ATLANTA — Hundreds of people have gathered outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta on Thursday in support of four top CDC officials who resigned on Wednesday.
Honks and cheers were seen and heard at a rally. Many people lined the sidewalk in front of a nearby store where just weeks ago, a disturbed conspiracist gunman killed DeKalb County Police Officer David Rose.
The CDC officials who resigned include Director of National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Disease Dr. Dan Jernigan, Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, and Dr. Deb Houry, the Deputy Director for Program and Science.
Scientists have warned that lives are at stake.
“What makes us great at the CDC is falling to science. So let’s get the politics out of public health,” said one participant.
Dr. Houry said she hopes this is a tipping point for the nation to restore public health and regain public trust.
“If I had the opportunity to come back and rebuild it, I would. If I was asked to return and do what I was doing before, I wouldn’t,” Houry said.
Doctors at the rally reiterated that lives are at risk, and hundreds of attendees believe urgent action is needed to reverse the current situation.
The protest comes one day after the surprise firing of the new CDC Director Susan Monarez.
Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff and U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have also reacted. Ossoff, who has been outspoken on the administration’s handling of the CDC released a statement:
“Yesterday’s events are yet more evidence that putting a quack like Bobby Kennedy in charge of public health was a grave error. The Trump Administration has been engaged for months in a campaign to destroy the CDC, America’s preeminent disease-fighting agency.
Kennedy Jr. said the CDC has been a troubled agency for a long time, and that the move was necessary to change its culture.
In a statement on social media Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services said:
“Susan Monarez is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We thank her for her dedicated service to the American people. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has full confidence in his team at the CDC who will continue to be vigilant in protecting Americans against infectious diseases at home and abroad.”
“I hope this is a tipping point to where we get our public health back,” Dr. Houry said. “Where we get the trust of our nation back, and the trust of our leaders back and that public health does the work that they’re meant to do on the ground saving lives.”