Directors who quit US health agency warn it is 'destroying' protections

WASHINGTON - Senior experts who recently resigned in protest from the top US public health agency denounced Sunday growing politicisation of the organisation, warning of a breakdown in the "firewall" between science and ideology.

US President Donald Trump plunged American health policy and scientific rigour deeper into crisis this past week when he fired the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Susan Monarez, after less than one month on the job.

Monarez had clashed with vaccine sceptic Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr over his vaccine policy overhaul.

Her ouster triggered the departure of five other senior CDC officials, including Demetre Daskalakis as director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

"I've been worried for months," Daskalakis told the ABC News Sunday show "This Week, speaking of the impact the gutting of the historically independent CDC agency will have on public health.

"The firewall between science and ideology has completely broken down," he said.

Daskalakis added that based on what he has seen since Trump's January inauguration, and the packing of a critical immunisation advisory committee with people who share Kennedy's scepticism on vaccines, "hey're really moving in an ideologic direction, where they want to see the undoing of vaccination."

Another expert who resigned in protest, Doctor Debra Houry who served as the CDC's chief medical officer, said she knew of no agency scientist who has briefed Kennedy since he took up his post.

"I think it's going to be very difficult to" trust the CDC moving forward, she told CNN on Sunday.

As for members of the advisory committee on immunisation practices (ACIP) set to meet in mid-September, Houry warned it will be "staffed with people who don't have expertise in vaccine science" and who are "known to be against vaccines.

Kennedy dismissed all members of the influential group and replaced them with his own nominees, in a move that sparked concern in Congress, including among Republicans.

Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who chairs the Senate health committee, has called for the indefinite postponement of the September 18 ACIP meeting due to a "lack of scientific process being followed."

Former CDC director Tom Frieden spoke critically of the chaos at the CDC, an institution central to improving American health outcomes for more than 80 years.

"Public health is under assault," he told CNN. "They're destroying our health protections. We are less safe."

Frieden pointed to Kennedy's systematic "undermining" of vaccine infrastructure that is making it more difficult for Americans to acquire a COVID-19 shot.