All hand meetings at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday would have been the first during the new Trump administration. Instead, after being cancelled at the last minute, dozens of current and former employees of one of the nation’s leading public health agencies gathered outside CDC headquarters in Atlanta to protest what they described as a wave of illegal shootings, demolishing lifesaving programs and censorship in science.
In the roaring of the cowbell and the car’s corner, the protesters held colorful signs with sharp messages, such as “Save the CDC,” “War with the RFK Children,” and “F—Reply.” The protest has been spurred by staff cuts over the past few months. This destroyed the department in a void of senior leaders at the agency, but there are no directors yet. Many protesters called for the appointment of a new CDC director and the resignation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services, who oversees the CDC.
“We are a source of infectious diseases,” said Dr. Anna Yousaf, an infectious disease researcher at the CDC’s Center for Immunological and Respiratory Diseases.
“These attacks on scientific standards and established processes reached a peak yesterday when Secretary Kennedy announced that he had fired all members of the Advisory Committee on Vaccination Practices,” Yousaf pulled “boos” from the crowd.
Kennedy announced Monday that it had removed all 17 members of the independent Vaccine Advisory Committee. A few months ago, he oversaw a massive restructuring of the federal health department, including firing 2,400 CDC employees and demolishing many agency programs.
Local doctors spoke about what changes mean for the future of the vaccine. News4’s Aimee Cho reports.
Many CDC staff were looking forward to the All Hands Meeting on Tuesday as a place to broadcast concerns, but on Monday morning, Matthew Buzzelli, the CDC Chief of Staff and most senior proxy leader, sent an email to senior CDC officials cancelling agency-wide meetings.
Buzzelli explained that meetings have been rescheduled to review leadership updates within several processes, but some CDC employees viewed the move as another way to avoid transparency. In a call to action distributed among now fired and retired CDC employees, a group called the Save CDC Campaign writes that Buzzelli “avoided our questions, dismissed our concerns, and ignored the collective grief we share for the agencies, colleagues and programs we have lost.”
HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon declined to comment on the protests and employee concerns.
The sense of indifference within the CDC has deepened in recent months, staff said. The agency has not had a supervisor since President Donald Trump took office.
“We need to know who is in charge of the CDC, we need to know who is making the decision,” said Kathleen Ethier, who headed the CDC’s adolescent and school health department until January.
HHS Director Robert Kennedy Jr. posted a video on social media, and along with NIH director Jay Batacharya and FDA commissioner Marty McCurry, announced that the CDC will no longer recommend the Covid vaccine for healthy children and pregnant women.
CDC Director for the Doctor Mandy Cohen, as is customary, resigned on January 20th, when Trump took office. Shortly afterwards, Susan Monares, a microbiologist with no medical degree, was appointed former House member Dr. Dave Weldon, Ph.D., awaiting confirmation of agency selection. Then, in March, Trump suddenly retracted Weldon’s nomination. Weldon attributed it to new scrutiny between anti-vaccine activists and his past ties and researchers who have lost faith.
By the end of that month, about a third of the CDC senior management had left their posts when Trump announced Monales as the new candidate for manager. Since then, Monares have lacked in their day-to-day operations due to the rules of the Vacancies Act that barred them from serving as a candidate as a proxy director for an agency tapped for them to lead.
It is unclear when Monares’ confirmation will proceed. Her nomination hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee, chaired by Bill Cassidy R. Lar, is not scheduled because she has not yet submitted the necessary documents.
In her absence, Kennedy handed over operations management to Buzzelli, a former federal prosecutor with no public health background. A Democrat lawmaker wrote that Buzzelli “is unqualified and cannot legally act as a representative director of the CDC.”
A current CDC official who spoke on condition of anonymity without allowing him to speak to the media said that without a director he would leave the agency without any significant checks and balance.
“The CDC is aware that there is no buffer in the CDC to protect RFK Jr. from what they want to do,” the official said. “The centre director is trying to fill the blank, but he is in the dark. I don’t feel there is a place to express my opinion about the agency. So the only outlet is protest.”
Nixon, a spokesman for HHS, defended Buzzelli’s role in text messaging. “The CDC Chief of Staff performs some of the duties of CDC Director as senior staff as necessary and is surrounded by highly qualified medical professionals and advisors in order to properly fulfill these duties,” he writes.
Nixon said in April that Buzzelli would review vaccine recommendations from ACIP, a group of independent advisors Kennedy fired on Monday. However, weeks passed after the ACIP’s April meeting, and the recommendation was not approved.
In May, Kennedy resigned via three recommendations on the Chikungunya vaccine for travelers and lab workers. However, based on the CDC website, Kennedy has not yet approved the other two ACIP recommendations. One is for specific teenage meningeal vaccines, and the other is for RSV vaccines for high-risk adults in their 50s.
ACIP is made up of pediatricians, elderly people and other vaccine experts to volunteer to meet three times a year to analyze the latest data on vaccine safety and efficacy, including new data on newly approved vaccinations and existing vaccines. This group provides recommendations to the CDC on vaccine approval, and although the CDC does not need to follow advice, it often does. The CDC’s decision on vaccines will require shots to enroll in public schools and play a key role in making it available to children for free.
Kennedy claimed he was suffering from a conflict of interest as he received funds from the pharmaceutical company when firing existing members. ACIP members must undergo a rigorous review process before being appointed to disclose the dispute and reject themselves from votes on those vaccines.
The next ACIP meeting is scheduled for June 25th-27th. Kennedy appointed a new member on “coming days” Tuesday evening, saying he “values” “qualified doctors and scientists” rather than “ideological anti-vaxxers.” Kennedy faces criticism of anti-vaccine activism. This includes the creation of the nation’s largest anti-vaccine nonprofit.
Former acting CDC director Richard Besser, also president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a health-focused nonprofit, said he hopes the meeting doesn’t happen as planned.
“I don’t think that 17 members will be properly examined in that short period,” Besser said.
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