Former head of Immunizations of the CDC: ‘I only see that the damage will come’ with RFK Jr. lead HHS

The former head of Immunizations for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, said Sunday that he is concerned about the direction he is going to the agency and concerned about public health in the future.

Daskalakis, who served as director of the National Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Center, presented his resignation to the CDC on Wednesday in protest after the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) who eliminated the director of the CDC, Susan Monarch, of his position. In his renunciation letter, Daskalakis denounced the leadership of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. both HHS and CDC.

“From my point of view as a doctor that has made the Hippocratic oath, I only see that it is wrong. I can be wrong, but based on what I am seeing, according to what I have heard with the new members of the Advisory Committee for immunization practices, or ACIP, they are really moving in an ideological direction where they want to see the vaccine vaccine,” Daskalakis told ABC News News News “Radchor Radchor.

Daskalakis did not agree with the changes in the recommendations on who should obtain the new COVID-19 vaccine this fall, with the new dose it has been approved only for people aged 65 and children and adults with underlying health conditions that put them at high risk, creating confusion and uncertainty for people who want the last vaccines who do not meet these parameters.

Daskalakis said that now there is no separation of political ideology and science with Kennedy leading HHS.

“I did not think that we were going to be able to present science in a way free of ideology, that the firewall between science and ideology has been completely broken down. And not having a scientific leader in the CDC meant that we could not have the diplomacy and connection necessary with HHS to really execute good public health,” Daskalakis said when explaining why he resigned.

The former interim director of the CDC, Dr. Richard Besser, now president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, told Raddatz that he is very worried in the midst of the greatest shake in the CDC.

“The difference will be deep. The CDCs are an absolutely critical piece of protection for Americans of any threat to public health. Now, with the director who is eliminated, senior leadership leaves, I have great fears so what will happen with this country the next emergency of public health, whether it is a massive earthquake, a new infectious agent or, unfortunately, the next pandemic,” Besser said.

Besser also has concerns about how Kennedy’s opposition to vaccine mandates will affect public health.

“When I think of the mandates, I think of the children who go to school. I think of young parents who send their children to school and want to know that their children are safe, and the way children are safe from preventable vaccination diseases is vaccinating. Risk of those people for whom the vaccine did not work and children who can have medical conditions in which they cannot be vaccinated.