{"id":189475,"date":"2025-08-31T14:17:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T14:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/189475\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T14:17:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T14:17:14","slug":"public-health-in-uncharted-waters-amid-cdc-tumult","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/189475\/","title":{"rendered":"Public health in \u2018uncharted waters\u2019 amid CDC tumult"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"margin:0;font-size:17px;mso-line-height-alt:25.5px\">\nThe Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Wednesday that Susan Monarez would no longer serve as CDC director. This was followed by the <strong>resignations <\/strong>of four top leaders at the agency:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"line-height:1.5;mso-line-height-alt:25.5px;font-size:17px\">\n<li><strong>Demetre C. Daskalakis<\/strong>, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases<\/li>\n<li>\n<strong>Daniel Jernigan<\/strong>, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Debra Houry<\/strong>, CDC Chief Medical Officer\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" style=\"margin:0;mso-line-height-alt:25.5px\"><strong>Jennifer Layden<\/strong>, director for the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"margin:0;font-size:17px;mso-line-height-alt:25.5px\">In an all-hands meeting following the resignations, the office that Jernigan had led signaled deep <strong>uncertainty <\/strong>about the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0;font-size:17px;mso-line-height-alt:18px\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0;font-size:17px;mso-line-height-alt:25.5px\">\n\u201cThese are uncharted waters,\u201d said a senior CDC official during a Thursday all-hands meeting of NCEZID. \u201cBut we will do our best to navigate, to move forward, to do the work that we think needs to be done in the way that it needs to be done.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0;font-size:17px;mso-line-height-alt:18px\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0;font-size:17px;mso-line-height-alt:25.5px\">\nLawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at the O\u2019Neill Institute at the Georgetown University Law Center and director of the WHO Center on Global Health Law, said the shakeup has left the agency <strong>\u201cweakened, gutted, and utterly dispirited.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0;font-size:17px;mso-line-height-alt:18px\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0;font-size:17px;mso-line-height-alt:25.5px\">\nThese developments follow a <strong>fatal shooting<\/strong> and <strong>mass layoffs<\/strong> at the agency, all of which in the past month.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0;font-size:17px;mso-line-height-alt:18px\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0;font-size:17px;mso-line-height-alt:25.5px\">\nFor Democrats on Capitol Hill, the chaos is enough to call for HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.\u2019s <strong>termination<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0;font-size:17px;mso-line-height-alt:18px\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0;font-size:17px;mso-line-height-alt:25.5px\">\nSenate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Friday that keeping Kennedy in the position would \u201cmake many more people sick and cause more deaths.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0;font-size:17px;mso-line-height-alt:18px\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0;font-size:17px;mso-line-height-alt:25.5px\">\n\u201cBy keeping Robert Kennedy in charge of HHS, Trump is doubling down on his own failure. President Trump must admit his mistake and remove Kennedy now,\u201d said Schumer.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0;font-size:17px;mso-line-height-alt:18px\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0;font-size:17px;mso-line-height-alt:25.5px\">\nRep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) said, \u201cPresident Trump must fire Robert F. Kennedy Jr. before he further endangers millions of American children, mothers, and families.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0;font-size:17px;mso-line-height-alt:18px\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0;font-size:17px;mso-line-height-alt:25.5px\">\n\u201cIf Trump does not remove Kennedy before this kook fully unleashes his crackpot conspiracy theories on America\u2019s vaccination efforts, Trump will bear the responsibility for the unnecessary and preventable illnesses and deaths that result.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0;font-size:17px;mso-line-height-alt:18px\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0;font-size:17px;mso-line-height-alt:25.5px\">\nProgramming note: The Hill\u2019s healthcare newsletter will not publish on Labor Day. See you Tuesday!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Wednesday that Susan Monarez would no longer serve as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":189476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[16460,69,210,1141,1142,42229,881,49697,81355,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-189475","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-cdc","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-health-care","12":"tag-healthcare","13":"tag-hhs","14":"tag-public-health","15":"tag-rfk-jr","16":"tag-susan-monarez","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115123810925320304","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}