Former CDC chief medical officer says RFK Jr. caused ‘irreparable harm’

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Dr. Debra Houry, the former chief medical officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), decried the direction of the agency under Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“I think the secretary has caused a lot of irreparable harm, and when you look at many of the polls out there, the trust in public health, specifically CDC, has decreased dramatically over 20 points in many polls,” Houry told host Margaret Brennan in an interview that aired Sunday on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”

“That’s really difficult to recover from, and when states are removing links to the CDC website and following other medical organizations, I don’t know how you build back that trust overnight,” she added.

Since taking over at HHS in February 2025, Kennedy has imposed sweeping authority over the CDC. He forced out then-Director Susan Monarez in August over disagreements on vaccine policy — which sparked Houry’s resignation from the CDC after more than a decade at the agency.

Kennedy also replaced members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel with his handpicked selections. That panel went on to tweak guidance for childhood immunizations, reducing the number of recommended shots for children.

In March, a federal judge blocked Kennedy’s appointment of more than a dozen new members to the CDC panel and the new vaccine schedule HHS issued in January.

During his tenure, Kennedy has also dealt with measles outbreaks in multiple states. Influenza and pneumonia, meanwhile, rose from the 11th-leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2024 to the eighth-leading cause of death in 2025.

Under the HHS secretary’s leadership, trust in the CDC and federal health agencies writ large has declined.

A poll conducted by Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the de Beaumont Foundation’s Public Health Listening Lab from March 19 through April 1 found that 50 percent of 2,205 U.S. adults said they trust health recommendations from the CDC.

In spring 2025, 77 percent of respondents to a similar survey conducted by the joint pollsters said they trust recommendations from the agency.

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Margaret Brennan

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

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