Below is the headline item in today's Global Health Now.
Read online: https://mailchi.mp/dd28a21d484b/global-health-now-foundering-cdc-awash-i...
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The ouster of its director, resignations by top staff, and massive cutbacks to programs threaten to overwhelm the U.S. CDC, causing some to question whether the vaunted public health agency will survive.
Updates:
- Nine former CDC directors who served Republican and Democratic presidents called a slew of actions by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “unacceptable” in a New York Times op-ed yesterday. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/opinion/cdc-leaders-kennedy.html?unlo...
- The Trump administration tapped investor and HHS deputy director Jim O’Neill to be CDC acting director, per the AP. O’Neill, who had worked at HHS for six years, will try to calm the waters, but it’s unclear whether the director is expected only to follow the secretary’s instructions, former FDA official Peter Pitts said.
- Outside groups are stepping in to fill the void left by changes at the CDC by disseminating health information, managing data that could otherwise disappear, and launching other efforts, per the AP. But former officials warn it may take decades to restore the U.S. public health infrastructure, The New York Times reports (gift link).
The Quote: “If you chop off the heads of the agencies because they didn’t pledge to go along with you, despite what the science says, then you’re eroding public health from the foundation,” Cleveland’s public health director David Margolius told the Times.
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HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based NGO in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org