CDC: Have we reached FAFO?
8/29 UPDATE Leaders fired or resigning, staff walking out, medical organizations formally opposing. Is RFK-not finally becoming a problem, not just WH chaos entertainment?
Update 8/29:
Third acting CDC director in seven months named: Jim O’Neill, former Silicon Valley tech investor and close ally of Peter Thiel.1 At HHS for two months, O’Neill says he’s pro-vaccine2 although a critic of the CDC. Neither a physician nor a scientist, he will play a key role in Kennedy’s efforts to revise vaccine recommendations.
Kennedy: There’s a lot of trouble at CDC. Wow. Perceptive.
Science or Trump? The impossible choice faced by the ousted CDC chief.
Original post Aug 28:
There’s a point where Trump gets sensitive about administrative chaos and turnover. We can hope we may be getting there with RFK Jr.
This afternoon there was a “massive” staff walk-out at CDC headquarters in Atlanta, where staff are still staring at the hundreds of bullet holes in the campus buildings after a disinformation-enraged shooter started firing indiscriminately three weeks ago tomorrow. Over 500 rounds were fired, hundreds of staff had to shelter in place for hours, and a policeman was killed before the shooter committed suicide. Dr. Katlyn Jetelina—followed in over a hundred countries and a CDC advisor herself—said it was clearly an attempted massacre by a man enraged by politically-inspired disinformation that he believed.
All this at what has long been widely regarded as the global leader in public health and disease control—an organization experts have historically considered the "gold standard" for national health agencies due to its rigorous, science-based approach. A place where millions of people stuieid for years hoping for go work among the finest scientists in the world.
I’ve been in lockdown with a shooter loose on the campus where I had my offices. I can recall every moment of that very long stand-off two decades ago very vividly, seeing armored and armed SWAT shooters crouching five feet from me outside my office window. That—on top of everything else going on in the CDC right now—will be seared in every staff member’s memory forever; many will be permanently traumatized. PTSD from doing the right thing, and having the head of the organization—a lawyer practicing medicine without a license—tell you to buckle up, forget science and decades of world-leading research and experience. Turn your back on everything you know is right for us, the people they are charged to keep safe.
These are scientists. Some of the smartest people we’ve ever turned out. People who went to school for years to help us. Public servants who could have made a whole lot more money getting MBAs. This is not what they signed up for—and definitely not what they should be getting in a civilized nation.
After the shooting, Trump and Republicans were silent, given the absence of political advantage. As the politically-center The Hill reported, that silence invited more violence. Staff asked for more protection; Kennedy did nothing. And last week, more than 700 CDC staff signed an open letter to Kennedy asking him to stop spreading false and misleading information endangering their lives—and ours. Kennedy’s response? 600 more staff lay-offs, decimating the workforce, after DOGE chewed through 1500+ in February.
Newly appointed CDC director Susan Monarez called the shooting what it was: an attack directly caused by misinformation. Praised by Kennedy at her appointment hearings only a month ago as a “public health expert with unimpeachable scientific credentials,” she was fired by him yesterday after refusing to resign.
The reason for her firing? She was judged “not aligned with the President’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again.” Why not? She declined to fire agency leaders or to accept all recommendations from a vaccine advisory panel reconstructed by Mr. Kennedy—the same recommendations virtually every medical organization in the country now also refuses to accept.
Or, as her lawyers said, “When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted.” They say only Trump has the authority to fire her, a position we can hope he does not enjoy.
This morning, three senior leaders resigned in protest and were escorted out of the building, telling media they were asked to participate in an unscientific vaccine recommendation process that they believe could harm the health of Americans.
Hours later, staff walked out—putting their own careers at risk rather than betray our health and wellbeing. We owe them, because what Kennedy is attempting to do is destroy decades of world-leading research and science. Americans will absolutely die if he is allowed to proceed—just as we had our first measles deaths this year in more than twenty years. The new COVID variant, for instance, is spiking right now and killing about 130 people a week—but you don’t hear Kennedy updating us on that. Kennedy is far more focused on hiring more antivaxxers for critical vaccine policy positions.
If you’re not hearing about COVID from Kennedy, how about giant grocery retailer WalMart’s radioactive shrimp? Listeria cases from raw milk, which Kennedy won’t talk about; he’s a fan of raw milk A huge increase in fraudulent scientific papers. (You may remember Kennedy’s own team quoting non-existent research; that’s called fraud by anyone not named RFK Jr.) Flying flesh-eating maggots. Flesh-eating bacteria at beaches, rabies in a national park, malaria unrelated to travel, and—of all things—plague at Lake Tahoe. Or how about Kennedy lying about rural hospital closings as a result of the OBBBA when more than 80% of U.S. counties — home to over 120 million Americans — already lack proper access to healthcare services.
That’s what the CDC should be following and addressing for us—not staring at bullet holes, fearful of violent attacks or saying the wrong thing in an email or asking the wrong question. Not knowing whom to trust in politically engineered chaos.
