Former Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra said Wednesday that the resignations of four senior CDC leaders pose a grave threat to public health.
“I worked alongside the three leading scientists at the CDC who resigned tonight,” Becerra posted on X. “They were essential public health leaders who helped our country get out of the pandemic. Politicians don’t do science well. It is dangerous to put politics over public health. People will die.”
The departures of Deputy Director Debra Houry, Daniel Jernigan, Demetre Daskalakis, and Jennifer Layden followed the ouster of CDC Director Susan Monarez, who was fired after refusing to resign amid disputes with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over vaccine policy. Monarez’s attorneys, Abbe Lowell and Mark Zaid, said her termination reflected “the systematic dismantling of public health institutions” and accused the Trump administration of silencing experts.
Kennedy has drawn controversy for restructuring the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, replacing members with COVID-19 skeptics. In his resignation letter, Daskalakis wrote: “The nation’s health security is at risk and is in the hands of people focusing on ideological self-interest.”
Becerra warned that losing top experts leaves the country vulnerable: “When the CDC doesn’t get it right, a lot of people die. Something will come around the corner, whether it’s COVID, whether it’s avian flu, and we need the experts.”
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