\n<\/p>\n
\n\tFormer high-ranking officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told senators on Wednesday that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.\u2019s appointment as the nation\u2019s top health care regulator has created an anti-scientific culture of censorship and arbitrary policy changes that are endangering Americans\u2019 health.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tAt the center of lawmakers focus was former CDC Director Susan Monarez, who was ousted from the agency by Kennedy, Donald Trump\u2019s secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), after she refused to sign off on Kennedy\u2019s proposed changes to CDC vaccine policies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tSpeaking before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Monarez said that Kennedy had asked her to approve new vaccine recommendations without regard to \u201cscientific evidence,\u201d and to fire other CDC officials responsible for crafting vaccine policy \u201cwithout cause.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cHe said if I was unwilling to do both, I should resign,\u201d she testified. \u201cI responded that I could not pre-approve recommendations without reviewing the evidence, and I had no basis to fire scientific experts.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAt one point, Monarez told the committee that Kennedy had barred her from speaking to members of Congress after she expressed concerns to senators about the secretary\u2019s planned vaccine policies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cSecretary Kennedy became aware of that, and he was very concerned that I had spoken to members of Congress,\u201d Monarez said. \u201cAnd he told me I was never to do it again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tFormer CDC Deputy Director for Program and Science Debra Houry \u2014 who resigned from the agency following Monarez\u2019s dismissal \u2014 testified that Kennedy \u201ccensored CDC science, politicized its processes and stripped leaders of independence.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tHoury added in her testimony that Kennedy refused briefings from her office. \u201cWe would have loved to have had the conversations with him. I offered to two different HHS leaders that we would like to brief the secretary,\u201d she said. \u201cHe never received that, and many times I would send emails to our leadership team to share with HHS when he did say things that weren\u2019t scientifically correct, so that we could help support him. But again, our requests were not received to brief him,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n
\n\tThe former deputy director added that she feared the country would not \u201cbe prepared\u201d for the next major disease outbreak, and noted that she had only learned of Kennedy\u2019s changes to the CDC\u2019s Covid-19 vaccine guidance after seeing a social media post about the policy shift limiting public access to the vaccines.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tKennedy\u2019s assault on vaccine access and policy comes during one of the most pronounced periods of global vaccine skepticism since the medical marvels were first developed \u2014 and Americans are feeling the effects. A Tuesday report from NBC News done in collaboration with Stanford University found that \u201ca large swath of the U.S. currently does not have the basic, ground-level immunity medical experts say is necessary to stop the spread of measles.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n
\n\tThe report also found that since 2019, 77 percent of counties and local jurisdictions in the U.S. have seen a decline in childhood vaccination rates.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe question before us is whether we will keep faith with our children and grandchildren, ensuring they remain safe from the diseases we fought so hard to defeat: polio, measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, and many others,\u201d Monarez told senators. \u201cUndoing that progress would not only be reckless \u2014 it would betray every family that trusts us to protect their health,\u201d she concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former high-ranking officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told senators on Wednesday that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.\u2019s appointment as the nation\u2019s top health care regulator has created an anti-scientific culture of censorship and arbitrary policy changes that are endangering Americans\u2019 health.\u00a0 At the center of lawmakers focus was former CDC Director Susan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[5476,2132,2969,789,1314,13463],"class_list":{"0":"post-21970","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-blast","9":"tag-cdc","10":"tag-officials","11":"tag-rfk","12":"tag-senate","13":"tag-testimony"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21970","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=21970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}