Tag: gun violence

Public Health Under Fire: HHS and CDC Tensions Explained

In this post I review HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. at the Senate Finance Committee regarding his dismissal of CDC Director Dr. Susan Monarez and concerns over his anti-vaccine stance. This culminated in resignations from senior CDC officials alarmed by political interference affecting scientific integrity and public health safety.

updated September 20. 2025

This information is current as of the date of original publication or update. It may have changed by the time you read this. I invite you to fact-check what you read here.

This information is not intended for diagnosis or treatment. Before making health decisions, discuss with your physician or other qualified healthcare provider to decide what is right for you.

Kennedy visits the Senate

On September 4, 2025, HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. appeared before the Senate Finance Committee and was heatedly questioned about several issues. Most of his testimony centered around his firing of the newly confirmed CDC Director Dr. Susan Monarez.

He was also grilled on his seeming lack of support for vaccination as an important public health measure. They questioned why he appointed several antivaccine scientists to the Advisory Committee on Vaccines. Even the Republican Senators who had voted for his appointment expressed frustration with his leadership.

In this post I explain some of what lead to this confrontation.

Trump appoints a CDC Director

After being without a CDC Director since he took office in January 2025, President Trump and the Senate confirmed Dr. Susan Monarez. This is the first time in history that a CDC Director needed Senate approval.

President Trump posted this on social media about his choice for CDC director.

“Dr. Monarez brings decades of experience championing Innovation, Transparency, and strong Public Health Systems. She has a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, and PostDoctoral training in Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine.

“As an incredible mother and dedicated public servant, Dr. Monarez understands the importance of protecting our children, our communities, and our future. Americans have lost confidence in the CDC due to political bias and disastrous mismanagement.

Dr. Monarez will work closely with our GREAT Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert Kennedy Jr. Together, they will prioritize Accountability, High Standards, and Disease Prevention to finally address the Chronic Disease Epidemic and, MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN!”

President Trump and Secretary Kennedy at the MAHA commission meeting

That was in July 2025. Something changed by late August.

I share this article published by KFF Health News. It was written by Dr. Celine Gounder, a physician and medical journalist who specializes in infectious diseases and global health. She was a member of the COVID-19 Advisory Board of President Joe Biden.

(I have edited the article slightly for length.)

Senior CDC Officials Resign After Dr. Monarez’s Ouster, Citing Concerns Over Scientific Independence

Written by Dr. Céline Gounder August 29, 2025

Four senior officials with the CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, announced their resignations in recent days, citing what they described as growing political interference in the agency’s scientific work, particularly regarding vaccines.

Two of them — Dr. Debra Houry, the CDC’s chief science and medical officer, and Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who led the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases — stepped down on Aug. 27, hours after the White House announced the firing of CDC Director Susan Monarez.

Dr. Monarez, confirmed by the Senate in late July, was removed less than a month into her tenure.

White House spokesperson Kush Desai said Monarez “was not aligned with the President’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again.” Monarez’s attorneys argue that the dismissal is unlawful, as only the apresident can remove a Senate-confirmed director.

On Aug. 28, Jim O’Neill, the deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, was chosen to serve as acting CDC director. In an internal email sent to CDC staffers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. confirmed O’Neill as the acting CDC director without addressing Monarez’s departure. 

“I am committed to working with you to restore trust, transparency, and credibility to the CDC,” Kennedy told CDC employees, later writing that

“President Trump and I are aligned on the commonsense vision for the CDC: Strengthen the public health infrastructure by returning to its core mission of protecting Americans from communicable diseases by investing in innovation to prevent, detect, and respond to future threats.”

HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr.

Concern for Vaccine Policy

Houry and Daskalakis said they had become increasingly uneasy about how vaccine policy was being handled. Both pointed to preparations for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, ACIP, meeting, which recommends vaccine schedules.

Houry said they feared “some decisions had been made before there was even the data or the science to support those. We are scientists, and that was concerning to us.”

Daskalakis added that he was “very concerned that there’s going to be an attempt to relitigate vaccines that have already had clear recommendations with science that has been vetted,” which he warned could undermine public trust. “If you can’t attack access, then why not attack trust? And that’s what I think the playbook is,” he said.

