BY: DM
Published 2 weeks ago
Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the CDC’s vaccine and immunization director, abruptly quit his post effective Aug. 28. In a scathing resignation letter posted on X, Daskalakis wrote that the new leadership’s views differ from his own.
Some view the departures as part of the broader controversy over health policy under Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy, a longtime vaccine critic, has imposed sweeping changes in recent months. In June, he disbanded the CDC’s expert vaccine advisory committee and replaced it with hand-picked appointees. He also rescinded $500 million in mRNA vaccine research funding, according to Government Executive.
Daskalakis now joins several former HHS employees who have decided not to work under the Trump administration. Here is a look at what Daskalakis said about his abrupt departure.
Daskalakis believes in the CDC’s new mission.
Daskalakis wrote that the new leadership’s views challenged his ability to continue in the current role. “I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health,” Daskalakis declared. “The recent change in the adult and children’s immunization schedule threatens the lives of the youngest Americans and pregnant people.”
Daskalakis’s letter echoed comments he has made publicly since the Trump administration fired CDC Director Susan Monarez in July. He told ABC News he feared the new HHS leadership was driving an ideological push to undo established vaccine science. Daskalakis later told The Guardian he no longer believed CDC science could be presented “free of ideology” because political appointees were overriding experts. He also noted that no immunization experts had briefed HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and said the “firewall” between science and politics had collapsed.
In its own statement, HHS insisted that Daskalakis’s departure was a personnel matter and defended its reforms, saying President Trump and Sec. Kennedy was simply realigning the CDC with their “commonsense” mission of communicable disease defense. “President Trump and I are aligned on the commonsense vision for the CDC: Strengthen the public health infrastructure by returning to its core mission of protecting Americans from communicable diseases by investing in innovation to prevent, detect, and respond to future threats,” Kennedy told CDC employees, per CBS News.
CDC scientists are walking away at alarming rates.
Daskalakis did not resign alone. He and two other senior CDC scientists — Chief Medical Officer Dr. Debra Houry and infectious-disease expert Dr. Dan Jernigan — quit within hours of Monarez’s ouster. In resignation emails obtained by Government Executive, they blamed deep budget cuts, reorganization, and what they called the “ongoing weaponizing of public health.”
Houry warned that “science at CDC should never be censored or subject to political pauses or interpretations.” She said proposed funding cuts “will negatively impact CDC’s ability to address” major health challenges. A CDC report obtained by Government Executive showed the agency has lost nearly a quarter of its staff through layoffs and resignations since Trump took office.
Do you believe the new HHS leadership is prioritizing politics over public health?
