{"id":162390,"date":"2025-08-29T06:20:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T06:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/crisis-within-cdc-is-spilling-into-real-world-experts-say-statnews-com\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T06:20:00","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T06:20:00","slug":"crisis-within-cdc-is-spilling-into-real-world-experts-say-statnews-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/crisis-within-cdc-is-spilling-into-real-world-experts-say-statnews-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Crisis within CDC is spilling into real world, experts say – statnews.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

Complete your personal information for a more tailored experience
\t\t\t\t\t\tHome<\/a> \t\t\t\t\t
Don't miss out
Subscribe to STAT+ today, for the best life sciences journalism in the industry
By Elizabeth Cooney<\/a>
Aug. 28, 2025
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCardiovascular Disease Reporter\t\t\t\t\t\t
Elizabeth Cooney<\/a>
Elizabeth Cooney is a cardiovascular disease reporter at STAT, covering heart, stroke, and metabolic conditions. You can reach Liz on Signal at LizC.22.
The implosion of leadership at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention threatens the agency, its mission, and the trust people place in public health, medical experts told STAT Thursday, a day after Director Susan Monarez refused to dismiss top scientists<\/a> only to be ousted<\/a> herself.
The crisis in the agency, which has been battered by personnel and policy changes ordered by health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is spilling into real-world harms, the experts said. They are seeing uncertainty from the public about vaccine recommendations and availability, in light of new Covid-19 vaccine policies<\/a> announced by Kennedy, as well as deeper concerns about emergency preparedness for the inevitable next challenge to the nation\u2019s health.
Advertisement
\u201cI\u2019m worried that CDC will not be there with the full capacity that\u2019s necessary to help us with the next big threat,\u201d Georges Benjamin, a physician and executive director of the American Public Health Association, told STAT. \u201cBut I\u2019m also worried about the current threats that we have today.\u201d\u00a0
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that a statement from Monarez\u2019s lawyers \u201cmade it clear she was not aligned with the president\u2019s mission to make American health again,\u201d so Kennedy asked for her resignation.\u00a0
\u201cThe president and Secretary Kennedy are committed to restoring trust and transparency and credibility to the CDC by ensuring their leadership and their decisions are more public-facing, more accountable, strengthening our public health system and restoring it to its core mission of protecting Americans from communicable diseases, investing in innovation to prevent, detect, and respond to future threats,\u201d Leavitt said.
Advertisement
Budget cuts ordered by President Trump have steadily hammered at jobs and programs, in some cases erasing entire sectors of the agency\u2019s public health activity. That list includes air quality as well as individual diseases like HIV, viral hepatitis, sexually transmitted infections, and tuberculosis. There has been an erosion of the study of gun violence.
Food safety was hit, too, when the FoodNet<\/a> program to track foodborne infections reduced the pathogens it monitors from eight to two, as of July 1. The effort is a collaboration between CDC, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Agriculture, and 10 states. Surveillance will continue for salmonella and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, but has ended for six others: campylobacter, cyclospora, listeria, shigella, vibrio, and Yersinia. Those six pathogens are often found in chicken or other foods, causing illness and death each year.
Surveillance has suffered for diseases that are communicable and illnesses that aren\u2019t, Wendy Armstrong, vice president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, told STAT.\u00a0
\u201cIt\u2019s beyond measles,\u201d she said in an interview. \u201cIt\u2019s all kinds of diseases, some of which are vaccine preventable, and some of which may not be, but it\u2019s how we understand what\u2019s happening so that we can keep our patients safe and make diagnoses quickly.\u201d
Armstrong, an infectious disease physician at University of Colorado Medicine, recently confronted one such loss in her practice in Colorado. Her patient had signs of what could be a cancer or could be an unusual infection \u2014 diagnoses that would require completely different treatment. Ordinarily, she would confirm an infection after sending a sample to the CDC for testing its lab would perform \u2014 the only one in the U.S. capable of doing so.
