Showdown at the CDC corral
Competence has no place in this government.
There’s trouble in them there labs.
After months of the Trump Administration running roughshod over federal agencies, there are signs of a backlash at the CDC. The national medical agency saw a mass walkout on Thursday in protest of RFKJR’s firing of Susan Monarez, the Trump-appointed director.
Before the election, I heard people pooh-poohing the possibility that RFKJR would become Secretary of Health and Human Services. On the chance that he would take office, they doubted that he would be much of a problem.
“What’s the worst he could do?” they asked.
As it turns out, he can do quite a bit of damage in only a few months. Together with DOGE, RFK laid off thousands of health workers, replaced members of a vaccine advisory committee with his anti-vax cronies, and canceled hundreds of millions of dollars of research into cures for diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s. (As a cancer survivor and friend and family member of other cancer sufferers, I’m particularly miffed about this.) RFK claimed that a measles outbreak could be treated with vitamins and was silent when an anti-vax gunman attacked the CDC campus in Atlanta. When he finally did speak. It was to criticize the agency for its handling of the pandemic.
Fast-forward to this week when RFK announced the firing of Monarez, ostensibly for not supporting Trump’s agenda, but more specifically for failing to rubber stamp a vaccine policy that that contradicted scientific evidence.
Richard Besser, a former acting director of the CDC, spoke with Monarez and told reporters, “She said that there were two things she would never do in the job. One was anything that was deemed illegal, and the second was anything that she felt flew in the face of science, and she said she was asked to do both of those.”
After her dismissal, three other CDC leaders resigned into protest. In a statement for the officials, lawyers said in a statement, “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 reason, she has been targeted.”
Initially, there was some dispute as to whether she has been fired or not. RFK has named his deputy, Jim O’Neill, as interim head of the agency, but Monarez disputed that the HHS head has the authority to fire her since she was appointed by Trump and confirmed by the Senate. Ultimately, the White House did fire her.
The problems of electing Trump and appointing RFK should have been obvious, especially when paired with a Republican majority that is the rubber stamp that Susan Monarez refused to be. Nevertheless, we are stuck with the combination for the time being. Trump and RFK are playing to the anti-vax, anti-science MAGA base.
We get the government we deserve.
The fate of Susan Monarez is likely to be the fate of any honest and competent federal employee who refuses to compromise their principles. There’s not much we can do about it at the moment beyond lambasting Republican congressmen and supporting their challengers in the midterms.
For the next four years, we aren’t going to be able to trust federal health guidelines and recommendations, particularly if they’ve been recently changed. Get a good, experienced doctor to consult with them regularly. Follow tried and true preventive guidelines.
And if your doctor is an anti-vaxxer, get a new one. The evidence for vaccine safety and effectiveness is so strong that being anti-vax calls the rest of their qualifications into question. And yes, that includes COVID vaccines.
I think the CDC leaders who resigned did the right thing, and I hope that others follow their example. That is a tough thing to say because unemployment is not fun, but neither is selling your soul to bosses who are undermining national health efforts. If I was a federal employee, I’d be networking and building an escape plan.
America needs competent officials, but competent officials cannot do their jobs when they are undermined from the top. Federal employees should do their jobs the best they can, and when they can’t, they should resign like Monarez and the other CDC leaders.
America voted for Trumpism. We’re going to get the full effect of it. Hopefully, that will inoculate us from ever electing another authoritarian, MAGA or otherwise.
Ironically, having competent cabinet officials in Trump’s first Administration kept him from acting on his worst impulses. This time around, there are few, if any, such adult voices. We have an Administration full of RFKs.
As the the “Young Guns” said (quoting the prophet Hosea), it’s time to reap the whirlwind.
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