CDC Staff Protest, Demand Kennedy’s Resignation

Tuesday’s scheduled all-hands meeting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would have been the first during the new Trump administration. Instead, after it was canceled at the last minute, dozens of current and former employees at the country’s leading public health agency rallied outside CDC headquarters in Atlanta to protest what they described as a wave of unlawful firings, the dismantling of lifesaving programs and the censorship of science.

Amid the roar of cowbells and car horns, protesters held colorful signs with sharp messages, including “Save CDC,” “RFK’s War on Kids” and “Who the f— is in charge?” The protest was spurred by staff cuts over the past several months that gutted departments amid a senior leadership vacuum at the agency, which still has no director. Many protesters called for the appointment of a new CDC director and the resignation of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees the CDC.

“I am here today to tell you that the secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has shown himself to be a domestic health threat,” said Dr. Anna Yousaf, an infectious disease researcher at the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

“These attacks against scientific standards and well-established processes culminated yesterday when Secretary Kennedy announced that he is firing all of the members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP,” Yousaf continued, eliciting “boos” from the crowd.

Kennedy announced Monday that he was removing all 17 members of the independent vaccine advisory panel. Months earlier, he oversaw a massive restructuring of federal health departments that included laying off 2,400 CDC employees and dismantling many agency programs.