“there’s going to be an attempt to relitigate vaccines that have already had clear recommendations with science that has been vetted,

If you can’t attack access, then why not attack trust? And that’s what I think the playbook is,”

Dr. Demetre Daskalakis

Lack of communication and transparency

Both officials cited instances in which evidence reviews were altered or withdrawn. A CDC analysis of thimerosal, a vaccine preservative, was briefly posted before being taken down at the HHS’ direction.

“If there’s something that doesn’t line up with the recommendations, then that information will be taken down, and it’s not there for the public to see for openness and transparency,” Houry said.

The two also criticized the lack of direct communication between CDC scientists and HHS leadership. Daskalakis said his team was never invited to brief Kennedy on measles and COVID-19.

When asked about Kennedy’s calls for “radical transparency,” Houry and Daskalakis learned about changes to the COVID-19 vaccine schedule for children through social media, not through internal channels.

“The radical transparency manifested itself by a Twitter post, which is how Dr. Houry and I learned that the secretary had mandated the change in the children’s vaccine schedule for COVID,” Daskalakis recalled.

“What is the background that led to that decision? And we were denied access to that information. So, I don’t think that that’s radically transparent,” Daskalakis said.

CBS News and KFF Health News reached out to HHS for comment on some of the allegations made by Houry and Daskalakis but did not immediately hear back.

Scientists Raise An Alarm for Public Health

Both officials said they had no jobs lined up when they resigned. Houry described the decision as an effort to raise the alarm about the direction of the agency.

“For us, this was really sending out a bat signal,” Houry said. “We were the very senior scientists and career leaders at CDC. We thought this was the time to stand together and try to do what we could to raise the alarm around public health in our country.”

Daskalakis said remaining at the CDC under current conditions would have made them complicit in what he called the “weaponization” of public health.

“The safety has already been compromised. … We are flying blind in the U.S. already. If we continued … we would be complicit and would be facilitating the ability to go from flying blind to actively harming people,” he said.

Houry emphasized the severity of the moment by noting that she left without a backup plan.

“My leaving without a job was really just showing how dire the circumstances had become,” Houry said.

Daskalakis said his decision was also shaped by his medical oath.

“As a physician, I take the Hippocratic oath: First, do no harm. I am seeing ideology permeating science in a way that is going to harm children and adults. … I think we are seeing things that are happening that are making our country less prepared to be able to respond to the everyday pathogens … but also … to the next big thing.”

Both also expressed concerns about their personal safety in the current climate.

“The environment we live in … stoked by misinformation, especially from people considered by some to be health authorities, makes me worried for all of us in public health,” Daskalakis said. “I am concerned, but that’s part of our job … to be brave and continue to speak the truth even when we are outside of the CDC.”

Photo by Photo By: Kaboompics.com on Pexels.com

Gun Violence-Another Public Health Issue

The resignations came weeks after a shooting outside the CDC’s Atlanta headquarters, which law enforcement linked to COVID misinformation.

Houry said the White House response to the shooting was muted. Kennedy toured the site but later gave an interview expressing distrust of experts.

“That was after the attack. It was based on COVID misinformation. So this is when we were trying to build trust,” she said.

Daskalakis added that while Kennedy later described mass shootings as a public health crisis, he believed the secretary should address misinformation as a root cause.

“The misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine — that has been documented by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation” as the reason for the CDC shooting. “I would really recommend that the secretary actually do take his own advice and actually address the core problem that led to that shooting as well,” he said.

He also noted that the CDC’s gun violence prevention programs had been sharply reduced. “We talk about violence as a public health problem.

It is, and there’s things we can do to prevent it. Unfortunately, the majority of that program, the staff are terminated,” he said.

“We talk about violence as a public health problem.
It is, and there’s things we can do to prevent it. Unfortunately, the majority of that program, the staff are terminated,”

Dr. Daskalakis

The firings and resignations have sparked calls for oversight. Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont called for a bipartisan investigation, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington urged Kennedy’s removal, and Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana — who voted to confirm Kennedy’s appointment as HHS secretary — said the developments would “require oversight.”