The CDC no longer has the capacity to do that, she was told, not disclosing the nature of the test to protect her patient\u2019s privacy.\u00a0
\u201cThat directly impacted my patient,\u201d she said. \u201cIt had a real-world, absolutely direct impact on a patient that I was evaluating and has led to a much, much more complicated situation.\u201d\u00a0
Advertisement
With the dismissal of Monarez on Wednesday and the resignations of other leaders, the agency\u2019s future is even more uncertain.\u00a0
\u201cThe entire group of people who resigned yesterday are an important part of the brain trust that works to improve and protect the health of people here and around the world,\u201d Richard Besser told reporters Thursday. President and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and also a pediatrician, he worked at the CDC for more than a decade. \u201cWith their loss, we are in much worse shape than we were a day ago.\u201d
The list of leadership vacancies is long and growing, two weeks after gunshots<\/a> claimed the life of one security guard and left the Atlanta campus pockmarked by bullet holes. The high-ranking scientists who resigned Wednesday include Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; Chief Medical Officer Deb Houry; Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; and Jennifer Layden, who oversaw the agency\u2019s data and surveillance efforts.
Their colleagues gathered to say farewell on Thursday afternoon, in a \u201cClap Out\u201d with signs thanking them for \u201cstanding up to protect American health and CDC workforce.\u201d
More difficult to quantify than headcount is the deficit in trust, said both CDC staffers granted anonymity to discuss the problem and outside experts in public health.
Trust is easy to lose and hard to regain, Benjamin of the public health association said. He\u2019s less sure of food safety in a restaurant than before, given the gaps in CDC\u2019s monitoring abilities. Then there\u2019s continued fallout from pandemic policies.
\u201cThe problem now is they\u2019ve not only lost the trust of the American people, but they\u2019re also losing the trust of the professionals they rely on working with,\u201d he said about the agency.\u00a0
The next threat could be an emerging disease or a bioterror attack, Benjamin said, something a political appointee might not be fit to fight.
Advertisement
\u201cWhat they want is an anti-vaccine, anti-science infectious disease agency,\u201d he said about the current administration. (In April the public health group he leads called for Kennedy\u2019s resignation<\/a>.) \u201cAnd the problem is the bugs don\u2019t know that.\u201d\u00a0
When it comes to trust, Armstrong made a distinction between the people who work at CDC and the official messaging, including from the new members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe folks who are long-term CDC employees are wonderful and thorough and expert and do an amazing service for people every day. There are fewer and fewer of those people,\u201d she said. \u201cThe statements coming out of the CDC and things like the ACIP, for example, are not trustworthy at this point.\u201d
Besser cited Daskalakis\u2019s resignation letter, in which the former official said Kennedy wasn\u2019t turning to the expertise of CDC to manage the recent measles outbreak.\u00a0
\u201cWhen we hear from the head of the Respiratory Diseases Center that he and his people have not been part of the secretary\u2019s deliberations around how to manage the measles pandemic, and that they have not even seen the so-called evidence that the secretary says he has used to make new recommendations around COVID vaccination, that is chilling.\u201d
The amount of misinformation in the air around Covid vaccination is also shocking, Besser said.\u00a0
\u201cThe idea that we would accept the deaths of 200 children a year from Covid, when it is highly preventable with vaccination, just blows my mind,\u201d he said. \u201cWhy did the prevention system not work? If it\u2019s not working because it is being undermined by our secretary of health, then why is this person our secretary of health? We deserve better as a nation.\u201d
Inside the agency, staffers say CDC is losing decades of knowledge that cannot easily be replaced. \u201cAbove all, I want CDC to return to being led by science and expertise, not politics,\u201d one person said on condition of anonymity. \u201cThat\u2019s the only way the public will trust us \u2014 and the only way we can do our jobs.\u201d
Advertisement
\u201cThe villainization that has happened is heartbreaking,\u201d a second CDC person told STAT.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re humans. We\u2019re driven by a mission to protect public health. Some of us have spent multiple decades of our lives, all of our training, all of our work, to protect the health of the public. This is unlike anything I\u2019ve ever seen. I feel so othered and it\u2019s so awful.\u201d
