\n<\/p>\n
A<\/span>fter high-profile departures and sweeping layoffs, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) faces an unprecedented loss of expertise and a simultaneous erosion of trust as top health leaders undermine vaccines and other vital health tools.<\/p>\n \u201cAmericans should be alarmed,\u201d said Nirav Shah, former principal deputy director at CDC and now a visiting professor at Colby College. \u201cAll of these moves leave us less safe, and it comes at a time of rising public health threats.\u201d<\/p>\n Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for the second Trump administration, vowed to strip the CDC of its ability to issue guidance on vaccines and to end required testing for new pathogens.<\/p>\n The changes to US health will be felt for decades, and the cutbacks and changes will erode the public\u2019s already wavering trust in health officials, experts say.<\/p>\n \u201cLosing top, experienced experts managing crucial units in the CDC is going to put all of us at risk,\u201d said Dorit Reiss, professor of law at UC Hastings College of Law.<\/p>\n The departure of four senior officials \u2013 Debra Houry, Demetre Daskalakis, Daniel Jernigan and Jennifer Layden \u2013 dealt \u201ca big blow to our nation\u2019s health preparedness\u201d, Shah said.<\/p>\n They joined thousands of health agency employees who have been laid off or resigned, with entire departments gutted, since Donald Trump was re-elected.<\/p>\n \u201cNext time there\u2019s a problem, we will not have qualified leadership for our response,\u201d Reiss said.<\/p>\n The loss of \u201cexperienced, world-class\u201d experts at the CDC is \u201cdirectly related to the failed leadership of extremists\u201d in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.<\/p>\n The losses may continue under budget cuts, with proposed reductions of $5bn \u2013 a 42% decrease from 2024.<\/p>\n Two of the recently ousted officials will testify before Congress on Wednesday. Susan Monarez, the most recent CDC director, who was fired after 28 days, criticized the administration\u2019s \u201creckless\u201d approach to science, including a request to \u201crubber-stamp\u201d recommendations from the CDC\u2019s independent advisers.<\/p>\n The advisory committee on immunization practices (ACIP) plans to meet on Thursday and Friday. Advisers have indicated the committee will re-examine recommendations on routine childhood vaccinations such as those against hepatitis B and HPV (human papillomavirus).<\/p>\n The Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy released on Tuesday \u201creaffirms that Kennedy is gunning for childhood vaccines\u201d, Reiss said.<\/p>\n Emily Hilliard, an HHS spokesperson, said: \u201cSecretary Kennedy has been clear: the CDC has been broken for a long time. Restoring it as the world\u2019s most trusted guardian of public health will take sustained reform and more personnel changes.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked about Kennedy\u2019s stance on childhood vaccines, Hilliard said that HHS is \u201creaffirming the importance of the doctor-patient relationship so people can make informed decisions about their health\u201d, emphasizing the roles of \u201cclear, honest information and personal choice\u201d.<\/p>\n Kennedy has also limited access to the Covid vaccines, restricting them only to people \u201cat higher risk\u201d, while also saying \u201canyone can get the booster\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cKennedy\u2019s claim that anyone can get them is deeply insincere,\u201d Reiss said. He already removed, for example, the recommendation for pregnant people, making it harder for them to access the vaccine.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Sign up to This Week in Trumpland<\/span><\/p>\n A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cWhile it\u2019s legal to give vaccines off-label, not all doctors and pharmacists will, and depending what ACIP does, not all insurers will cover them\u201d, including Medicaid, which is bound by ACIP recommendations, she said.<\/p>\n Kennedy has repeatedly undermined the CDC and vaccines, calling the agency a \u201ccesspool of corruption\u201d and the Covid vaccine, for instance, the \u201cdeadliest vaccine ever made\u201d. During the worst measles outbreak in decades, Kennedy framed vaccination as a personal choice. He has also cut millions of dollars for research on mRNA vaccines.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, Trump defended the Covid and polio vaccines. But the president has given Kennedy sweeping control over the nation\u2019s health and nutrition agenda.<\/p>\n \u201cIn an era of rising threats to public health \u2013 whether it\u2019s measles, whether it\u2019s an Ebola outbreak, or whether it\u2019s the continuing concern and threat from H5 [bird flu] \u2013 none of these things makes America healthy again,\u201d Shah said.<\/p>\n The acting director of the CDC, Jim O\u2019Neill, has a background in biotechnology investing but he does not appear to have training in medicine or public health.<\/p>\n \u201cBased on what I understand, he does not have the requisite background to even be serving as acting director,\u201d said Shah, who was acting director of the CDC while the Trump administration entered office.<\/p>\n \u201cAmericans need to ask themselves: \u2018Are we safe right now?\u2019\u201d Shah said. \u201c\u2018Is there somebody who knows at the higher levels what should be done in the face of an emerging Ebola outbreak? Are they doing it? How do we know that?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The news that top experts at the CDC haven\u2019t briefed Kennedy is \u201calarming\u201d, Shah said. \u201dIf America\u2019s top generals were planning a war and sketching out battlefield plans but had not talked to any of their lieutenants and colonels in the field, we would say that\u2019s not leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n So far, many Americans have not yet felt the shock waves of Kennedy\u2019s changes to public health, Shah said.<\/p>\n For most people, \u201cyou don\u2019t actually see the consequences of it until there\u2019s an emergency\u201d, Shah said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s way too late at that point.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After high-profile departures and sweeping layoffs, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) faces an unprecedented loss of expertise and a simultaneous erosion of trust as top health leaders undermine vaccines and other vital health tools. \u201cAmericans should be alarmed,\u201d said Nirav Shah, former principal deputy director at CDC and now a visiting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[8457,540,2132,5009,320,2801,37,3194,988],"class_list":{"0":"post-21428","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-alarmed","9":"tag-americans","10":"tag-cdc","11":"tag-expertise","12":"tag-experts","13":"tag-harm","14":"tag-health","15":"tag-healthcare","16":"tag-loss"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}