politics

‘Public health itself is under attack’ as fallout from CDC director’s ouster continues

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A team of STAT reporters has been working around the clock on all of the scoops, analysis, and commentary you need to make sense of a turbulent 48 hours at the CDC. Here’s the rundown:

• Inside Monarez’s ouster: Daniel Payne compiled a beat-by-beat reconstruction of the events leading up to CDC Director Susan Monarez’s ouster, including a contentious meeting during which health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. demanded she accept new vaccine policies.
• The leaders CDC lost: Four top officials have resigned in protest. Andrew Joseph takes a closer look at the deep expertise they brought to the agency.
• Kennedy responds: The health secretary said yesterday in a Fox News appearance that the CDC suffered from “malaise” and questioned the importance of vaccines. He will also testify next week before the Senate Finance Committee about the president’s health agenda.
• New acting director: Kennedy’s deputy secretary, Jim O’Neill, will temporarily helm the CDC until the Senate confirms a new leader.

• The scene in Atlanta: The union that represents CDC employees warned that “public health itself is under attack.” Employees at the agency’s headquarters organized a “clap out” yesterday afternoon to honor Monarez and the other officials who resigned. Experts say the crisis within CDC is spilling into the real world, Liz Cooney reports. Said one CDC person: “I’ve never heard as many colleagues saying things like ‘CDC is dead’ as I have today, not even in the darkest days of Covid.”
• What’s next for ACIP: Monarez’s firing also spurred Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) to call for next month’s meeting of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel to be postponed. The agency announced yesterday that the panel would potentially vote on recommendations related to Covid-19 vaccines and several vaccines on the routine childhood vaccine schedule. 

MAHA

Kennedy consolidates power amid CDC chaos

If there remained any doubt about whether Kennedy would go “wild on health,” as President Trump promised last year, the ouster of Susan Monarez and other top CDC leaders has only solidified the secretary’s standing.

Trump has given no indication that he wants Kennedy to slow down and yesterday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was unequivocal: The president has Kennedy’s back, even in firing Monarez just weeks into her job. Kennedy has even overrode objections from some Make America Healthy Again followers and continued to blow through promises he has made to Cassidy and other lawmakers to uphold vaccine safety. 

The moves have public health officials worried that this CDC chaos is an ominous warning sign, and that the secretary will continue to pack federal health agencies with his allies. Read more from STAT’s Isabella Cueto and Chelsea Cirruzzo.

FACT-CHECK

SSRIs and gender-affirming care don’t cause violence

Kennedy revived one of his longtime conspiracy theories yesterday when he announced in public appearances that the NIH will be studying the link between psychiatric medication and mass shootings, despite the overwhelming lack of evidence of any connection.

Speaking on Fox News about the perpetrator of a school shooting in Minneapolis this week, Kennedy talked about selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, which are commonly used treatments for depression that include the drugs sold as Prozac and Zoloft. Kennedy indicated that there is a black box warning on the drugs indicating that they can increase the risk of suicide and homicide — that is incorrect, as STAT’s Matt Herper points out.

Kennedy was also asked if the drugs used in gender-affirming therapy can result in violence, as the shooter was a transgender woman. Though Kennedy did not answer this question, there is no evidence these treatments cause people to become violent, and it is not known what medicines the shooter was taking. Read more here.