This is more than bureaucracy—it’s a revolt against politics at the heart of America’s public health agency.
By Nick Valencia | August 27, 2025
ATLANTA — The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, once the gold standard of public health, is experiencing an exodus of its top leadership.
In less than 24 hours, three of the agency’s most respected career scientists—Dan Jernigan, Debra Houry, and Demetre Daskalakis—have resigned in protest. Their departures, confirmed by multiple outlets, follow weeks of mounting tension between the White House and CDC Director Susan Monarez, who herself is now a target after refusing to carry out political directives, according to sources.
On Wednesday evening, Monarez‘a attorneys Mark Zaid and Abbe Lowell issued a blistering statement, directly accusing Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of “weaponizing public health for political gain and putting millions of American lives at risk.”
Contrary to reports that she had resigned, Monarez’s lawyers insisted she has neither quit nor been fired—at least not formally. They said she had refused to “rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives” or to purge her senior staff simply for refusing to serve a political agenda. For that, she was targeted.
The White House has yet to publicly clarify her status, but multiple outlets now report she has been removed from her post.
A Broader Exodus
The resignations are not just bureaucratic churn. They represent the unraveling of institutional memory and expertise at the very moment when Americans most rely on science free from politics. These are not mid-level staffers; they are the architects of the nation’s pandemic response, the quiet hands behind decades of progress on vaccines, respiratory disease, and emergency preparedness.
“Because of the ongoing weaponizing of public health, I cannot continue in this role,” Daskalakis said in his resignation statement. Houry echoed him, writing that “ongoing changes prevent me from continuing in my job as a leader of the agency.”
The resignations of Jernigan, Houry, and Daskalakis deepen the sense of crisis inside the agency. Together, they represent decades of institutional experience.
Jernigan spent years shaping America’s flu and pandemic preparedness strategy. Houry, both Chief Medical Officer and Deputy Director, bridged the scientific and policy arms of the CDC. Daskalakis, a leading expert on HIV prevention, became the face of the nation’s response to mpox and vaccine outreach.
The rumor swirling through Washington that all CDC center directors are resigning has not yet been substantiated. But the fact that so many of the agency’s most visible leaders have chosen protest over accommodation speaks volumes about the scale of the rupture.
The Stakes
For decades, the CDC has operated under the principle that public health should remain above politics. The spectacle now unfolding of lawyers issuing dueling statements, of veteran scientists walking away in protest, of a director removed after barely three weeks, marks a collapse of that firewall.
The message is already being felt: a chill inside the rank-and-file, and an exodus of talent that could leave Americans less safe.
Dr. Monarez is now out. Thanks for your quick and important reporting, it’s truly appreciated
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