(DCNF)—Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, former President Joe Biden’s Monkeypox response deputy coordinator, claimed on Sunday that Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is steering U.S. health policy in a dangerous direction.
Daskalakis took over as acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases in Aug. 2023 but stepped down on Aug. 28. During an interview with “This Week,” Daskalakis, a longtime gay health activist, accused Kennedy’s team of reshaping vaccine guidelines to align with ideology rather than science.
“I’ll say that we’re seeing the tip of the iceberg. So right now I think probably the most prominent demonstration of that is what Secretary Kennedy did with changing the childhood schedule for COVID-19,” Daskalakis noted. “In that we were directed that only children with underlying conditions would be the ones that should qualify for vaccination. That’s not what the data shows. Six-month-old to two-year-old, their underlying condition is youth.”
Daskalakis claimed that limiting recommendations makes vaccines harder to access and risks leaving the most vulnerable children unprotected.
“The data say that in that age range you should be vaccinating your child. I understand that not everybody does it, but they have limited access by narrowing that recommendation. Insurance may not cover it,” Daskalakis told ABC News’ “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz. “I mean from my vantage point as a doctor who’s taken the Hippocratic Oath, I only see harm coming.”
The former CDC official suggested that COVID-19 is only the beginning. He predicted Kennedy’s appointees would next target the hepatitis B vaccine, particularly the dose given to newborns.
“I may be wrong, but based on what I’m seeing, based on what I’ve heard with the new members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices or ACIP, they’re really moving in an ideological direction where they want to see the undoing of vaccination. They do want to see the undoing of mRNA vaccination,” Daskalakis continued.
“They have a very specific target on COVID, but I do fear that they have other things that they are going to be working on. Hepatitis B vaccine is on the agenda for the meeting in September,” he added. “I predict that what they’re going to do is try to change the birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine so that kids don’t get it when they’re born.”
In his resignation letter, Daskalakis accused the Trump administration’s CDC of pushing policies that “do not reflect scientific reality,” and one sentence later used the term “pregnant people” when warning those changes endangered lives. He wrote that narrowing vaccine recommendations for children and “pregnant people” would threaten the health of the youngest Americans and undermine public trust in science.
Daskalakis spent five years leading sexual-disease-related programs at the CDC and became known for his provocative messaging on public health. He resigned after saying he was “escorted off lovingly” by colleagues, later lamenting that CDC expertise was no longer reaching decision-makers.
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