The events come as the FDA narrowed eligibility for updated COVID-19 vaccines to older adults and people with risk factors for severe COVID.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Dr. Monarez Speaks to the Senate

On September 17, 2025, “She testified that she was ousted last month because she refused to cede to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s demands to pre-approve vaccine recommendations for the public and fire career scientists.

“He just wanted blanket approval,” Monarez told members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on Wednesday. “Even under pressure, I could not replace evidence with ideology.”

Monarez described a string of events that she said eventually led to her dismissal, culminating with a “tense” meeting in late August when she clashed with Kennedy over his plans for an influential CDC committee that issues recommendations on vaccines.”

Read the full report from NPR at this link

Ousted CDC director testifies she was fired for resisting pressure from RFK Jr.

Learn about the CDC

I hope you will take the time to learn more about the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to the website, the

  • CDC is the nation’s leading science-based, data-driven, service organization that protects the public’s health.
  • CDC puts science into action to help children stay healthy so they can grow and learn; to help families, businesses, and communities fight disease and stay strong; and to protect the public’s health.

The professionals at the CDC cannot do their job alone. They need the support of elected and appointed government officials and the people they serve.

Health and safety threats are often new and unpredictable, like a viral pandemic or natural disaster, and multiple agencies need to work together to successfully manage threats. Cooperation and support are needed. Blaming and accusations are unproductive and unprofessional and contribute to lack of trust by the people they serve.

Post Graphics

The two graphics about vaccines are currently on the CDC website. The cover photo of CDC headquarters is also on the site.

Exploring the HEART of Health

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Add your name to the subscribe box to be notified of new posts by email. Click the link to read the post and browse other content. It’s that simple. No spam.

I enjoy seeing who is new to Watercress Words. When you subscribe, I will visit your blog or website. Thanks and see you next time.

Medical stethoscope and heart on a textured background

Dr Aletha

Fighting the Crisis of Firearm Injury in Children

In this post I share the White House’s MAHA report which aims to address the childhood chronic disease crisis but omits gun violence. Guns are a leading cause of death among children. Recent studies show that permissive gun laws correlate with increased firearm deaths,. This suggests we need better policies and community interventions to protect youth from this public health emergency.

The objective of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) report from the White House is to “turn the tide and better protect our children”. The report goes on to state that it will

“study the scope of the childhood chronic disease crisis and any potential contributing causes, including the American diet, absorption of toxic material, medical treatments, lifestyle, environmental factors, Government policies, food production techniques, electromagnetic radiation, and corporate influence or cronyism;”

President Trump and Secretary Kennedy at the MAHA commission meeting

I have not read the entire report, but by reviewing the table of contents, I see no mention of violence, especially gun violence. Unless it’s implied under “environmental factors”, “Government policies”, or “corporate influence.”

Violence may not technically be a “chronic disease,” but it certainly is chronic in frequency, so I wonder why it’s not mentioned in the MAHA report. The physicians quoted in this story from Oklahoma Voice think it should be, and I agree.

Guns kill more US children than other causes, but state policies can help, study finds

by Nada Hassanein, Oklahoma Voice
June 17, 2025

(reprinted under Creative Commons license)

More American children and teens die from firearms than any other cause, but there are more deaths — and wider racial disparities — in states with more permissive gun policies, according to a new study.

The study, published in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics last week, analyzes trends in state firearm policies and kids’ deaths since 2010. That’s the time of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in McDonald v. City of Chicago. The ruling struck down the city’s handgun ban, clearing the way for many states to make it easier for people to buy and carry guns.

The study authors split states into three groups: “most permissive,” “permissive” and “strict,” based on the stringency of their firearm policies. Those policies include safe storage laws, background checks and so-called Stand Your Ground laws. The researchers analyzed homicide and suicide rates and the children’s race.

Using statistical methods, the researchers calculated 6,029 excess deaths in the most permissive states between 2011 and 2023, compared with the number of deaths that would have been expected under the states’ pre-McDonald rules. There were 1,424 excess deaths in the states in the middle category.

In total, about 17,000 deaths were expected in the post-decision period, but 23,000 occurred, said lead author Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, in an interview.

Among the eight states with the strictest laws, four — California, Maryland, New York and Rhode Island — saw statistically significant decreases in their pediatric firearm death rates.

Illinois, which was directly affected by the court’s decision in the McDonald case, and Connecticut saw increases in their rates. In Massachusetts and New Jersey, the changes were not statistically significant.