The second person called Wednesday a watershed day.\u00a0 \u201cPublic health people tend to be permanently optimistic, permanently resilient. But I\u2019ve never heard as many colleagues saying things like \u2018CDC is dead\u2019 as I have today, not even in the darkest days of Covid.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anyone left at CDC right now who believes there\u2019s any ability to do public health under this administration.\u201d
Besser called it the wild, wild west.
\u201cYou have a secretary of health who through his remarks has done so much to undercut the nation\u2019s trust in our public health system,\u201d he said. \u201cHe has been part of the effort to demonize public health leaders, and we saw the outcome of that when a gunman went to Atlanta and shot up the buildings in which I worked for more than a decade.\u201d
Besser also predicted a further loss of talent from the CDC, and a political appointee \u201cin line with the secretary\u2019s radical beliefs\u201d rather than a public health leader to fill the director\u2019s role after Monarez\u2019s firing by President Trump. And he\u2019s not looking to Congress with any hope, \u201cdumbfounded\u201d by the lack of action by elected officials.\u00a0
\u201cWe know there will be future pandemics. We have come through a pandemic and are now still seeing the impacts of Covid as a day-to-day disease, but we will see future pandemics and our ability to respond to the next pandemic has been so devastated that I worry greatly about what will happen,\u201d Besser said. \u201cIt will take the White House saying that this is unacceptable for there to be any change.\u201d
The CDC\u2019s first days were in July 1946<\/a>, when its mission to prevent the spread of malaria explained its home in Atlanta, then considered deep in the South\u2019s malaria zone. Disease surveillance was central to its purpose, while the \u201cprevention\u201d in its name has grown to include a multitude of diseases, studying their origin, treatment, prevention, and prevalence. The agency\u2019s knowledge, standards, and investigations are shared around the world and in all U.S. states and territories.
Advertisement
Armstrong said she and her colleagues have been talking about the CDC\u2019s value in the past tense.
\u201cThe CDC was a gem to the world,\u201d she said. \u201cThat standing is gone. So much expertise is gone. People who wanted to go into public health don\u2019t see a future. The debate that we\u2019re all having is, Will the CDC ever recover, not how long it will take. I don\u2019t know that it can ever recover to what it was.\u201d
Megan Molteni and Anil Oza contributed reporting.<\/em>
STAT\u2019s coverage of chronic health issues is supported by a grant from <\/em>Bloomberg Philanthropies<\/em><\/a>. Our <\/em>financial supporters<\/em><\/a> are not involved in any decisions about our journalism.<\/em>
Elizabeth Cooney<\/a>
Cardiovascular Disease Reporter
Elizabeth Cooney is a cardiovascular disease reporter at STAT, covering heart, stroke, and metabolic conditions. You can reach Liz on Signal at LizC.22.
Understand how science, health policy, and medicine shape the world every day
\t\t\t\tYour data will be processed in accordance with our Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a>. You may opt out of receiving STAT communications at any time. \t\t\t
\t\t\t\t\t\tBy<\/span> Ashish K. Jha<\/span>\t\t\t\t\t
\t\t\t\t\t\tBy<\/span> Daniel Payne<\/a> and Chelsea Cirruzzo<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t
Advertisement
\t\t\t\t\t\tBy<\/span> Chelsea Cirruzzo<\/a> and Isabella Cueto<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t
\t\t\t\t\t\tBy<\/span> Chelsea Cirruzzo<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t
\t\t\t\t\t\tBy<\/span> John Wilkerson<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

By Daniel Payne<\/a><\/p>\n

By Adam Feuerstein<\/a><\/p>\n

By Isabella Cueto<\/a><\/p>\n

By Daniel Payne<\/a>, Chelsea Cirruzzo<\/a>, and Elizabeth Cooney<\/a><\/p>\n

By Casey Ross<\/a> and Bob Herman<\/a>
Share options
X
Bluesky
LinkedIn
Facebook
Doximity
Copy link
Reprints
Reporting from the frontiers of health and medicine
Company
Account
More<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Complete your personal information for a more tailored experience Home Don't miss outSubscribe to STAT+ today, for the best life sciences journalism in the industryBy Elizabeth CooneyAug. 28, 2025 Cardiovascular Disease Reporter Elizabeth CooneyElizabeth Cooney is a cardiovascular disease reporter at STAT, covering heart, stroke, and metabolic conditions. You can reach Liz on Signal at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":162391,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}