(Wikimedia Commons)
“Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” declared Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo on September 3rd, 2025, as he announced the state’s sweeping plan to eliminate all vaccine mandates. The statement, delivered during a press conference alongside Governor Ron DeSantis, immediately sparked national outrage. Critics condemned the rhetoric as harsh and the policy shift as a dangerous rollback of basic public health protections. Florida’s decision to abandon long-standing childhood immunization requirements places it at the center of a growing national health crisis. The move comes at a time when the federal government, under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has dramatically scaled back its public health department.
Just six months into his tenure, Kennedy has reshaped the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention drastically. Thousands of staff have left. Roughly half of its budget and research contracts have been eliminated. Most alarmingly, its authority to guide national vaccine policy has seemed to fade. Now, states are being forced to adopt a state-by-state approach that may have dire consequences for a unified American healthcare system.
This week alone, Kennedy forced out the CDC’s new director and triggered the resignation of four other senior leaders. Public health leaders, many of whom have kept quiet in recent months, are now speaking out .
“We are on the cusp of an imploding public health system,” said Dr. Jonathan Mermin, who served as director of the CDC’s center for HIV and sexually transmitted infections. He has been on administrative leave since April.
Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who led the CDC’s center for respiratory diseases until resigning recently, offered an equally dire prognosis. “It’s [the CDC] got, like, a heart rhythm that’s not viable at the moment,” he said. “If it’s not shocked out of it now, it may not survive.”
Their comments reflect what many inside and outside the agency have been saying quietly for months. The CDC is being rapidly taken apart. Several public health officials now warn that if the agency continues on this path, the damage may not be fixable anytime soon. Some believe it could take decades to rebuild what’s already been lost.
For now, the CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta still stands, and its mission is still etched into the stone at the entrance. But inside, longtime scientists are leaving, its trustworthiness is shrinking, and what was once a foundation of American public health is now facing an uncertain future.