The rate increased in all but four (Alaska, Arizona, Nebraska and South Dakota) of the 41 states in the two permissive categories. (Hawaii was not included in the study due its low rates of firearm deaths.)

Non-Hispanic Black children and teens saw the largest increase in firearm deaths in the 41 states with looser gun laws. Those youths’ mortality rates increased, but by a much smaller amount, in the states with strict laws.

Photo by Photo By: Kaboompics.com on Pexels.com

The Power of Gun Violence Policy

Experts say the study underscores the power of policy to help prevent firearm deaths among children and teens. The analysis comes less than a month after the release of a federal report on children’s health.

This report highlighted the drivers of poor health in America’s children but failed to include anything on firearm injuries — the leading cause of death for children and teens in 2020 and 2021, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Trauma surgeon Dr. Marie Crandall, chair of surgery at MetroHealth Medical Center and a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, researches gun violence. She previously practiced at a Jacksonville, Florida, urban trauma unit, where she frequently saw children and teens caught in gun violence.

“When I see children come in with 10 holes in them that I can’t save — that is a loss. That is a completely preventable death, and it is deeply emotionally scarring to have to have those conversations with families when we know, as a society, there are things we could do to de-escalate,”

Dr. Marie Crandall, trauma surgeon

In her state of Ohio, firearm death rates among children and teens increased from 1.6 per 100,000 kids in the decade before the McDonald decision to 2.8 after it, according to the study. Ohio was categorized in the group with the most permissive laws.

The study adds to previous research that shows state laws around child access to firearms, such as safe storage and background checks, tend to be associated with fewer child firearm deaths.

“We know that child access prevention decreases unintentional injuries and suicides of children. So having your firearms locked, unloaded, stored separately from ammunition, decreases the likelihood of childhood injuries,” Crandall said. “More stringent regulation of those things also decreases childhood injuries.”

But she said it’s hard to be optimistic about more stringent regulation when the current administration dismisses gun violence as a public health emergency. The Trump administration earlier this year took down an advisory from the former U.S. Surgeon General, issued last year, that emphasized gun violence as a public health crisis.

Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com

Gun Violence is a Public Health Issue

Faust, the lead author of the new study, stressed that firearm injuries and deaths were notably missing from the Make America Healthy Again Commission report on children’s health. He said the failure to include them illustrates the politicization of a major public health emergency for America’s kids.

“It’s hard to take them seriously if they’re omitting the leading cause of death,” Faust said. “They’re whiffing, they’re shanking. They’re deciding on a political basis not to do it. I would say by omitting it, they’re politicizing it.”

Dr. Jeremy Faust, Emergency Medicine physician

Faust and pediatric trauma surgeon Dr. Chethan Sathya, who directs the Center for Gun Violence Prevention at the Northwell Health system in New York, each pointed to car seat laws and public health education, as examples of preventive strategies that helped reduce childhood fatalities. They support a similar approach to curbing youth gun deaths.

“We really have to apply a public health framework to this issue, not a political one, and we’ve done that with other issues in the past,” said Sathya, who wasn’t involved in the study and oversees his hospital’s firearm injury prevention programs. “There’s no question that this is a public health issue.”

Politics and Gun Violence

In Louisiana, categorized as one of the 30 most permissive states, the child firearm mortality rate increased from 4.1 per 100,000 kids in the pre-McDonald period to 5.7 after it — the nation’s highest rate. The study period only goes to 2023, but the state last year enacted a permitless carry law, allowing people to carry guns in public without undergoing background checks. And just last month, Louisiana legislators defeated a bill that would have created the crime of improper firearm storage.

Louisiana Democratic state Rep. Matthew Willard, who sponsored the safe storage legislation, said during the floor debate that its purpose was to protect children. Louisiana had the highest rate of unintentional shootings by children between 2015 to 2022, according to the research arm of Everytown for Gun Safety, which advocates for stricter gun access. Willard cited that statistic on the floor.

But Republican opponents said Willard’s proposal would infringe on residents’ gun rights and make it more difficult for them to use guns in self-defense.

“Nobody needs to come in our houses and tell us what to do with our guns. I think this is ridiculous,” Republican Rep. R. Dewith Carrier said during the debate.

