What’s Driving Experts Away from the CDC?

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.3 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 1 October 2025

⏱️ 15 minutes

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Summary

Several top public health experts have resigned from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, citing a troubling shift away from science-based decision-making. Former director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Demetre Daskalakis joins host Rachel Feltman to explain how political ideology is reshaping vaccine policy, threatening essential health programs and endangering trust in the nation’s leading health agency. He also shares what outside organizations must do to protect public health in the face of growing uncertainty. Recommended Reading Here’s What Happened at RFK, Jr.’s Overhauled Vaccine Panel Meeting CDC’s Leadership Is in Chaos—Experts Warn of Public Health Risks Science Quickly is a Signal Awards finalist! Support us by casting your vote before October 9 at the following link: https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting?utm_campaign=signal4_finalists_finalistnotification_092325&utm_medium=email&utm_source=cio#/2025/shows/genre/science E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check the show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	For Scientific American Science Quickly, I'm Rachel Feldman.
0:16.0	In recent weeks, several prominent public health experts have resigned from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, citing concerns about the agency shift away from science-based decision-making.
0:35.7	Among them was Dmitri Daskalakis, who until recently directed
0:40.0	the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. He's here today to tell us more
0:46.2	about what's going on at the CDC and what concerned experts are doing to try to keep America healthy.
0:53.0	Thanks so much for joining us today.
0:55.3	Thanks for having me.
0:56.6	So to start, could you tell me a bit about your former role at the CDC and what you
1:01.7	did there?
1:02.5	I actually in my five years at CDC had seven separate roles.
1:06.6	So I will just focus on the last two years where I was the center director for the National
1:12.1	Center for Immunization Respiratory Diseases.
1:15.1	So, you know, CDC is made out of centers.
1:17.6	That's what Centers for Disease Control and Prevention mean.
1:20.0	And so the National Center for Immunization Respiratory Diseases, which we'll call NCIRD, for
1:26.1	short, is the center that is responsible for a lot of
1:29.7	vaccine policy and vaccine preventable diseases for the country, as well as the jurisdictional
1:35.9	immunization programs and the very important vaccines for children program. And how have things
1:42.6	been changing there over the last year or so? I mean, not for the good.
1:46.3	I think that with the installation of the new Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., I was seeing
1:54.0	a pretty significant shift away from sort of science-based work more toward this ideological, almost authoritarian-style leadership coming from
2:04.6	the Health and Human Services Secretary that didn't really value or listen to any expert
	...

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