two additional policy staffers, leaving the director's office now with 14 policy leaders and no professional scientists. Acting CDC Director Jim O'Neill is neither a scientist nor a doctor. These new employees, Mark Blacksill and Dr. Ralph Abraham, made public statements against vaccination.
In October, we saw more layoffs (though some were eventually reversed) of CDC staff, including those working on the Ebola and measles response. Moreover, given the Secretary's repeated calls for a “gold standard of science” and “radical transparency,” it was unclear why the ethics office, the Institutional Review Board office, and the unit overseeing Federal Advisory Committees were targeted.
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The CDC website has evolved from a data-heavy site to pages filled with a political agenda. CDC Priorities Page now makes negative references to immigration, abortion, gender ideology and harm reduction. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) must rely on data and science, not ideology. The reference to “smallpox” was replaced by “monkeypox”, despite the WHO's 2022 recommendation to use the former term to avoid stigmatization. And in November, scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) discovered an updated page on autism and vaccine safety that distorted decades of research. Several health departments have already removed links to the CDC from their websites.
Sixteen strategic initiatives developed and managed by political appointees without scientific or programmatic expertise were rolled out at a senior management meeting in November. Thanks to a widely circulated PowerPoint presentation, I learned that some priorities, such as “increasing scientific rigor,” are led not by scientists but by two political appointees: an aviation lawyer and a realtor with a self-published book about the skies.
The December ACIP meeting hit an all-time low this week. Three of the speakers on the hepatitis B vaccine were not vaccine scientists, and two were authors retracted paper about autism. In addition to this, an ally of the Secretary of State, an anti-vaccine lawyer named Aaron Seery, who had previously asked the FDA to revoke approval of the polio vaccine, was given a platform to present the childhood vaccination schedule. We saw a preview of this in September when the new ACIP focused on the hypothetical risks of the vaccines while minimizing the established benefits and voted to narrow the recommendations for the MMRV and COVID vaccines. The result has been less access to these vaccines for certain populations.
The implications of the CDC's new direction are not theoretical. They appear in children's hospital beds. We have seen additional child deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases, including whooping cough. Measles outbreaks that should be quickly stopped continue because vaccine safety information is withheld and action is delayed. These are not the mistakes of doctors or health departments. These are the failures of federal leadership: predictable results when authoritative scientific voices are replaced by ideological leaders. The country's public health infrastructure is destabilized.
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Vaccines have become the most visible flashpoint, but the deeper crisis is whether the U.S. will remain a science-based public health agency capable of protecting the nation. What we have witnessed at the CDC is not reform. This is a devastation of an institution that Americans rely on in any emergency. Actions taken late this summer will leave the country less prepared for the next measles outbreak, cluster of foodborne illnesses, maternal mortality crisis or new pandemic. These changes happen quietly, quickly and with little oversight.
When I resigned, I believed that members of Congress from both parties would intervene. Some have expressed concerns privately in briefings with me. But there was no meaningful oversight. Congress has tools: hearings, subpoenas, appropriations language, whistleblower protections, and statutory limits. But unused tools are wasted tools.
After 100 days, we have enough data to know that this is not a series of isolated errors. This is CDC's deliberate shift from evidence-based practice to ideology-based management. Today, I ask again: Congress, governors, health systems, scientific societies, and the private sector must act. Not with statements, but with supervision, pressure and protection of career employees who continue to serve conscientiously. Just as doctors should always do what's right for their patients, I hope that national leaders will do what's right for their constituents, not just what will get them re-elected—and that professional organizations and institutions will speak up on behalf of Americans' health rather than remain silent for fear that they will lose funding.
I did not resign to make a symbolic remark. I resigned because silence would have made me complicit. I spoke out because the stakes for children, communities and our preparedness are too high. What happens next will determine whether the damage becomes permanent.
