00:00I just resigned from my role as Chief Medical Officer at the CDC.
00:04We had reached a tipping point around the dismantling of public health in our country
00:08and the weaponization of the work that we do.
00:12Several senior CDC leaders resigned after the White House fired CDC Director Susan Minaras.
00:18She was not aligned with the President's mission to make America healthy again.
00:22I have great fears that our nation is incredibly vulnerable now for public health threats.
00:28The message it sends is that scientific integrity isn't as important as political expediency.
00:35This is a red flag.
00:37Susan Minaras has a background in the federal government and health leadership.
00:42She was just sworn in at the end of July.
00:45When Dr. Minaras joined the agency, we were excited to have scientific leadership
00:49that would lead us around rigorous and transparent efforts.
00:53Just hours before CDC Director Minaras was removed,
00:57former Acting CDC Director Richard Busser spoke with her.
01:00She relayed a conversation she had had with Secretary Kennedy.
01:05He told her directly that he wanted her to fire her leadership team
01:09and that he wanted her to agree to approve any recommendations that came out
01:13of the newly constructed Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
01:17She said she would only approve recommendations that were based on the best science and best evidence.
01:23She was told to resign and she refused and said that she expected to be fired pretty soon.
01:28There's a lot of trouble at CDC and it's going to require getting rid of some people over the long term.
01:35Lawyers for Minaras said that she was fired for protecting the public over serving a political agenda.
01:41If our scientific leader couldn't do what needed to be done, we were going to be ineffective.
01:46So Dimitri, Dan and I decided that if Dr. Monterey was leaving CDC, we would too.
01:52And we needed to do this together to show the agency, to show the nation how concerned we were about this.
01:58It's highly unusual to see this rapid transition of a CDC director.
02:04And really what it says is a message about scientific expertise being summarily dismissed when it's politically convenient.
02:14Secretary Kennedy wrote an email to CDC employees on August 28th saying that reform does not diminish the CDC's mission, it strengthens it.
02:22We need strong leadership that will go in there and that will be able to execute on President Trump's broad ambitions.
02:31CDC is not a partisan agency. It's apolitical.
02:35It's a national health security agency that's looking out for the health of each and every person within our community without a political lens or bias.
02:44I was optimistic when I took on that role that I could align with President Trump and Secretary Kennedy's initiatives and had read many of their materials.
02:52For me, the issue became when we couldn't stand behind scientific integrity and there was political interference.
02:57In my resignation letter, I talked about changes I was concerned about.
03:01That includes the proposed budget cuts and the reorganization, as I know that those will significantly worsen our nation's health.
03:08CDC has been in a vulnerable position on a lot of these things because it never really did have a full authorizing piece of legislation and said this is what the CDC is and does.
03:18It's kind of grown by bits and pieces over the years. And so it's been very vulnerable to these kinds of budget and job cuts.
03:25A day after Menara's was let go, the White House selected deputy secretary of HHS Jim O'Neill to be the acting CDC director.
03:33O'Neill is currently the deputy secretary at HHS. He was also recently confirmed by the Senate.
03:39The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention director usually is a senior public health official who has significant scientific expertise, but also leadership expertise and political acumen.
03:50He's a health care investor. He's not a doctor. He doesn't have medical training.
03:55RFK Jr. really trusts Jim O'Neill. He has been working with him since the transition.
04:01He's viewed as a true believer and a good soldier and someone who can do the bidding of both RFK Jr.
04:07and his Maha agenda, as well as President Trump's MAGA agenda.
04:11I worry that Mr. O'Neill will move forward with the secretary's public health agenda.
04:17And the secretary's public health agenda is extremely detrimental to the health of people in America.
04:23Secretary Kennedy and others in the Trump administration have voiced this strong desire to see CDC just focus on infectious disease and not do anything else.
04:33So no more gun violence, no more drowning, no more infant deaths, kind of focus and research that it's done for a number of years now.
04:40There's a new case of the measles in Williams County.
04:43The Hawaii Department of Health is investigating a confirmed travel related case of Zika virus.
04:48This is one of the most concerning times I've ever seen for health in America.
04:54We're seeing diseases come back that were well controlled.
04:57I think for us to get back to a point where the CDC is able to do its job, the administration is going to have to decide that that's what's important.
05:06I fear that that that's not going to happen until people lose their lives.
05:11I think the solutions are for Congress to get involved.
05:13We need to ensure there's adequate resources for CDC.
05:16We need to stop terminations and bring back staff, ensure that there's enough boots on the ground in communities and local and state health departments as well as at CDC to protect the public.
05:26And we also have to ensure that there is a continued commitment and support for scientific integrity and data quality.
05:33Republicans in general have been very critical of CDC since the pandemic.
05:38But we have seen with the turmoil in the last week, Senator Susan Collins from Maine and Senator Bill Cassidy from Louisiana voice concern about what's been happening.
05:49One of the most important things that could happen going forward is looking at how we can depoliticize the CDC.
05:57Kennedy is scheduled to testify before the Senate Finance Committee on September 4th.
06:02The meeting is about just the president's health care agenda, but Kennedy has been getting a lot of heat on what's going on at the CDC.
06:08And Democrats have already stated their intention to grill him about that.
06:13Now the greatest risk to public health is not the next pathogen.
06:17It's the erosion of trust that we're seeing in our communities for scientific expertise.
