The Day the CDC Died

Updated COVID vaccines were approved, but too bad the CDC is no longer functional

Many people (self included) had been very concerned that COVID-19 vaccines would be kept off the US market this fall due to inaction on the part of the FDA. US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has used an assortment of bureaucratic tactics to disrupt vaccine access across the US, so I expected that he might just instruct FDA Commissioner Marty Makary to block licensing applications for the updated COVID-19 boosters.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen. Kennedy fired up his favorite official communications medium today to let Americans (at least the ones who use X) know that updated COVID shots have received FDA authorization. In theory, these vaccines will be available to almost anyone who wants them. In theory.

However, the road to updated COVID shots still has some formidable obstacles. In the before times, the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP), a committee of external expert advisors, would review the evidence and vote on a recommendation. After approval by the CDC Director, then the vaccines become available to everyone eligible based on the ACIP recommendation. This used to be a fairly uneventful process characterized by a lot of discussion about data and evidence, which is why most people aren’t familiar with it. It was boring and unremarkable. ACIP is not boring or unremarkable anymore, and not in a good way.

In June, Kennedy fired all 17 members of the ACIP and replaced them with a slate of anti-vax superstars. They got to work delivering the MAHA agenda almost immediately by de-recommending the (demonstrably safe) preservative thimerosal from multi-dose vaccines. They are targeting the MMRV vaccine next. Kennedy has also signalled that he is after aluminum salt adjuvants and banned professional societies from ACIP work groups. He cancelled half a billion dollars in federal funding for mRNA vaccine development. He’s just getting warmed up. This does not bode well for the future of COVID vaccines. It does not bode well for the future of any vaccines.

Bloodbath at the CDC

Though I hate to use the term “massacre” to describe anything at CDC, considering the dedicated public servants there were the targets of a domestic terror attack that killed a police officer on August 8th, that is what Kennedy is doing to the agency’s capacity and expertise. Competent ACIP is not the only sacrifice Kennedy has made on the altar of the MAHA agenda. Thousands of CDC employees had already lost their jobs through attrition, forced retirement, or the mass firings last spring. Today, CDC Director Susan Monarez was given an ultimatum to resign or be fired. She refused to resign so the White House fired her. She has retained former Trump attorneys Mark Zaid and Abbe Lowell to fight her illegal termination.

Monarez was reportedly fired for refusing to get on board the MAHA train and rescind approvals for COVID vaccines, which she would have the power to do as CDC Director. Kennedy seems to have gotten sick of her unwillingness to sign on to the anti-vax agenda, because he asked for her resignation, which she refused to give. She contacted Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who cast the deciding vote to move Kennedy out of committee for confirmation after he promised not to destroy America’s immunization program. Cassidy then called up Kennedy and presumably inconsequentially bitched at him. Kennedy was irate that Monarez snitched and demanded that she resign or be fired by President Trump.

However, four top-level CDC officials did resign. Director of the National Center for Influenza and Respiratory Diseases Demetre Daskalakis, Director of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology Jennifer Layden, Director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases Daniel Jernigan, and Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry all departed CDC today on the basis of their refusal to participate in laying waste to public health in America. Daskalakis in particular spelled out explicitly that he was not leaving because of the shooting on August 8th, but because of Kennedy’s lack of ethics, lies, anti-science servility to fascism, and pushing policies that will absolutely cause preventable death.

Washington Post, August 27, 2025

As much as I immensely respect my colleagues at CDC for having the integrity to resign rather than assist Kennedy in his quest to kill, injure, or disable as many Americans as possible, I fear for the future. Without leadership having this level of expertise and commitment to public health, the CDC will not be able to function. The agency was already depleted of staff, resources, and funds and running on fumes to carry out its core functions. Now it has lost the dedicated people who were leading it.

The CDC is dead, long live the CDC

For COVID vaccines, ACIP should review and make a recommendation now that they have received FDA authorization. I expect ACIP to recommend that the vaccines be withheld from as many people as possible. The ACIP mRNA czar Retsef Levi has falsely claimed for years that mRNA vaccines kill people. He will almost certainly find “evidence” that they are unsafe. ACIP are unlikely to recommend them for use for anyone under the age of 65 or with a pre-existing condition, and maybe even anyone at all.

After the ACIP votes, normally recommendations go to the CDC Director for final approval. There is no CDC Director anymore. That means Kennedy will sign off on the recommendations. I sincerely doubt he would object to an ACIP recommendation that COVID vaccines should never be used for anyone—mRNA vaccines (Pfizer/Moderna) or protein vaccines (Novavax). If this happens, updated COVID vaccines will still be available this year for people who can afford it and have a doctor willing to prescribe it. However, access will be greatly reduced, thus so will demand. In the years to come, vaccine manufacturers may withdraw from the US market altogether.

If Kennedy succeeds at restricting COVID vaccines, he’ll be emboldened to move on to other vaccines. He’s also promised to reveal the cause of autism next month, which—SPOILER ALERT: it’s vaccines. Maybe it’s the MMR, maybe it’s aluminum salt adjuvants, maybe it’s HBV or Gardasil, maybe it’s just not Gold Standard enough. No vaccine is Gold Standard enough for Kennedy. He will fabricate justifications for taking out as many vaccines as he can, and will press as many levers as he can to do so. The CDC could have told him how dangerous this is. The CDC could have responded to the outbreaks of preventable diseases that will follow. The CDC could track the number of cases of acute disease, as well as the disability that will result. The CDC could have stopped the tide of misery and pestilence that is about to devastate American health and security as our national immunization program is murdered by a psychopath with a brainworm and an apparent death wish for all American children. But they can’t, because Kennedy effectively murdered the CDC. And as a result, his body count is going to do numbers.

Even though the CDC as an agency will continue to exist, and the many career employees who still work there will continue to carry the torch for public health as long as they can, the agency is at best on life support. It might be effectively dead. Departing leadership will be replaced with servile cowards and unqualified yes-men selected for their MAHA loyalism rather than their expertise. Programs that took decades to build were razed beyond capacity for restoration. Science and evidence will be replaced with propaganda and political ideology. The CDC will not be the same agency and people are going to die because of it. Get your updated COVID vaccines, and any others that you might need, now, while you still can.