Another Republican opponent, state Rep. Troy Romero, said he was concerned that having a firearm locked away would make it harder for an adult to quickly access it.

“If it’s behind a locked drawer, how in the world are you going, at 2 or 3 in the morning, going to be able to protect your family if somebody intrudes or comes into your home?” Romero said.

Gun violence researcher Julia Fleckman, an assistant professor, and her team at Tulane University in New Orleans have started to collect data on the impact of the state’s permitless carry law.

“It places a disproportionate impact on really vulnerable people, really, our most vulnerable people,” Fleckman said, noting kids bear the brunt of legislators’ decisions. “They don’t have a lot of control over this or the decisions we’re making.”

In South Carolina, another of the most permissive states, the mortality rate increased from 2.3 to 3.9 per 100,000 kids in the time before and after the McDonald decision.

South Carolina Democratic state Rep. JA Moore, who lost his adult sister in the 2015 racist shooting that killed nine at a Charleston church, said state policy alone isn’t enough. He implored his colleagues to also examine their perception of guns.

“We have a culture here in South Carolina that doesn’t lend itself to a more safe South Carolina,” said Moore, who advocates for background checks and stricter carry laws. “There is a need for a culture change in our state, in our country, when it comes to guns and our relationships with guns as Americans, realizing that these are deadly weapons.”

And investing in safer neighborhoods is crucial, he said.

“People are hurt by guns in places that they’re more comfortable, like their homes in their own neighborhoods,” he said.

“There is a need for a culture change in our state, in our country, when it comes to guns and our relationships with guns as Americans, realizing that these are deadly weapons.”

State Representative JA Moore

Community Gun Control Efforts

Community-based interventions are important to stemming violence, experts said. Dr. Crandall, Cleveland surgeon, said there’s emerging evidence that hospital-based and community-based violence prevention programs decrease the likelihood of violent and firearm-related injury.

Such programs aim to break cycles of violence by connecting injured patients with community engagement services. After New York City implemented its hospital-based violence interruption program, two-thirds of 3,500 violent trauma patients treated at five hospitals received community prevention services.

After her 33-year-old son was killed in her neighborhood in 2019, Michelle Bell started M-PAC Cleveland — “More Prayer, Activity & Conversation” — a nonprofit collaborative of people who’ve lost loved ones to violent crime. She’s encountered many grieving parents who lost their children to gunfire. The group advocates and educates for safe storage laws and holds peer grief support groups.

She also partners with the school district in a program that shares stories of gun violence’s long-lasting impact on surviving children, families, and communities and non-violent interpersonal conflict resolution.

“Oftentimes, the family that has lost the child, the child’s life has been taken by gun violence, there are other children in the home,” she said.

“It’s so devastating. It’s just so tragic that the No. 1 cause of death for children 18 and under is gun violence,” Bell continued.

The decision to “pull a trigger,” she said, changes a “lifetime of not only yours, but so many other people.”

This story is republished under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

“Oklahoma Voice provides independent, nonpartisan reporting that holds officials accountable and elevates the voices of those too often sidelined by the political process. We’re part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.”

Personal Gun Ownership-Right and Responsibility

You may be thinking, what about the Second Amendment to the Constitution, the right to “keep and bear arms”?

I don’t think anyone suggests repealing that amendment, although some may want to. The “arms” and guns available today are far more powerful than those in 1791. Would the authors of the Constitution think citizens need to own and use assault rifles?

If you own or use guns, use them wisely and safely, especially if there is any chance children or teens might have access to them.

Even the NRA, National Rifle Association, has NRA Gun Safety Rules.

At the NRA, firearm education and safety is paramount—that’s why we offer a variety of programs and services to promote the safe handling, use and storage of firearms. Whether you’re a parent in search of information about firearm safety in the home, a first-time gun owner, or an old pro looking to brush up on your firearm handling skills, the NRA is here to keep you and your family safe.

Exploring the HEART of Health

for your consideration
  • How has gun violence touched you and your family?
    • How safe do you feel from the risk of injury from firearms?
  • How does this article change what you already know about gun violence?
  • What else would you like to know about how guns affect the health of our communities?

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Dr. Aletha