Watch as RFK Jr pressed on vaccines and CDC turmoil at Senate hearing

What’s going on at Kennedy’s Health and Human Services agency?published at 17:40 British Summer Time

17:40 BST

Madeline Halpert
US Reporter

As Kennedy continues to face tough questions from lawmakers, chaos continues at one of the agencies he oversees, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which sits under the Department of Health and Human Services.

Last week, Kennedy fired the director of the agency, Dr Susan Monarez.

Demetre Daskalakis is one of four top officials who quit in protest of her firing. The director for the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Daskalakis said he had been writing his resignation letter for several months, but the firing of Monarez was one of the last straws for him.

“Someone has to be a scientific leader at CDC,” he told the BBC. “We’re in a dire strait right now in terms of the future of the agency.”

Daskalakis worries about what Kennedy’s leadership could mean for Americans’ access to vaccines, both because of misinformation about immunisations and conflicting recommendations from the federal government.

“There will be a very significant inequality created in the country where folks who who have ability to pay for health care will be able to get certain vaccines and others won’t,” he said. “That’s going to mean more infections, more hospitalizations, more disability and more death.”