Global Health Watch: CDC leaders depart, updates in the AVAC v Department of State case on foreign aid

August 29, 2025

This week, political overreach that is destabilizing global health programs and policy was on full display with the political interference and departure of leaders at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the US Administration’s emergency appeal to the Supreme Court in AVAC v. Department of State case.

US CDC Leadership Departs Citing Weaponization of Public Health 

The CDC Director and several senior leaders were removed or resigned from the agency this week. The White House announced that Director, Susan Monarez was fired after a month into her new position, saying that she is “not aligned with the president’s agenda”.  

In protest, three senior CDC leaders, including Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, and former director of the Division of HIV Prevention in the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, and Debra Houry, chief medical officer, resigned. Daskalakis’ resignation letter, which he made public, warned that the actions of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pose dire risks to vulnerable communities and undermine scientific credibility. “I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health.” Houry wrote in her resignation, “For the good of the nation and the world, the science at CDC should never be censored or subject to political pauses or interpretations.” 

US Senator Patty Murray, Democrat from Washington called for the immediate termination of HHS Secretary, RFK Jr. in a statement. Separately, Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, called on HHS to “indefinitely postpone” its vaccine advisory committee meeting next month amid the slew of departures from the CDC and growing anti-vaccine sentiment and intentional misinformation from the administration. 

IMPLICATIONS: These developments at the CDC continue the dangerous shift to ideology over evidence under the current HHS leadership. And they also show how difficult scientific independence can be in the face of political overreach. These shifts are destabilizing trust, credibility and leadership in the US public health system and undermining vaccines and vaccination programs. “If the [vaccine advisory committee] meeting proceeds, any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy given the seriousness of the allegations and the current turmoil in CDC leadership,” Cassidy said in a statement. 

READ:  

• White House fires CDC director who says RFK Jr. is ‘weaponizing public health’— Washington Post 
• CDC official in resignation letter says HHS policies ‘do not reflect scientific reality’—STAT  
• CDC director refuses to leave after White House order—BBC  
• CDC in Turmoil as Director Is Ousted, Top Leaders Resign—POZ  
• The Resignation Letter of Dr. Demetre C. Daskalakis  
• RFK Jr. Could Blow Up the Vaccine Industry With One Simple Move—The Bulwark 
• Vaccine misinformation led to an officer’s murder at the CDC – politicians’ silence is deafening—The Guardian  
• I Was Inside CDC During the Shooting. I Can Still Hear the Bullets.—MedPage Today 

Updates in AVAC v Department of State Case 

Thursday evening, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals denied AVAC’s petition to rehear the AVAC v Department of State case on the foreign aid freeze in front of the full panel of judges (“en banc”). This comes just two days after the US government filed an emergency application to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) seeking to “stay” (i.e., suspend) the injunction that is compelling the US government to pay out congressionally-appropriated funds as the case continues to be litigated. While this decision is a setback, the Appeals Court panel modified its previous opinion agreeing that the plaintiffs – AVAC and the Global Health Council and their co-plaintiffs – do, indeed, have legal standing to bring their cases back to the District Court for further consideration. The District Court issued the original temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction earlier this year.

As AVAC’s Mitchell Warren shared with Politico after the Government’s emergency application to SCOTUS, “Time and again, this administration has shown their disdain for foreign assistance and a disregard for people’s lives in the United States and around the world. But even more broadly and dangerously, this administration’s actions further erodes Congress’s role and responsibility as an equal branch of government. The question being put to SCOTUS is whether they will be complicit in further eroding the constitutional commitment to checks and balance.”  

IMPLICATIONS: While the lower DC District Court of Appeals’ ruling moots the governments emergency application to SCOTUS, the fight is far from over. AVAC and partners commit to accountability and will defend global health and the principle of separation of powers.  

READ:  

• Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court to Allow Freeze on Foreign Aid—New York Times 
• Justice Department asks Supreme Court to allow Trump to withhold foreign aid—Politico  
• Trump administration asks US Supreme Court to halt foreign aid payments—Reuters  
• Appeals Court Declines to Block Trump From Freezing Foreign Aid—New York Times

What We’re Reading

• SA plans anti-HIV jab roll-out at 300+ clinics by April. By 2027 the government will be buying generics— Bhekisisa
• In Malawi, the fight to get HIV services back on track post-USAID cuts—Devex
• We surveyed hundreds of biomedical researchers about the instability in federal funding. Here’s what they said—STAT
• Inside the USAID Fire Sale—The Atlantic
• Donald Trump’s Big Gay Government—New York Times
• HHS moves to strip thousands of federal health workers of union rights—Associated Press
• NIH Publisher Fee Cap Plan ‘Not Comprehensive Enough,’ Critics Say—Inside Higher Ed
• Prasad’s return to FDA comes with fewer titles and a seemingly lower profile—EndPoints News
• Gates Foundation Quietly Cuts Ties With Firm Linked to Democrats—New York Times
• As MAHA turns 1, a fired-up movement is still figuring out how to fulfill its promises—STAT
• SWEAT Secures a National Moratorium on Sex Worker Prosecutions—Sex Workers Advocacy & Education Taskforce

Resources

• Title X Restrictions Harm the U.S. HIV Response, amfAR
• Next Up: A monthly pill for PrEP?, AVAC
• PEPFAR Program Status, amfAR
• Long-Acting PrEP Market Assessment for Key Populations, AVAC, GBGMC

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