If the policies of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. aren’t reversed, “a lot of Americans are going to die as a result of vaccine-preventable diseases.”
Unfortunately, that quote is not attributable to Chicken Little. Instead, it’s the opinion of Dr. Fiona Havers, formerly a top scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who resigned from the agency Monday.
In her first interview after leaving, Havers told the New York Times that Kennedy’s attacks on science and how science is conducted will have dire consequences.
“It’s a very transparent, rigorous process, and they have just taken a sledgehammer to it in the last several weeks,” she said. “CDC processes are being corrupted in a way that I haven’t seen before.”
At the CDC, Havers oversaw the team that collects data on COVID-19 and RSV hospitalizations and helped craft national vaccine policy.
In a goodbye email to her colleagues that was seen by Reuters, Havers said she no longer had confidence that her team’s output would “be used objectively or evaluated with appropriate scientific rigor to make evidence-based vaccine policy decisions.”
Kennedy’s attacks on vaccination, coupled with the shocking firing of all 17 members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices earlier this month, helped persuade her to go.
The health secretary has since named eight replacements to the influential panel. Among them are a scientist who criticized COVID-19 vaccines, a critic of pandemic-era lockdowns and another person the Associated Press described as “widely considered to be a leading source of vaccine misinformation.”
“I could not be party to legitimizing this new committee,” Havers told the Times.
“I have utmost respect for my colleagues at CDC who stay and continue to try and limit the damage from the inside,” she added. “What happened last week was the last straw for me.”
Asked to respond to the concerns Havers raised in her resignation email, a Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson told CBS that “under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, HHS is committed to following the gold standard of scientific integrity. Vaccine policy decisions will be based on objective data, transparent analysis, and evidence – not conflicts of interest or industry influence.”