Chaos At CDC As Trump Admin Ousts CDC Director After Only Weeks On The Job
from the down-with-the-sickness dept
The CDC has plunged into chaos. Dr. Susan Monarez, the newly minted CDC Director, a role she held for a matter of mere weeks, has been fired by the Trump administration. We actually wrote about Monarez previously, as she was engaged with both the CDC team that was the target of an attempted mass shooting in Atlanta, as well as the broader CDC staff, largely over their concerns that HHS Secretary RFK Jr. was both putting them in danger with his bullshit conspiracy theories and that Kennedy’s theories were completely at odds with good science. CDC, along with the broader HHS agencies, have gone through a large number of layoffs, firings, and resignations. I’ve joked before that Kennedy is responsible for more loss of brain matter at our nations health agencies than any worm could hope to achieve.
But this ultimately isn’t a joke. We traditionally staff agencies like CDC with very, very smart people for a reason. Life and death reasons. Pandemic reasons. Child safety reasons. And playing a cavalier game with these people is not smart. Nor is treating them like pawns in someone’s personal political agenda, which is exactly what Kennedy is doing.
Lawyers representing Dr Monarez said her sacking was illegal, and alleged she was targeted by Kennedy because she refused “to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives”.
The New York Times reports that she was at odds with Kennedy, a vaccine sceptic, over vaccine policy.
Other reports suggest that she was given an ultimatum directly from Kennedy: support the things I say about vaccines as well as our updated vaccination schedules, or resign. That’s not someone who is looking for “gold standard science,” a phrase Kennedy loves to use but clearly doesn’t understand. Instead, it’s someone who has a conclusion in mind and simply wants the science to be mocked up to make it look like he’s right.
The White House came pretty damned close to admitting as much in this hilarious back and forth.
On Wednesday, Dr Monarez’s lawyers issued a statement saying that she had chosen “protecting the public over serving a political agenda”.
The White House statement announcing the termination of her post said: “As her attorney’s statement makes abundantly clear, Susan Monarez is not aligned with the president’s agenda.”
Yes, you asshats, she made it clear that she wants to protect the public instead. Your response sure makes it sound like you’re acknowledging that she was asked to serve the political agenda instead of protecting the public.
And she isn’t the only one. Several high-ranking CDC staffers resigned in the wake of her firing in protest. CDC staff who didn’t resign lined the outside of CDC offices and clapped for their former colleagues as they exited the building.
Demetre Daskalakis, who was director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said recent policy changes surrounding the COVID vaccine threatened lives and there had been an “intentional eroding of trust in low-risk vaccines.” Other departing officials include CDC chief medical officer Debra Houry and Daniel Jernigan, director of the CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases.
This loss of expertise at CDC is alarming. As is the revelation that Daskalakis produced during an interview on CNN on Thursday night.
Daskalakis, responding to a question about what Kennedy should be asked if he were to appear at a Senate hearing, said: “Has he ever been briefed by a CDC expert on anything? Specifically, measles, COVID-19, flu? I think people should ask him that.
“The answer is no. No one from my center has ever briefed him on any of those topics. He’s getting information from somewhere, but that information is not coming from CDC experts, who really are the world’s experts in this area. Perhaps he has alternate experts that he may trust more than the experts at CDC that the rest of the world regards as the best scientists in these areas,” he said.
It’s hard to know how to even respond. We have the worst outbreak of measles in several decades… and Kennedy never sought or received a briefing on it from the CDC? Kennedy is radically altering the vaccine schedules for children and for COVID vaccines… and he never got a readout on the science of either from the CDC? This brain-wormed growl-monster ended half a billion dollars worth of federal funding for mRNA vaccines generally… and didn’t get any input from CDC on that decision?
I half expect this to turn out to be untrue and that briefings of some sort did in fact occur. If not, then holy shit, Congress needs to start firing up some hearings and get to the bottom of what is occurring at HHS, because all of this uninformed chaos is going to result in very real deaths.
Filed Under: cdc, donald trump, expertise, rfk jr., susan monarez
Comments on “Chaos At CDC As Trump Admin Ousts CDC Director After Only Weeks On The Job”
It makes so much more sense when every time illegal, unethical, or just insane behavior is justified by this administration using the phrase “the president’s agenda,” you substitute in “for der Führer and the glory of the Fatherland.” And no, that’s not hyperbole. Trump and his cronies are acting as if getting elected means Trump gets to do whatever he wants regardless of the legality or ethics. That is authoritarianism. That is anti-democratic. That is unconstitutional. And courts and Democrats had best stop rolling over or else they’ll find they’ve rolled themselves into a corner.
Re: You are being unfair to Hitler
Substituting vanity theories for science is not authoritarianism but stupidity. Soviet and Chinese communism had a fair share of that, and authoritarianism is one way to elevate some pet theories to levels they are not entitled to in the marketplace of validation.
It is easier to properly weigh ideas when you can work without a thumb on the scales, let alone a whole baboon hopping with glee.
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Can’t it be both? Because it is both.
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Dumb authoritarianism is still authoritarianism. It’s less effective authoritarianism so far because Trump isn’t smart enough to do authoritarianism well, but he lacks compunction to stop himself from trying to impose his every random unconstitutional whim, so he’ll just keep trying when he encounters resistance. And he has a team of sycophants that continue to throw everything at the wall to see what sticks for legal arguments. He’ll assert every random emergency power, ancient obsolete law, and bullshit legal argument to try to get what he wants. And when courts oppose him, he pulls the classic authoritarian move of intimidating the judges and declaring them traitors and radicals.
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If we could find authoritarianism without the rampant, abject stupidity, it would cause a flood ofnew papersbeing written in several dusciplines.
