By any fair measure, last week was brutal for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, following months of politically imposed setbacks. Indeed, it was on Wednesday afternoon when Team Trump ousted Susan Monarez as the CDC’s director — without cause and after less than a month on the job — sparking a series of resignations from many of the agency’s most respected and important leaders.
Soon after, it was common to see reports quoting CDC insiders referring to the agency in the past tense. The New York Times published a report with a headline and subhead that immediately generated some attention: “Will the C.D.C. Survive? Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s assault may have dealt lasting damage to the agency, experts fear, with harsh consequences for public health.”
A day later, former CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden appeared on MSNBC and told viewers, “I never thought I would see the day when you couldn’t trust what’s on the CDC website, but that day has come.”
That was soon followed by a New York Times op-ed co-authored by Frieden and several others who had held the same office. NBC News reported:
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s leadership is ‘unlike anything our country has ever experienced,’ nine former directors and acting directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wrote in a scathing guest essay Monday for The New York Times. … Their tenures date to the late 1970s and span Democratic and Republican administrations, including Trump’s first term.
The existence of the opinion piece is itself notable: There is no precedent for nine former CDC chiefs — including Anne Schuchat, who served as an acting director during Donald Trump’s first term — linking arms and alerting the public to a public health menace like this.








