Former CDC official describes "pure chaos" as RFK Jr. sought to transform health agency and take over vaccine panel

Source: CBS News

July 5, 2026 / 1:25 PM EDT


A former top official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention described "pure chaos" at the health agency as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sought to drastically transform its policies and personnel.

In an interview with "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" airing Sunday, former CDC chief medical officer Dr. Debra Houry, who resigned from the agency in protest last summer alongside three other top officials, described the turmoil and concern inside the agency. Among her issues of concern: the June 9, 2025, removal of experts from a key vaccine advisory panel, as well as Kennedy's refusal to receive a briefing on the ongoing measles epidemic from the agency's top medical official, misinformation he has spread about the measles vaccine, and his general refusal to recognize facts that did not fit his agenda.

"Science doesn't change based on who is in office, and so when these things were happening, I knew this was different than before," she said in her first interview since a trove of emails that she provided to the Senate Health Committee were released in late June. "I also didn't brief the secretary, which was very different than prior administrations. And when we had many requests coming from political appointees on things that had happened 30 years ago that didn't really need to be relitigated at a taxpayer expense, I became very concerned that data, science and facts would not be enough."

Houry, a former ER doctor who spent 11 years at the CDC, said many of the individuals advising Kennedy had "no medical background, and not only no medical background, no science background, and for many of them, no background in government." "I want to be clear," she said, "It's certainly OK to have different perspectives and different expertise, but then you want to make sure that the scientists and the experts are also being heard and part of those decisions, and we weren't."

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/debra-houry-emails-resignation-rfk-jr-vaccine-panel/