Washington DC - A former top official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently spilled the tea on the "chaos" the agency has faced due to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
In a recent interview with Face the Nation, Debra Houry – who worked as chief medical officer for the CDC for over a decade before quitting last year – argued that Kennedy's leadership and controversial policies have done "irreparable harm" to the public's trust in the agency and have caused "pure chaos" internally.
Houry detailed how many of the people RFK Jr. has now surrounded himself with have no experience working in medicine, science, or government, but have been chosen because they align with the MAHA leader's anti-vaccine views.
She also claimed that when Kennedy fired members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) – a government panel that gives vaccine recommendations – and installed allies of his, he circumvented the usual process by avoiding having them sign conflict-of-interest or ethics background forms.
"Science doesn't change based on who is in office, and so when these things were happening, I knew this was different than before," Houry said.
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Before he was appointed by President Donald Trump to head the health department, RFK Jr. spent years as a prominent anti-vaccine advocate.
Since taking on the new role, he has fired countless staff members who have refused to align with his views, including Susan Monarez, who served as head of the CDC for years, made cuts to agencies and research that don't align with his views, and changed the CDC's recommended number of vaccines for children, a move that was recently blocked by a judge.
In her interview, Houry called for an investigation into RFK Jr.'s leadership, accusing him of political interference and "[putting] so many lives at risk."