After less than a month in the job, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Dr. Susan Monarez has been fired after resisting HHS Secretary Robert F. "Brainworm" Kennedy's politicized policies on vaccinations. Her attorneys Abbe Lowell and Mark Zaid released this statement yesterday:
"When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted.
"This is not about one official. It is about the systematic dismantling of public health institutions, the silencing of experts, and the dangerous politicization of science. The attack on Dr. Monarez is a warning to every American: our evidence-based systems are being undermined from within." (our emphasis)
She wasn't the only career scientist to leave the CDC:
Her departure coincided with the resignations this week of at least four top CDC officials. The list includes Dr. Debra Houry, the agency's deputy director; Dr. Daniel Jernigan, head of the agency's National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, head of its National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; and Dr. Jennifer Layden, director of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology.
In an email seen by The Associated Press, Houry lamented the crippling effects on the agency from planned budget cuts, reorganization and firings.
"I am committed to protecting the public's health, but the ongoing changes prevent me from continuing in my job as a leader of the agency," she wrote.
She also noted the rise of misinformation about vaccines during the current Trump administration, and alluded to new limits on CDC communications.
"For the good of the nation and the world, the science at CDC should never be censored or subject to political pauses or interpretations," she wrote.
Daskalakis worked closely with the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Kennedy remade the committee by firing everyone and replacing them with a group that included several vaccine skeptics — one of whom was put in charge of a COVID-19 vaccines workgroup.
In his resignation letter, Daskalakis lamented that the changes put "people of dubious intent and more dubious scientific rigor in charge of recommending vaccine policy." He described Monarez as "hamstrung and sidelined by an authoritarian leader." He added: "Their desire to please a political base will result in death and disability of vulnerable children and adults."
He also wrote: "I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality."... (our emphasis)
This decapitation of the leadership of our country's top public health agency in order to politicize vaccine policy will, as Daskalakis says, "result in death and disability of vulnerable children and adults." Let that sink in. Kennedy, a person who's only qualification for his job was his successful pandering to his fellow authoritarian the Malignant Fascist and the extreme anti- vaxxers, will have blood on his hands for his actions. Some will be the blood of his leader's cultists who voted for this, but some will be innocent blood. Sic transit gloria, America.
(Image: the doctor and the crank / screenshot via YouTube)
It appears that to get the latest Covid vaccine this fall will require going to a doctor's office rather than swinging by the pharmacy and, depending on the whims of the insurance companies, pony up the full cost or a significant "co-pay". Might be a shrewd investment strategy to invest in refrigerator trucks or ventilators. This auto-golpe is a clear-and-present danger to the citizenry though most have yet to fully understand it.
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