By firing the CDC director, RFK is feeding a ‘raging fire’ against public health, former CDC chiefs say

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Firing the leader of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a mistake that puts American lives at risk, said nine former directors of that agency.

William Foege, MD, MPH, William Roper, MD, MPH, David Satcher, MD, PhD, Jeffrey Koplan, MD, MPH, Richard Besser, MD, Tom Frieden, MD, MPH, Anne Schuchat, MD, Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH, and Mandy K. Cohen, MD, MPH, published “We Ran the CDC: Kennedy Is Endangering Every American’s Health,” a guest essay in The New York Times on Sept. 1.

The essay addresses Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and his decision to fire Susan Monarez, PhD, the acting CDC chief who formally served in the post for less than a month. The move sparked the resignations of four top aides, and CDC staff last week held a job walkout to show their support for the former leaders.

Monarez’ predecessors described Kennedy’s tenure as a “raging fire” against public health, with potential disastrous effects on American health care.

“We are worried about the wide-ranging impact that all these decisions will have on America's health security,” they said. “Residents of rural communities and people with disabilities will have even more limited access to health care. Families with low incomes who rely most heavily on community health clinics and support from state and local health departments will have fewer resources available to them. Children risk losing access to lifesaving vaccines because of the cost.

“This is unacceptable, and it should alarm every American, regardless of political leanings,” they wrote.

CDC leaders did not always agree with their bosses, but were assured of support based on data about public health. A clear example happened during the first term of President Donald J. Trump, when Operation Warp Speed led to the quick development of vaccines against COVID-19, they said.

But Kennedy “operates under a very different set of rules,” first praising Monarez as an expert, then firing her when she “refused weeks later to rubber-stamp his dangerous and unfounded vaccine recommendations or heed his demand to fire senior CDC staffers,” they wrote.

CDC was created in 1946, when average U.S. life expectancy was approximately 66 years. Since then, life expectancy has grown to 78 years, partly due to medical advances, but also because of massive gains in areas such as vaccination and the declining use of tobacco products.

The former directors called for action: congressional oversight, state and local governments to step up, philanthropy and the private sector to invest in communities, and physicians to support “patients with sound guidance and empathy.”

Over the weekend, Frieden spoke on MSNBC to denounce Kennedy’s track record. He said the day has come that he no longer can trust what the CDC posts publicly online.

“This is unprecedented, nothing like this has ever happened before,” Frieden said. The infrastructure of America’s public health is becoming badly damaged and injured, he said. In vaccine policy, chronic disease, preparedness, environmental health, Americans are seeing fact vs. fiction and health vs. sickness, with Kennedy promoting harmful fictions about vaccines, chronic disease and the environment, Frieden said. That report included comments from three of the four CDC top aides who stepped down: CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry, MD, MPH; National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Director Demetre Daskalakis, MD, MPH; and National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases Director Daniel Jernigan, MD, MPH (CAPT, USPHS, RET). Jennifer Layden, MD, PhD, of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology, also left her post in protest.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) also published a New York Times guest essay calling for Kennedy to resign. He also issued a statement supporting the CDC staff who walked off the job to protest the current secretary, who has led “a full-blown war on science, on public health, and on truth itself.”

“Now is the time for all of us — whether you are a Democrat, Republican, independent, progressive or conservative — to come together and say enough is enough,” Sanders said in his statement. “Vaccines are one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century. We will not stand by silently as Secretary Kennedy takes them away.”