At the top, a grown man issuing health proclamations from a tanning bed. That’s comic book material.
And that’s just the obvious. Uncertainty at HHS has halted funding for promising research on cancers, from deadly pancreatic cancer to skin cancer. Funding interruptions have injected chaos into local health departments already operating on shoestring budgets and fighting opposition in red states. Multiple major medical organizations are opposing (and suing) Kennedy’s opinions on vaccination, increasingly fronted by in-house antivaxxers. In the face of CDC vaccination recommendations unsupported by science and decades of data (or no recommendations at all), the American Academy of Pediatrics and others3 are publishing their own evidence- and safety-based vaccination guidelines, creating massive confusion for providers, insurers, and pharmacies. No one has a clue what vaccines insurers will pay for as schools open, starting the fall contagious disease rush. Dr. Jetelina describes a pharmacy interaction that left a pregant woman in tears—and unvaccinated, reasonably worried about her unborn infant’s health.
It’s not just amateur hour, although it certainly is that. Implementation details are clearly not part of Kennedy’s obsessions. But it’s far, far more dangerous. We’re talking about lives put at huge risk, carelessly and unnecessarily, by a guy who, at age 604 couldn’t figure out where to get rid of a newly-acquired road-kill bear carcass, so he figured dumping it in Central Park on his way to dinner made perfect sense. Because, you know, he was running late for a great steak. Someone—not even a doctor or a scientist—with a history of disastrous personal life decisions whose own very politically-savvy family has been telling us for years is incompetent and badly misguided. His niece even provided personal emails where he made false claims about COVID vaccines and autism on the eve of his hearing to lead HHS.
That same man is intent on telling us how to lead our lives, our health, and that of our families, and our own Congress said, “Sure! Go for it! Tell us how to live right!”
Congress—well, the Senate—is having misgivings. Susan Collins (R-ME) has begun her dithering process, for the moment at Level 5-ish on the Susan Collins Concern Scale5. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) is also concerned. A physician and chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Cassidy was the somewhat reluctant deciding vote on Kennedy’s appointment and has now called on HHS to postpone a Sept. 18 scheduled meeting by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, noting serious allegations have been made about the “meeting agenda, membership, and lack of scientific process” being followed for the meeting and said it should be delayed pending “significant oversight.” Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has called for an investigation (of course) of Monarez’ firing, saying Kennedy “is pushing out scientific leaders who refuse to act as a rubber stamp for his dangerous conspiracy theories and manipulate science.” Dems are no doubt huddled; they may decide what to say by tomorrow. Maybe.
Kennedy was already scheduled to testify before the Senate Finance Committee next week; that may be telling—if the traditional media can sustain interest that long.
Catch up here.
You and we need to keep this alive. It’s time—yet again—to contact our senators and representative. You’d be forgiven if you haven’t kept completely up to date on this in the wake of children being shot while praying and city invasions taking place/being planned for political domination and revenge, with questionable rationale at best.6
Here are a few posts by smart people on how we got here—more importantly—with early hints on where we need to go with this mess.
Dr. Jetelina has up-to-date, indepth and inside info. See Bullets in the windows, or Public health in the face of trauma and violence, and her newest post, Courage at CDC.
This doesn’t look directly related, but at the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist I’d suggest it may be: Heather Cox Richardson details how the WH and Congress created the ‘crisis’ in DC that then opened the door for the DC takeover I’d suggest Kennedy may be doing the same at the CDC; after all, he and many of his newest appointees have done very well financially pushing fixes that theoretically will save those who don’t get vaccinated, and his BFF plaintiff bar attorneys would be swamped with work from everyone who’s ever muttered antivax sentiment.
We’ll also continue to follow this here; watch for updates.
Finally, we’ve had to create a separate section in our weekly Sunday Snippets to handle all the insanity activity at HHS and the CDC. Watch there for more as all this unfolds.
Because going the Silicone Valley route with DOGE worked out so well for so many public servants and American tax payers, not to mention ditching science in favor of AI and a 19-year-old genius named Big Balls who exposed the Social Security information of 300+ million Americans to hackers in favor of his vast experience on efficiency. Also, that would be the same Peter Thiel who is a leading proponent of “optimized child selection.”
Required (wink, wink) to be approved by the Senate.
See a full list of opposing medical organizations here, from LIL Science on Substack.
Meaning, “no longer physically an adolescent.”
The Official Collins Scale of Concern
Try finding Chicago in this list of the ten highest crime cities from The Hill this week. (Hint: Chicago is #29.) And be reassured—Memphis, in first position, won’t be invaded. Same for Kansas City, Houston, and Nashville. Red states don’t qualify for invasion.
Scared. How is this happening to us? (Rhetorical)
His help us if we have a new organism threaten public health this winter.
Are we having FUN, yet?