Former CDC officials smile at RFK Jr.

A group of former leaders from the Centers for the Control and Prevention of Diseases of the United States that served under democratic and republican presidents criticized the Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for their latest actions aimed at the agency, declaring that Americans deserve a health secretary who “supports science and supports.”

In an opinion article of the New York Times entitled “We directed the CDC: Kennedy is endangering the health of each American” published on Monday, nine former officials, who served as interim directors or directors of the agency, warned that the situation facing the CDC is not precedent.

What Kennedy “has done to the CDC and the public health system of our nation in recent months, which culminated with her decision to fire Dr. Susan Monaz as director of the CDC days ago, is different from everything we have seen in the agency, already differentiates from anything that our country has experienced,” they write.

Jacquelyn Martin/File/Ap Photo

The authors of the piece include William Foe, William Roper, David Satcher, Jeffrey Koplan, Richard Better, Tom Frieden, Anne Schuchat, Rochelle Walensky and Mandy Cohen.

The Trump administration ended Monarez last week, less than a month since he assumed the position, after she refused to resign. His lawyers said he was attacked by refusing “non -scientific and reckless directives of rubber and shooting dedicated health experts.” At least four other CDC officials also left the agency last week.

The decision to dismiss Monarch about Kennedy’s call to finish thousands of federal workers in his department, as well as to impose the role of vaccines in the fight against the ongoing measles outbreak in the country, among other things, will have a detrimental impact on the health safety of the country, the former leaders wrote in the times.

“Residents of rural communities and people with disabilities will have even more limited access to medical care. Families with low income that trust more in community health clinics and the support of state and local health departments will have less available resources.

“This is unacceptable, and should alarm all Americans, regardless of political inclinations,” they added.

The group said that while disagreements with leadership may have existed during their service, former health secretaries “never gave us reasons to doubt that they would trust ideas based on data for our protection, or that they would support public health workers.”

“However, the current HHS leadership operates under a very different set of rules,” they added.

While the authors admitted that the CDC is not perfect, they argued that he plays a central role in keeping the Americans healthy.

People who join the agency “have not done so by prestige or power, but because they believe deeply in the call to the service,” they said.

“They deserve an HHS secretary who defends health, supports science and supports it. We also do our country.”