Tag: Resolve to Save Lives

New CDC Director promises to protect vaccines and support the agency’s “exhausted” scientists

Volume 408 Issue 10557
29 August 2026
WORLD REPORT  Erica Schwartz has sought to reassure staff working at the embattled agency. Washington Correspondent Susan Jaffe reports.
A week after Erica Schwartz took the helm at the beleaguered US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Aug 12, she convened an all-staff meeting. Schwartz fielded questions from staff and pledged to advocate for the agency, which has been gutted through the loss of thousands of workers and steep funding cuts. She assured staff that she would not hesitate to disagree with her boss, Robert F Kennedy Jr, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, who has presided over the reorganisation.
…Schwartz told CDC staff that she has met several times with Kennedy since being appointed. She felt comfortable working with him and “will continue to speak truth to power”, according to a recording of the hour-long session provided to The Lancet. “I will make sure that my disagreements are known”, she said, but “probably in private, not in front of the media”. [Continued here.]  
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CDC is “in the ICU right now” former officials say

Volume 406, Issue 10508
13 September 2025
WORLD REPORT  Senior officials say HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr is eviscerating the CDC. Washington Correspondent Susan Jaffe reports.    
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) implosion was months in the making, senior officials tell The Lancet after they resigned in protest following the dismissal of CDC Director Susan Monarez by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. They describe a gutted agency so damaged that it might not be able to fulfil its core mission to protect Americans from public health threats.  An HHS spokeswoman called their comments “the gripes of disgruntled former employees.”  [Continued here.]
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Trump agenda ignites legal challenges

Volume 405, Issue 10477
8 February 2025 
WORLD REPORT  After just 3 weeks in the White House, US President Donald Trump’s executive orders have caused chaos and concern—and now, resistance. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC.

“There’s nothing unusual about an executive order”, said Professor Emeritus Laurence Tribe, an expert in constitutional law at Harvard Law School. “What is unusual is for the President of the United States to say, ‘I can do anything I want, as long as I package it in an executive order. I can exercise not only the power to enforce the laws, which is basically what the executive branch does, but also the power to ignore law.’ ”  Lawsuits have been filed to block executive orders affecting federal funding, workforce protections, closing the US Agency for International Development, and information on government websites including the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.[Full article here, includes links to updates on legal actions and executive orders.]

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US CDC begins agency-wide changes after pandemic failures

Volume 400, Issue 10365
19 November 2022 

 

WORLD REPORT  An independent review made several recommendations for improving the public health agency. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is on a mission to reorganise and modernise itself, so that its mistakes during the pandemic will not happen again. The aim is to make the nation’s leading disease detective more nimble and accountable, and fortify its role as public health protector. But although some changes have been made, progress will be limited without support from Congress. [Continued here.] 
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CDC faces leadership changes, potential spending cuts

Volume 391, Number 10121   
17 February 2018

 

WORLD REPORT   The CDC has indicated it will reduce its foreign presence, and proposed budget cuts make some fear its core functions are threatened. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.

“We don’t know what the next outbreak organism will be; we don’t know where it will come from, or when it will emerge”, [former CDC director Dr. Tom] Frieden said. “But we are 100% certain there will be a next one and if we are not better prepared than we were during Ebola, shame on us.”  [Full article here.]

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