No. 2 at CDC Leaves Post Just Three Months After Being Appointed

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is losing another top official in just a week, as the Trump Administration pushes federal health agencies to focus more on healthy eating than on vaccines and other causes favored by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. On Monday, the CDC announced that its principal deputy secretary, Dr. Ralph Abraham, has resigned from his position effective immediately, just three months after he was quietly appointed and not even two months after he started at the agency. His exit comes roughly a week after the acting director of the CDC, Jim O’Neill, left his position. Dr. Abraham, a former Republican congressman and physician, has not explicitly stated that he is against vaccines. However, during his time as Louisiana’s surgeon general, he directed the state’s Health Department to stop using media and health fairs to promote vaccines.In a memo announcing that decision, he said that the state would “encourage each patient to discuss the risks and benefits of vaccination with their provider,” but would “no longer promote mass vaccination.”He also promoted hydroxychloroquine to help treat Covid-19 patients. An analysis by MedPage Today reported in 2021 that he was the seventh highest prescriber of ivermectin — which some conservatives promoted as an alternative treatment for Covid — in the state.Dr. Abraham’s departure comes months ahead of the midterm elections and as the Trump Administration seeks to adjust its messaging. Politico reported last week that the White House is “reining in” Mr. Kennedy, and has put pressure on the department to tone down its vaccine messaging and focus on healthy eating and lowering drug prices instead. “Lately, Kennedy’s been on a road show promoting his new dietary guidelines. They differ from past government guidelines in their endorsement of eating meat and drinking whole milk, but are otherwise in line with conventional wisdom about the dangers of ultraprocessed food and the benefits of fruits and vegetables,” Politico reports. Amid the shift away from vaccines, Mr. Kennedy’s advisory panel on vaccinations indefinitely postponed a meeting that was supposed to take place this week.

No. 2 at CDC Leaves Post Just Three Months After Being Appointed

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