The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is struggling. The agency tasked with protecting the health of U.S. citizens has lost a quarter of its staffers over the last year, morale is lousy for those who remain and for the moment the organization has no leader: Its last Senate-confirmed director was ousted in August and no replacement has been chosen.
Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised to restore trust in the CDC following the Covid-19 pandemic. But can his “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement survive the turmoil?
Why MAHA might be stalled
Kennedy’s MAHA agenda “appears to be stalled,” said The Guardian. The CDC lacks a director, and Trump’s nomination of Casey Means to be U.S. surgeon general is “stuck in limbo” in the Senate. But the administration “isn’t ready to nominate a new CDC director” despite a deadline of last week to do so, said CNN. Administration officials are still “evaluating candidates” who can shift the CDC “to its original mission of fighting infectious disease,” said HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon.
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The CDC nomination delay comes as MAHA and Kennedy “appear to be on the ropes,” Tom Bartlett said at The Atlantic. MAHA supporters are “angry” that Trump is shielding herbicide makers from legal liability. The Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine chief just left the agency, a federal judge put a hold on Kennedy’s anti-vaccine agenda and the Kennedy-allied vice chair of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel resigned last week. Those events, taken together, suggest the secretary’s hold on power is “waning.” A December poll “seems to have scared the White House off Kennedy’s vaccine agenda.” The result: Kenedy is “losing his grip on the CDC.”
The agency is meanwhile in “turmoil,” said The New York Times. Insiders say it is being “remade into a vehicle for ideologues” who share Kennedy’s anti-vaccine agenda. The shift prompted a staff exodus that leaves public health advocates concerned that Americans will be “increasingly exposed to a wide range of health threats” amid surges of measles, whooping cough and flu infections.
White House avoids controversy
Federal law says that acting agency directors “may not serve in the role for more than 210 days,” said The Hill. That deadline passed last week. National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya, who had been serving as acting director, has been “delegated to provide continuity in day-to-day CDC processes” until a permanent replacement is confirmed, said a White House spokesperson.
Getting Senate confirmation is a “potentially tall order,” said Axios. Kennedy and other Trump health appointees have “antagonized some of the chamber’s Republican centrists.” The White House is especially “eager to avoid further controversial health moves” ahead of November’s midterm elections. So Trump’s eventual CDC pick “may need both MAHA and science chops,” said Roll Call. Key GOP senators “want a moderate public servant” who can last in the job. The administration, said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), does not have a “very encouraging track record thus far.”
