"Regrettably, the CDC meltdown that's occurring is a national disaster," Cabinet for Health and Family Services Secretary Dr. Steven Stack says.
The leading Kentucky health official says confidence was already eroding in the agency, but with the firing of CDC Director Susan Monarez after she refused to resign and the decision by four other top health officials at the agency to step down, the leading medical authority is now a shell of its former self.
"Just as recently as seven or eight months ago, the United States of America had in the Centers for Disease Control the singularly preeminent public health agency in the entire world. In the span of just seven months, it's been reduced to a pile of rubble," Stack stated Friday, as the agency grappled with fallout from multiple high-level departures.
Stack says a wealth of expertise is being lost at the agency under the leadership of HHS Sec. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as reports emerge of mass firings, along with the elimination of mRNA studies and the gutting of a government vaccine panel.
"We'll will be exposed to more danger, and all of us will suffer the loss of the knowledge, the wisdom, and the incredible science, skills, and abilities that the CDC has long had as we go forward," he warned. "As is often the case, it may not be immediate, but it will happen over time as we will be unprepared to respond to new and emerging, infectious disease threats and other public health emergencies."
The Kentucky health official is vowing that state health leaders will continue to offer the best advice they can.
"As a member of the Kentucky Department for Public Health, the Beshear administration, and all of us here in Team Kentucky, will do our very, very best to give the highest quality recommendations to Kentuckians so that they can have confidence in the guidance we provide so that they can make well informed decisions to promote the safety and well-being of themselves, their families, their loved ones," he says, adding that it will be "much more difficult as we go forward."