When you put someone like that in charge of the nation’s health, you should expect that people will die. The CDC is imploding:
As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reeled from the ousting of its director, three senior leaders who resigned in protest told The Washington Post they were asked to participate in an unscientific vaccine recommendation process that they believe could harm the health of Americans.
The officials spoke shortly before security officials escorted them off the CDC’s Atlanta campus Thursday morning. Staff and leaders of the agency are openly revolting against the Trump administration and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime critic of the CDC and anti-vaccine activist, after months of tension over vaccine policy and staffing cuts.
Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned as the agency’s top respiratory illness and immunization official, said the CDC had reached an “unfettered situation where undue influence and ideology would drive the science.”
The criticism from departing CDC leaders prompted Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), who chairs the Senate’s health committee and cast a pivotal vote to confirm Kennedy, to call for a delay in an upcoming meeting of Kennedy’s vaccine advisers to review vaccine recommendations. “These decisions directly impact children’s health and the meeting should not occur until significant oversight has been conducted,” Cassidy said in a statement.
Sure, that’s going to happen. Kennedy does what he wants.
The White House on Wednesday announced the firing of CDC Director Susan Monarez, a longtime federal government scientist nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate in July. Her attorneys have challenged the legality of her firing and said she would not resign after she refused to follow “unscientific, reckless directives.” Kennedy and other officials pressured Monarez to change vaccine policy and fire senior staff, people familiar with the conversations previously told The Post.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday that Monarez was not aligned with the president’s mission to Make America Healthy Again, a slogan popularized by Kennedy, and that a replacement will be announced soon.
“This woman has never received a vote in her life,” Leavitt said. “And the president has the authority to fire those who are not aligned with his mission.”
Actually she received a majority of Senate votes in her confirmation hearing just a month or so ago. And we have never required scientists and doctors to be voted on by a bunch of braindead MAGA cretins before but I guess that’s how it’s going.
Will someone ask Trump how he sees his “Make America Healthy Again” mission? I’d love to know.
The move to oust Monarez prompted three career officials at the agency to coordinate and announce their resignations Wednesday: Daskalakis, Deb Houry, the chief medical officer, and Dan Jernigan, who helped oversee the CDC’s infectious-disease response.
Houry said she left in part because Monarez’s firing makes it easier for Kennedy’s appointees to a key panel to change its vaccine recommendations. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — which Kennedy purged, replacing its members with individuals who have criticized long-standing U.S. vaccine policy — is scheduled to meet in mid-September. The group may vote on recommendations for coronavirus, hepatitis B and the combined measles, mumps, rubella, varicella vaccines, as well as RSV immunizations, according to an agenda published Thursday.
Houry said she was worried ACIP members would unravel vaccine recommendationsbefore CDC staff could finish critical research. “I hoped to have a CDC director who would review the science and be able to ensure that we stood behind it,” Houry said. “And so when we didn’t have scientific leadership, that was it.”
Did anyone think that nominating a hardcore anti-vax, brainworm addled conspiracy theorist to run the national health agencies would end any other way?
He’s not backing down:
I suspect he sees “family planning” as abortion. And don’t be surprised to see him come out against contraception. It’s not “natural” don’t you know?
I do wonder if there isn’t an opening here to drive a wedge between this jackass and Trump. He’s not a MAGA loyalist. He was a “deal” to win the election. If enough of a stink came from people Trump cares about — people with money, mostly — Trump might begin to see him as a liability. It’s a long shot but worth thinking about.