Kennedy’s Controversial Actions Draw Rare Rebuke from Former CDC Directors

Nine former directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) called out the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in an op-ed published in the New York Times on Monday.

The authors, consisting of, William Foege, William Roper, David Satcher, Richard Besser, Jeffrey Koplan, Tom Frieden, Rochelle P. Walensky, Anne Schuchat and Mandy K. Cohen, have served at the CDC between 1977 and 2025 under both Democratic and Republican administrations.

The former directors said Kennedy’s work with the public health system and actions with the CDC since the beginning of Trump’s second term, “is unlike anything we had ever seen at the agency and unlike anything our country had ever

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