CDC And NIH Health Experts Leaving In Droves Due To 'Low Morale And Political Pressure'

CDC and NIH Health Experts are Leaving in Droves Due to ‘Low Morale and Political Pressure’

Jim Hoft 

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are struggling with a shortage of staff members due to low morale and political pressure, according to a report from Daily Mail.

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are both suffering staff shortages, according to Dr. Marty Makary, a top public-health expert at Johns Hopkins University, writes at Common Sense, the Substack run by former New York Times columnist, Bari Weiss,” the outlet reported.

Health experts were concerned about the direction that the federal agencies are taking.

“Decisions like the closure of schools and then requiring face masks once they reopened led to many questioning leadership. Lately, the authorization of COVID-19 vaccines for children four years old of younger has confused some in America’s top medical agencies,” the news outlet added.

The staff described this decision as “bad science.”

“It’s like a horror movie I’m being forced to watch and I can’t close my eyes,” one senior FDA official told Makary. “People are getting bad advice and we can’t say anything.”

More from Dr. Marty Makary via Common Sense:

That particular FDA doctor was referring to two recent developments inside the agency. First, how, with no solid clinical data, the agency authorized Covid vaccines for infants and toddlers, including those who already had Covid. And second, the fact that just months before, the FDA bypassed their external experts to authorize booster shots for young children.

At the NIH, doctors and scientists complain to us about low morale and lower staffing: The NIH’s Vaccine Research Center has had many of its senior scientists leave over the last year, including the director, deputy director and chief medical officer. “They have no leadership right now. Suddenly there’s an enormous number of jobs opening up at the highest level positions,” one NIH scientist told us. (The people who spoke to us would only agree to be quoted anonymously, citing fear of professional repercussions.)

The CDC has experienced a similar exodus. “There’s been a large amount of turnover. Morale is low,” one high level official at the CDC told us. “Things have become so political, so what are we there for?” Another CDC scientist told us: “I used to be proud to tell people I work at the CDC. Now I’m embarrassed.”

Why are they embarrassed? In short, bad science.

The longer answer: that the heads of their agencies are using weak or flawed data to make critically important public health decisions. That such decisions are being driven by what’s politically palatable to people in Washington or to the Biden administration. And that they have a myopic focus on one virus instead of overall health.

One CDC scientist told us about her shame and frustration about what happened to American children during the pandemic: “CDC failed to balance the risks of Covid with other risks that come from closing schools,” she said. “Learning loss, mental health exacerbations were obvious early on and those worsened as the guidance insisted on keeping schools virtual. CDC guidance worsened racial equity for generations to come. It failed this generation of children.”

An official at the FDA put it this way: “I can’t tell you how many people at the FDA have told me, ‘I don’t like any of this, but I just need to make it to my retirement.’”

Read more here.