WASHINGTON – Medical experts at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are declining to talk publicly about vaccine safety because they’re afraid of becoming the targets of violent threats stemming from baseless conspiracy theories about vaccines, former top CDC officials warned Wednesday.
“I have many that won’t speak about vaccines now and have removed their names off of papers,” Dr. Debra Houry, the recently former CDC chief medical officer, told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “They don’t wish to present publicly anymore because they feel they were personally targeted because of misinformation.”
“I myself was subject to threats,” Dr. Susan Monarez, the recently former CDC acting director, told the panel.
“I am very concerned that the further promulgation of misleading information will undermine not just the safety and health of our children, but it will also exacerbate some of these tensions ― the willingness to commit harm if someone is affronted by a belief that the people like us that are trying to help them are actually not trying to help them,” she said.
The Senate confirmed Monarez to lead the CDC in late July, and she had only been on the job for a few weeks when Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. abruptly fired her last month. She said Kennedy, who has fueled dangerous misinformation about vaccines for decades, forced her out after she refused to rubber-stamp his unscientific directives for vaccines and fire seasoned health experts.
Research continues to confirm that vaccines are safe and effective.
Houry, along with other top CDC health officials, subsequently resigned in protest of Monarez’s firing. Houry had served at the CDC since 2014.
Both were called to testify Wednesday about Monarez’s politically motivated firing and about last month’s shooting outside of the CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta. A lone attacker fired more than 180 shots at the CDC building and later said it was to send a message against COVID vaccines.
Monarez told senators that she fears for the safety of the CDC and its medical personnel as conspiracy theories about vaccines become more mainstream and, as was just the case in Atlanta, can lead to violence against public health employees.
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In response to Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) mentioning the 180 rounds fired at CDC’s headquarters, Houry corrected him: It was 500 rounds. It was 180 that hit the building.
“Each bullet was meant for a person, and each of my staff were very traumatized afterwards,” she said. “I had staff that were covering their kids in the day care parking lot. There were people that were out at the ride share as bullets were passing over their head.”
Houry said some CDC health experts are so scared of being targeted with violence for talking about vaccine safety that they’ve pulled out of giving presentations at this week’s meeting of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Historically, this panel of experts has developed vital, evidence-based recommendations for federal vaccine policy. But Kennedy recently purged the panel of its experts, and loaded it up with people who have questioned vaccine safety.
“Even at the ACIP meeting, you’ll notice we don’t have our subject matter experts presenting anymore,” Houry said. “It’s taken up to a leadership level because we did that to protect our staff and scientists, so that they would be disconnected and their names not associated.”
“So that they won’t be targeted,” she added.
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