Former CDC administrators condemn RFK Jr. in scathing New York Occasions op-ed

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A number of former administrators and former performing administrators on the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) condemned Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a joint New York Occasions visitor essay on Monday.

In the essay , the 9 officers throughout Democratic and Republican administrations accused the Trump appointee of weakening the nation’s public well being system.

"What Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has finished to the CDC and to our nation’s public well being system over the previous a number of months—culminating in his choice to fireplace Dr. Susan Monarez as CDC director days in the past—is not like something now we have ever seen on the company, and in contrast to something our nation has ever skilled," they wrote.

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Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Photos)

Monarez was eliminated as the top of the company final week, lower than a month after her affirmation. She reportedly refused Kennedy's directives to undertake new limitations on the supply of some vaccines, together with approvals for COVID-19 photographs.

4 different senior CDC officers resigned, pointing to Monarez’s removing, in addition to Kennedy’s vaccine insurance policies, as the explanations for his or her exit. Moreover, a whole lot of staff on the company additionally walked out of the CDC's headquarters in Atlanta final month in assist of their former colleagues.

The Occasions visitor essay's authors – William Foege, William Roper, David Satcher, Jeffrey Koplan, Richard Besser, Tom Frieden, Anne Schuchat, Rochelle P. Walensky and Mandy Ok. Cohen – slammed Kennedy, stating he "has fired hundreds of federal well being staff and severely weakened applications designed to guard People from most cancers, coronary heart assaults, strokes, lead poisoning, damage, violence and extra."

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Susan Monarez is seen testifying throughout her June affirmation listening to in entrance of the Senate Committee on Well being, Schooling, Labor, and Pensions within the Dirksen Senate Workplace Constructing on June 25, 2025. (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Photos)

"Amid the biggest measles outbreak in the US in a technology, he’s targeted on unproven ‘therapies’ whereas downplaying vaccines," they wrote. "He canceled investments in promising medical analysis that can depart us ill-prepared for future well being emergencies. He changed specialists on federal well being advisory committees with unqualified people who share his harmful and unscientific views."

Additionally they blasted the secretary for ending U.S. assist of world vaccination applications and justifying the transfer with "flawed analysis" and "inaccurate statements." Moreover, they stated he supported federal laws that might trigger "hundreds of thousands of individuals with medical health insurance by Medicaid to lose their protection."

The gathering of former administrators stated that, due to these actions, rural People and folks with disabilities can have much less entry to well being care, lower-income People can have much less entry to therapy, and youngsters might lose entry to "lifesaving vaccines."

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The campus of the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention is seen in Atlanta on June 25, 2025. (Mike Stewart/AP Picture)

In his personal New York Occasions visitor essay printed on Saturday, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called for Kennedy to resign after Monarez’s exit.

"Regardless of the overwhelming opposition of the medical neighborhood, Secretary Kennedy has continued his longstanding campaign in opposition to vaccines and his advocacy of conspiracy theories which were rejected repeatedly by scientific specialists," Sanders wrote.