The US used to be the regulator gold standard
The US government, its regulatory agencies (FCC, CDC, statistical agencies, food safety, etc.), monetary agencies (Federal Reserve, SEC, etc.), and its courts and policing agencies used to be the gold standard that almost everyone around the world looked to for guidance in everything from food and transportation safety to financial regulations and construction standards.
If a regulation or a standard was good enough for the US, it was probably good enough for everyone else too.
Many governments around the world just followed the lead of the USA in almost everything around safety and financial regulation. There were some differences here and there but by and large that was the situation for the past many decades.
Now the credibility of the US government and its agencies is in tatters. The trust is simply gone, and that gold standard of safety and standards no longer exists. The idea of the US government providing the definitive benchmark or the leading example of pretty much anything no longer exits.
If that’s the way they do it in the USA, if the USA has declared this thing to be safe, if the USA has outlawed this activity, there must be a good reason for it. That faith that sustained that is no longer there, sadly, and as far as I can tell we no longer have a world leading setter of general standards and requirements.
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nonsense.
there are no regulatory agencies authorized by the US Constitution. CDC illegal from the getgo.
if you believe in the rule of law, you should at least read the actual text of the Supreme Law of the Land.
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The CDC is not primarily a regulatory agency. It’s the FDA, for example, that approves drugs and vaccines.
In the CDC, NIOSH is a division that does some regulation, and was already gutted by this administration (which means that people needing respirators will probably be looking for European or Asian approvals instead). The Division of Select Agents and Toxins does regulation, too (but maybe in a few months we’ll be able to import all the ebola and anthrax we want). Outside these limited cases, I don’t think the CDC is doing much that would raise Constitutional concerns.
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Article I, Section 8, Clause 18:
“[The Congress shall have Power…] To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”
So Congress has the ability to pass a law to create a regulatory agency to execute its constitutional powers.
The Constitution is the founding document that is the basis of laws, not the all-inclusive collection of words that enumerates every single constitutional power. If your argument relies solely on, “it’s not in the Constitution,” you’re ignoring 200+ years of pertinent case law.
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NO
Carefully read that quote again
Congress may ONLY enact laws to execute “the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution”.
There must be a specific area of legislative authority stated in the Constitution. Congress does not have unlimited discretionary power, or the Constitution would be a much shorter document.
This principle of Federal “Enumerated powers” is the bedrock of the Constitution.
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The Commerce Clause contains enumerated powers. Regulatory agencies can regulate commerce, including safety, including public health, etc.
But also, again, your interpretation is countered by 200+ years of case law in which the nation’s top lawyers and justices disagree with you. You’re free to say you disagree with their interpretation but you are functionally incorrect as to how it currently works. And at that point, you’re just impotently yelling at clouds.
Re: Re: The Congress is given the power to create regulatory agencies
But if you truly believe this, you should be out there advocating for the dissolution of the Air Force, which is also not authorized by the Constitution.
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No, it’s easilyvisible in the Constitution. What is not, however, is any executive power to fuck with the institutions and laws Congress creates. In fact, it is explicitly in the Constitution that the executive cannot do that.
Inevitable.
Hired her because she was very good at her job.
Fired her because she really was, in actual fact, very good at her job.
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And people keep believing that Trump is a genius businessman…
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Well, if someone can manage to stay in business despite a long and well-documented history of fraud, mismanagement, and bankruptcy, I think one could argue that it’s true…
One definition of genius is “Someone possessing extraordinary intelligence or skill” (Trump’s lucky it’s “or” rather than “and”). Is bullshitting a skill?
Wikipedia talks of “the performance of some art or endeavor that surpasses expectations, sets new standards for the future, […] or remains outside the capabilities of competitors”. And Trump’s done all of that. (Except maybe the last, if we assume it’s common sense rather than lack of ability that’s keeping the “competition” from acting this way.)
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I don’t see this affecting his bottom line. As businessman, he bankrupted several of his companies (including a casino which is sort of a license to print money) and stiffed lots of contractors but came out ahead.
Sure, he is driving the U.S. into the ground, but he makes sure to fill his pockets in the process. Turning HHS into ashes and killing a few million paupers in the process does not register as a problem for him. It simplifies management without making a dent in his bottom line.
'Unless what you're about to say agrees with me I don't care.'
Daskalakis, responding to a question about what Kennedy should be asked if he were to appear at a Senate hearing, said: “Has he ever been briefed by a CDC expert on anything? Specifically, measles, COVID-19, flu? I think people should ask him that.
“The answer is no. No one from my center has ever briefed him on any of those topics. He’s getting information from somewhere, but that information is not coming from CDC experts, who really are the world’s experts in this area. Perhaps he has alternate experts that he may trust more than the experts at CDC that the rest of the world regards as the best scientists in these areas,” he said.
On the one hand it’s horrifying that RFK Jr. has apparently never bothered to be briefed by actual experts in the medical field.
On the other hand given he would just ignore everything they said no matter what their expertise was unless he thought it happened to align with his demented beliefs on ‘health’ it both makes sense that he wouldn’t ask for or accept an offer of a briefing, and his refusal to do so saved the experts plenty of time talking to someone who wasn’t interested in listening so there’s at least that silver lining.
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He’s literally claimed they need to stop listening to the experts because he’s pitching the line that the experts are just funding grifters while actual grifters are “alternative” experts looking for the truth, probably about how homeopathy and essential oils and prayer can cure anything.
I think a large part of the problem is that Trump and a lot of his base dont know the difference(or dont care) between a scientist a socialist or a social studies teacher.
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FURTHER Chaos At CDC