The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is in critical condition. This year, a leading public health agency has had its funding and staff gutted, its mission sabotaged, and its headquarters literally riddled with bullets. More than 500 shots were aimed at scientists and public health experts who could only bear to be sidelined, ignored and rejected by Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist hell-bent on twisting the agency to fit his anti-science agenda.
Then, on August 27, Kennedy fired CDC Director Susan Monares just weeks after she was confirmed by the Senate. She refused to blindly endorse vaccination recommendations from a handpicked group of vaccine skeptics and opponents. The agency fell into chaos, and Monares was not the only one to leave the agency that day.
Three top leaders have reached a breaking point and agreed to their resignations after a dramatic ouster: dr. Demetre Daskalakis, Debra Khoury and Daniel Jernigan left the agency, and their colleagues rallied around them.
Dr. Daskalakis was the director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. He has led national responses to smallpox, measles, seasonal influenza, avian influenza, COVID-19 and RSV.
