Even if you don’t follow public health news regularly, you probably saw that CDC is in chaos right now—unless you live under a rock these days, which let’s be real, would be understandable.
Let’s review yesterday’s bonkers timeline, shall we?
12:35pm ET: RFK Jr. announced on X that FDA had issued the anticipated change in licensure for COVID vaccines. As of yesterday morning, you can only get a COVID booster in the United States if you’re over 65 or have an underlying condition that puts you at high risk for severe disease, unless you get it “off label,” which might prove difficult.
2:35pm ET: Someone at HHS posted on X that Dr. Susan Monarez had been relieved of her duties as Director of the CDC. Reminder that she was the acting director since January 23 of this year, was nominated for the Directorship on March 24 (which required Senate confirmation and meant she needed to vacate the acting director role, putting RFK Jr. in charge of US vaccine policy), didn’t get confirmed until July 29 (four months of RFK Jr. having more or less unrestricted control of major CDC decision-making including on vaccines), and then was fired 29 days later…with no acting director announced, thus leaving RFK Jr. effectively in charge again.
4:14pm ET: WaPo and other major news outlets began reporting that Monarez had been ousted.
By 5:00pm ET: Three other Center-level leaders resigned. (They were 3 very well-respected and effective leaders with a lot of influence over things that affect all of our health…key because unfortunately not many of those remain at CDC after months of gutting.) They were Dr. Debra Houry, the CDC’s Chief Medical Officer; Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (the Center that issues vaccine recommendations), and Dr. Dan Jernigan, Director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (the Center that oversees vaccine safety). Demetre Daskalakis’ resignation letter—which he proudly posted on Instagram and X—has definitely been making the rounds since he didn’t pull any punches. (A few excerpts: “I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health,” and “Having worked in local and national public health for years, I have never experienced such radical non-transparency, nor have I seen such unskilled manipulation of data to achieve a political end rather than the good of the American people.”) For what it’s worth, Dr. Jennifer Layden, Director of the Office of Public Health Data also resigned the day before yesterday—also a big deal, even if it doesn’t fit neatly into the drama-filled timeline of August 27.
7:03pm ET: Two lawyers for Dr. Monarez released a statement and series of posts correctly pointing out that announcing on X that someone had been fired is not the same as firing them, and in fact Monarez had NOT yet been fired, and had not resigned, and thus was still CDC Director regardless of what government officials were saying.
8:33pm ET: NYT published a story (I don’t have an archive link for you and the story has since been updated, but there’s a screenshot I took below) with the headline “Health Secretary Tries to Oust C.D.C. Director, but She Refuses to Leave” and a number of news outlets followed quickly with similar.
9:30pm ET: Trump’s spokesperson Kush Desai released a statement to the media clarifying that Dr. Monarez had now officially been fired, saying in an email, “As her attorney’s statement makes abundantly clear, Susan Monarez is not aligned with the President’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again. Since Susan Monarez refused to resign despite informing HHS leadership of her intent to do so, the White House has terminated Monarez from her position with the CDC.”
So let’s be clear. There are still brilliant people working at CDC, and a lot of them are great leaders. But yesterday was not a good day for the leadership and stability of an organization that has a massive role and responsibility for keeping the public healthy in the United States of America. Weakening this institution is bad for our health. Period. We should not be playing politics with the health of Americans (or anyone) and this is all bad news.
Why did this all go down yesterday?
Is it because Dr. Monarez was asked to fire top CDC leaders and she refused, and then others quit in solidarity?
Is it because FDA changed the vaccine licensing, and that was the red line for these leaders, who decided they needed to leave (or be ousted) rather than support this shift—which is not based in science and is also bad for our health as a country? It’s definitely at least partially this, since Dr. Houry released a statement today that she, Daskalakis and Jernigan agreed to leave together because of the relevance to their work on outbreaks and vaccine science, stating, “We have reached the tipping point and we knew it was a powerful statement for the three of us to do this together.”
Is it because Dr. Monarez spoke up about misinformation being a problem, and RFK Jr. didn’t like that because he’s the Chief Misinformation Officer™? That might not have been enough on its own, but it probably didn’t help.
Is there some other strategy here, that will soon become apparent? Very easy to believe that’s true.
Probably some of all of these. I can’t tell you the answer. I’ll be watching for it, just like you—and if you’re not, I’ll try to share a new update when I know more.
**Important PS! If you want more information on the COVID vaccine changes and what it all means to you (and what you should do now), Your Local Epidemiologist posted a great overview last night here, and you should check it out.