CDC leaders who resigned were escorted out of agency

By Brenda Goodman, CNN

(CNN) — Top officials who resigned their positions at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after the ouster of the agency’s director were escorted out of the building Thursday morning.

The shakeup at CDC comes as the Senate Committee on Finance announced that US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will testify on September 4 about President Donald Trump’s health agenda.

Amid abrupt changes that have left the CDC leaderless, agency staff had been planning a show of respect called a “clap out” Thursday afternoon for the officials who resigned, including Dr. Deb Houry, the chief medical officer; Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, chief of vaccines and respiratory diseases; Dr. Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; and data chief Dr. Jennifer Layden.

Instead, the officials were escorted out of the building, according to Houry, who stressed that they were escorted out “by friends.”

Staffers still gathered outside the agency’s main office in Atlanta later in the day.

“What makes CDC great are the people that make CDC up, the scientists, everyone that makes this a family. And it’s a family that defends our country and the health of our children and the health of adults, whether it’s because of vaccines, whether it’s preventing overdose, chronic disease, stopping Ebola at its source rather than when it came to this continent,” Daskalakis told the crowd. “You are the people that protect America, and America needs to see that you are the people that protect America, and we are going to be your loudest advocates.”

Dr. Daniel Pollock, who retired in 2021 after 37 years at the CDC, called Wednesday’s events “unprecedented.”

“What’s at stake here is not only the future of Americans’ health and well-being but the future of international health and well-being, because so much of what the CDC develops – be it laboratory tests, be it guidelines, be it advice about how to address a public health problem – all of that is used throughout the world, and what’s happening right now is, that’s being devastated,” he told CNN at Thursday’s event. “It will be very, very hard to restore what’s being wasted all through these absolutely unconscionable personnel moves.”

HHS has not responded to CNN’s request for comment about the officials who resigned.

Wednesday night, White House spokesperson Kush Desai said the White House had terminated the agency’s director, Dr. Susan Monarez, from her position.

Monarez’s attorneys, Mark Zaid and Abbe Lowell, said they rejected the notification she received.

“Our client was notified tonight by White House staff in the personnel office that she was fired. As a presidential appointee, senate confirmed officer, only the president himself can fire her,” Zaid and Lowell said in a statement. “For this reason, we reject notification Dr. Monarez has received as legally deficient and she remains as CDC Director. We have notified the White House Counsel of our position.”

An acting CDC director has not been announced.

Even as the CDC leaders prepare to say their final goodbyes to the agency, the medical community is reeling from the changes.

“Last night’s removal of CDC Director Susan Monarez and the resignations of other CDC leaders are highly alarming at a challenging moment for public health. This destabilization comes at a time when the CDC’s credibility and leadership are more essential than ever,” Dr. Bobby Mukkamala, president of the American Medical Association, said in a statement. “The AMA is deeply concerned that this turmoil leaves us highly susceptible to public health threats.”

“Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is systematically dismantling the public health infrastructure that keeps us safe from pandemics and vaccine-responsive diseases like Covid-19,” wrote Dr. Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, in a statement on the departures.

In a Thursday appearance on Fox News, Kennedy said little about the shakeup at CDC, saying it was inappropriate to talk about “personnel issues.”

“There’s really a deeply, deeply embedded, I would say, malaise at the agency, and we need strong leadership that will go in there and that will be able to execute on President Trump’s broad ambitions for this agency,” Kennedy said. “It may be that some people should not be working there anymore.”

CNN’s Jacqueline Howard contributed to this report.

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