The debate about vaccines and public health explained
The exterior of the main campus of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, August 27, 2025.
Alyssa Zeiger | Reuters
The centers for the control and prevention of diseases are faced with a circulation of leadership – and at the center of the activation is concerned about the approach of the agency for vaccines and US health.
The White House said on Thursday that President Donald Trump released the CDC director Susan Monarez after refusing. Monarez’s lawyers said that she was “targeted” because “she” protects the public because of a political agenda “.
In the meantime, four other top health officers of the CDC announced that they would leave the agency on Wednesday. This includes Demetre Daskalaki, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, which said that he could no longer serve because of the “weapons of public health”.
Former Chief Medical Officer from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Debra Houry, former National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Demetre Daskalakis, and former National Center for Aufworten and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Daniel Jernigan Hold Flowers and Reacta, Reaf, a Protest, a Protest Day. USA, August 28, 2025.
Alyssa Zeiger | Reuters
The loss of these respected leaders and the efforts to suppress Monarez follow a series of measures by the health and human secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.-a prominent prominent vacceptic to revise the federal health authorities and the immunization policy in the US MRNA shot and ports of mRNA-shot technologies and ports of similar views with similar views.
Kennedy has a long success story in making misleading and false statements about the security of vaccines, but in his current role, he loses enormous power over the agencies that regulate and determine the vaccinations and which insurance plans should cover.
Dr. Georges Benjamin, managing director of the American Public Health Association, said that overhauling the leadership on the CDC represented Kennedy’s “failed leadership and ruthless mismanagement” and added that he has “obvious disregard for science and evidence -based public health”.
The agency is also due to financing cuts and an attack by a shooter on August 8 at his headquarters in Atlanta.
Some of the health policy experts said that the management of the public could continue to undermine the public’s trust in an agency that is responsible for the detection of outbreaks of illness and the management of state and local health departments if necessary.
“This must be seen on a number of possibilities how CDC was weakened and undermined, perhaps irreversible,” Lawrence Gostin, professor of public health at Georgetown University, told CNBC.
“In all these years, CDC was independent in the crown of American science and the gem. This is literally everyone, while we speak,” he said. “This is almost the definition of politics that undermines science.”
Top Official highlights vaccine problems
Deskalakis was one of the officials to expressly emphasize the concerns about the views of Kennedy and his employees. He said he had questioned his ability to continue his role in the agency.
“I cannot serve in an environment that the CDC is treated as an instrument for generation of guidelines and materials that do not reflect the scientific reality and do not violate the health of the public and not to improve the health of the public,” said Daskalakis in his return letter, which was published on X.
He said that the recent changes in the CDC in the immunization plan for adults and children threaten the life of the youngest Americans and pregnant women “.
High-ranking members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dressed in Uniform, Salute Former CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry, Former National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Director Dasetre Daskalakis, and Former National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectic DiseaME Director Daniel Jernigan, A Day After the White House Fired CDC Director Susan Monarez and Several Top Officials Resigned, in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, August 28, 2025.
Alyssa Zeiger | Reuters
In May Kennedy said that the CDC removed Covid vaccines from the list of women and children recommended for healthy pregnant women and children. An updated guide that says days later that these groups could be granted “” shots “.
Deskalakis said that the data analyzes that supported the change had “never been shared with the CDC despite my respectful inquiries to HHS and other leadership”. He also said that HHS distributed a “frequently asked questions” in circulation of Kennedy’s decision without contributions from CDC themed experts and quoted studies “that did not support the conclusions that were attributed to these authors”.
On Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration approved the latest round of the Covid vaccines only for those who have a higher risk of serious diseases, and marked a further shift in politics to these shots since the beginning of the pandemic.
The shares of the Covid vaccine manufacturers were immersed on Thursday. Modernity Shares fell by more than 3%, while shares of Pfizer fell by 2%.
These companies and other drug manufacturers have said goodbye to changes in vaccine and health policy since Trump has appointed Kennedy for the first time as his election as head of HHS in November. The leadership provision of the CDC only contributes to uncertainty in the pharmaceutical industry, which also deals with Trump’s drug price guidelines.
Kennedy tried to distance himself from his previous views of vaccines and other health policy during his hearing of the Senate confirmation in January. He claimed that he was not “anti-accine” and would not “difficult or prevent people from” taking routine shots for measles and polio “.
But some of Kennedy’s latest efforts seem to reflect his vaccine-critical views. For example, in August, Kennedy argued that MRNA vaccines – the technology used in Covid – are ineffective and are in favor of developing other bumps that use other “safer” platforms.
Years of research support the effectiveness of mrna -kovid vaccines, and the technology is now approved for use in shots against the syncytial virus of the respiratory tract.
Public health threats
Former National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Director Demetre Daskalakis, Next to Former National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Diseases Director Daniel Jernigan, Speaks to the Media During A Protest, A Day After the Whouse Fired CDC Director Susan Monarez and Several Top Officials Resigned, in Atlanta, Georgia, US, Aug. 28, 2025.
Alyssa Zeiger | Reuters
When changes in the CDC change, the concerns about a threat to public health and protocol grow.
Deskalakis banged the means with which HHS and other CDC leadership have communicated important political changes. For example, Kennedy announced that he had fired the entirety of the advisory committee for vaccination practicing a committee of vaccine advisors at CDC-over an X-Post and direct communication with these valuable experts, “said Dasascalakis.
He said that he thinks there would be an opportunity to inform Kennedy about important topics such as measles, Avian influenza and the approach to the season of the respiratory virus. However, Daskalakis said seven months after the new administration that no CDC topic expert from his center had informed Kennedy.
“I’m not sure who the secretary hears, but it is certainly not for us,” he said. “Non -abolished and contradictory external organizations seem to be the sources that HHS are used through the gold standard science of CDC and other renowned sources.”
Former medical officer Debra Houry, Chief Medical Officer Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), followed by the former national center for immunization and respiratory diseases Demetre Daskalaki, and former National Center for Auflungen and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Daniel Jernigan, a day after the WITH House director of CDC director, in the CDC director, director Susan, and in the top director. August 28, 2025.
Alyssa Zeiger | Reuters
Dr. Debra Houry, who had resigned from her post as Chief Medical Officer of the CDC on Wednesday, also said that high -ranking leaders are “never able to inform the secretary” with which the agency deals with.
“The CDC scientists are first class and excellent,” she told MSNBC in an interview. “What we actually preferred was to have more interactions with the secretary.”
HOURY added that “things on the CDC have been very difficult in recent months when it comes to making scientific and data -driven decisions.”
While long -term experts leave the CDC, the risk of infectious diseases grows. While measles cases tick again in the USA, bird flu spreads in cattle. The first human case of the carnivorous parasite “New World Screwworm” was found in the country.
The departures could “make our public health less secure,” said Benjamin from the American Public Health Association.
Susan Monarez, the candidate of US President Donald Trump, the director of the centers for the control and prevention of diseases, testifies to a hearing to confirm Senate Health, Education, Labor and the Pension Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, June 25, 2025.
Kevin Mohatt | Reuters
He said that the leadership disorder also raises concerns about the country’s ability to recognize and react an emerging infectious disease, since the CDC is the “glue”, which holds individual doctors as well as state and local health departments together.
“I am worried that we do not know in time and that we will pursue this disease much longer than we should,” said Benjamin.
Benjamin said that he “had little trust” that the Trump administration will find someone as “very competent” with relevant experiences to replace Monarez.
“Obviously, everything has an enormous impact on health and well -being of the public and enormous effects on the finances of our nation,” he said. “Prevention and wellness save us money and public health is the best purchase.”
