CDC: Have we reached FAFO?
9/5 UPDATE Watch Kennedy testify 10am ET. CDC in turmoil: Is RFK-not finally becoming a problem, not just WH chaos entertainment?
Update 9/5 (see original 8/28 post; other coverage links have been added daily):
False and misleading claims made by Kennedy during Senate Finance Committee hearing.1
Five takeaways from raucous Kennedy hearing at Senate Finance Committee meeting 9/4
Click to watch Kennedy testify to Senate today, 10am EDT. This is the first time he’s testified to Congress since May and follows last week’s massive CDC upheaval and vaccine policy changes.
Fired CDC chief accuses RFK Jr. of ‘sabotage’ with vaccine moves.
After ousting CDC’s director, RFK Jr. mirrors her ideas to reform the agency.
Rand Paul cites gay official’s ‘lifestyle’ to justify RFK Jr.’s CDC purge.
Kennedy picks new CDC vaccine panel members, some with controversial stances on COVID.
Blue states that sued kept most CDC grants, while red states feel brunt of Trump clawbacks.
Kennedy wants to limit CDC’s role to infectious diseases.
Kennedy’s “Restoring Public Trust in the CDC” WSJ op-ed today. Comments are not positive.
CDC's new acting director Jim O'Neill faces looming decisions on vaccines.
Trump calls for more Covid vaccine data NOW to stop CDC ‘being ripped apart’; Cassidy swifty retweets the post.2
Nine former CDC directors: Kennedy is endangering every American’s health.
Former CDC director: We can no longer trust the CDC website.
Former CDC leaders: Politics is now prioritized over science at agency
Yet another former CDC leader: RFK Jr. a ‘major ideologue.’
So far, the WSJ opinion page hasn’t done anything but a few stories. Until Tues (or later) editorial opinions, we won’t know where the Murdochs sit, which will be telling. Vance was already invited for one private chat with both of them; he flew out to Montana, very quietly, when the Epstein files mess broke.
Kennedy recently demanded a journal retract a vaccine study he apparently doesn’t like. I can’t tell you how unusual this is. Studies are the building blocks of science—you don’t try to cover up a study that may not agree with your ideas. You show your hand, not try to silence the other players. Demanding a study be covered up is an authoritarian move, not a science move.
Here’s the study on 1.2 million children showing no autoimmune, allergic or neurodevelopmental disorders (like autism) were associated with exposure to aluminum compounds in vaccines 1.2M is a huge study—meaning the error possibility is shades of 0. The study author’s rebuttal to Kennedy’s issues.
Kennedy’s move may validate concerns (see next article) that the upcoming ACIP meeting was indeed planned to reveal the source of autism as vaccines—and would certainly explain the moves against CDC leadership last week, even more so than changes in vaccine schedules.
The CDC is falling deeper into crisis. What it means for the nation’s health.
Kennedy has promised for weeks to reveal the cause of autism in September, although he cancelled all ongoing CDC research on autism. From the article: “Some CDC employees are bracing for what they and many medical experts say could be a death knell for the credibility of public health in America: A declaration from Kennedy that vaccines can cause autism.”
Monarez involved Sen. Cassidy (who was the reluctant deciding vote on Kennedy’s HHS appointment) as she was being asked to resign. The move “enraged” Kennedy.
Kennedy, Musk, Thiel (with whom new CDC director O’Neill has a long and close relationship), Stephen Miller, other administration leaders and Trump frequently allude to “superior genetics.” The now-resigned CDC chief of immunization told MSNBC Saturday morning that America needs to “wake up” to that eugenics rhetoric. [Click for more on the relationship of eugenics and racism.]
Kennedy has never been briefed by CDC experts on measles, COVID or flu.
Former WH COVID response coordinator on Kennedy: “This is wacky, flat-earth, voodoo stuff.”
There are multiple reports CDC links are down, reportedly due to “website modifications and leadership changes, reportedly related to executive orders requiring the removal of certain information.” Interestingly, I had to use archive.ph to get to EU links on vaccination policies, which suggest those links are also somehow not working from within the US. (Archive.ph often gets around country blocks originating from the country where the search originates.)
Sen. Bill Cassidy now wants 'oversight' of CDC. Some say he deserves blame for its turmoil.
CDC crisis was reportedly triggered by upcoming Sept 18 ACIP vaccine meeting. On Wednesday morning, then-Director Monarez indicated she “would not rubber-stamp ACIP recommendations that flew in the face of science.”
The Sept 18 meeting is the one Sen. Cassidy now wants postponed.
CDC uncertainty upends COVID vaccine access at CVS, Walgreens.
Video with current state access (if you can stand the long ad at the start)
Dr Jetelina: Covid-19 vaccine license change: 12 key questions answered.
How the U.S. health system can clear up confusion surrounding seasonal vaccines.
Third acting CDC director in seven months named: Jim O’Neill, former Silicon Valley tech investor and close ally of Peter Thiel.3 At HHS for two months, O’Neill says he’s pro-vaccine4 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.
O’Neill video: “There are plenty of healthy, spare kidneys walking around unused.” Meaning us: we’re the “spare kidneys” for transplant purposes.
Fortune: The new head of the CDC has no training in medicine.
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. As this story in the NYT notes, “RFK will be given a long-enough leash — will be given enough discretion — until there is a point when the political damage he’s doing to Republican efforts is greater than the political benefit he’s bringing.”
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 studied 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.) Salmonella from eggs. A rise in drug-resistant fungus. Flying flesh-eating maggots. Flesh-eating bacteria at beaches, rabies in a national park with rabies cases rising nationally, 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 others5 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 606 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 now having misgivings. Susan Collins (R-ME) has begun her dithering process, for the moment at Level 5-ish on the Susan Collins Concern Scale7. 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 of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) 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.8
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.
Thje ability of these ‘leaders’ to look Senators in the face flat out lie—when everyone there knows they’re lying or at least refusing to answer the question headon—is amazing and, to me, one of the most depressing things about the current administration.
Yes, off the wall—like he’s somehow never seen COVID vaccine effectivness data ?? It’s apparent he’s being lobbied from the pro-vaccine side, and the fact that Sen. Cassidy quickly retweeted Trump’s post for “radical transparency” on the COVID vaccine data suggests Cassidy—a physician and never a full-throated Kennedy supporter—is in the mix on that. RemindingTrump of his great triumph getting the vaccine developed so quickly is smart politics, although Trump is coy about his vaccine role given the hatred MAGAs generally have about the vaccine. This will be a high pressure week for Trump: Congress returns with shutdown possible, Epstein victim press conference Sept 3, CDC, etc. Something(s) will give.
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?