Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, one of the nation’s most visible public health leaders and a longtime trusted voice for LGBTQ+ communities, has resigned from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He denounced what he describes as a wholesale dismantling of science under President Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Daskalakis posted his blistering resignation letter on X and Instagram on Wednesday evening. In it, he said he would step down as director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases on Thursday, citing irreconcilable ethical and scientific concerns.
For actually qualified people and experts in the field it is a balance act between being able to push back against dangerous or stupid policies and legitimizing those stupid and/or dangerous policies by having your name associated with them. I guess the balance finally tipped for him.