The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is under attack. Not from a foreign adversary, but a direct assault from within that potentially threatens millions of lives and trillions in economic activity.
The challenge to science-based health policy is accelerating under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The agency, already besieged by the DOGE wrecking ball, erupted into abject chaos when Kennedy, a prominent antivax activist, fired director Susan Monarez after less than a month on the job. Dr. Monarez was terminated after she refused to endorse dangerous anti-scientific vaccine policies.
A cascade of high-profile CDC resignations in solidarity followed, gutting the principal scientific leadership and demoralizing the agency.
The meltdown at the CDC is the most dramatic and recent episode in a larger assault on government-funded basic research that underpins virtually every technological innovation we take for granted.
If history could be amended to include an 8th wonder of the world, a leading contender would be the monumental success of immunization. Global inoculation efforts have saved 150 million lives over the past 50 years; the equivalent of 6 human lives every minute of every day.