Dr. Demetre Daskalakis’s resignation on Wednesday as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases marked a dramatic rupture inside the nation’s premier public health agency. In a blistering public letter, he accused the Trump administration and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of dismantling scientific integrity, sidelining career experts, and reshaping vaccine policy to fit ideology rather than medical evidence.
Keep up with the latest in LGBTQ+ news and politics. Sign up for The Advocate's email newsletter.
“I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health,” Daskalakis wrote. “I find that the views [RFK Jr.] and his staff have shared challenge my ability to continue in my current role at the agency and in the service of the health of the American people. Enough is enough.”
Related: Out CDC vaccine chief resigns, saying ‘enough is enough’ with Trump and RFK Jr.
Dr. Demetre Daskalakis serving as the Grand Marsal for NYC Pride in 2021.Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images
He warned that the administration’s directives, suppressing data and narrowing vaccine eligibility, “threaten the lives of the youngest Americans and pregnant people.” Such moves, he wrote, could return the country to a “pre-vaccine era where only the strong will survive.” He described Kennedy’s rhetoric as “derivative of a legacy that good medicine and science should continue to shun,” and added that his decision was also shaped by the administration’s attacks on transgender Americans and efforts to terminate domestic and global HIV programs.
Daskalakis's resignation came after Susan Monarez, Ph.D., was forced out as the CDC director only several weeks after being sworn into the role.
On Thursday, outside CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Daskalakis addressed hundreds of staff members who gathered to see him off, many of them cheering and crying. He reminded them that their work, not political dictates, defined the agency. “What makes CDC great are the people that make CDC up: the scientists, everyone that makes this a family, and it’s a family that defends our country and the health of our children and the health of adults,” he said. “You are the people that protect America, and America needs to see that you are the people that protect America, and we are going to be your loudest advocates.” He closed with a charge to his colleagues: “We have to go, but now you all got this. The watch is yours, and you must take care of yourselves. It is your duty to the country to take care of you. Be well.”
Adrian Shanker, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health Policy at HHS under President Joe Biden, told The Advocate that Daskalakis’s decision to resign publicly highlighted the dire situation inside the CDC had become.
Related: White House Monkeypox Response Team Gives Update to LGBTQ+ Community
“Demetre is a dedicated public health leader and scientist who takes his ethics incredibly seriously,” Shanker said. “He’s not a politician, he’s a scientist and a public health leader. The fact that he posted this letter so publicly tells me how severe the situation at CDC has become, and frankly, how dire it must feel to be there and to have to choose between doing what you’re told by political leaders who are not focused on the science and evidence versus doing what the science and evidence are saying is right.”
Former CDC officials Dan Jernigan, Deb Houry, and Demetre Daskalakis walk out of global headquarters today in Atlanta, Georgia. Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images
Shanker, who worked closely with Daskalakis during the 2022–23 mpox outbreak, said his integrity guided him through one of the most difficult public health crises of recent years.
The mpox outbreak in 2022 spread quickly in the U.S., disproportionately affecting men who have sex with men and transgender women. The virus, which causes painful lesions and flu-like symptoms, spread during a time of extreme vaccine shortages. Daskalakis, then serving as deputy coordinator of the White House response, championed the use of intradermal vaccination, which allowed each vial to provide four effective doses. The shift ended long waiting lists and brought the outbreak under control.
“That was a risky move — if it didn’t work, people would blame him,” Shanker said. “But it did work, and it saved lives. We would not have addressed mpox as quickly or as effectively without Demetre’s leadership.”
Related: Monkeypox: 1-on-1 With the White House’s Response Deputy Coordinator
Shanker added that Daskalakis’s resignation comes at a perilous time. “Americans are losing an incredibly qualified scientist at the head of a national center that oversees critical vaccination programs,” he said. “We’re also losing a trusted messenger to the LGBTQ+ community, someone who was willing to step up in a moment of crisis and explain complicated science in ways people could understand.”
Harold Phillips, now deputy director of programs at NMAC, a nonprofit that works for health equity and racial justice to end HIV, and formerly the director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy under Biden, said Daskalakis’s resignation letter should be read as a warning.
“I think this letter serves as a clarion call that public health and public safety are in danger right now and have become politicized in ways we have perhaps never seen,” Phillips told The Advocate. “The people who resigned this week were the very ones many of us were counting on at CDC to provide balanced, evidence-based guidance. The fact that they felt they could not stay is scary and alarming, and everyone should be paying attention.”
Phillips recalled first working with Daskalakis on a New York City HIV and hepatitis C project before collaborating again during the mpox crisis. “When Demetre joined the mpox response, I didn’t have to explain our community’s needs to him; he already knew,” Phillips said. “His enthusiasm for public health matched or exceeded my own, and that helped us get the rollout back on track when it was lagging. He brought credibility to the table and drove us to make sure the messaging was right, that shots were getting into arms, and that communities were being engaged in real time.”
For Phillips, the loss is both professional and personal. “He’s a phenomenal infectious-disease doctor who has worked inside government and knows how to make systems work to serve the people better. He has a rare ability to break down scientific information in a way that is understandable and digestible, so you walk away not just knowing what to do, but believing it’s going to be okay. His stepping away from CDC signals to me that he’s not sure we’re going to be okay, and that’s what scares me.”
People protest in front of the CDC global headquarters in Atlanta on June 25.Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images
Dr. Jonathan Mermin, who led the CDC’s National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention during the Biden years and remains in the federal government although he was placed on administrative leave in April, described Daskalakis as a bold scientist and trusted messenger.
“Demetre became a public health martial artist when the hardest days of HIV were fading, effective treatment had been discovered, and PrEP was on the horizon,” Mermin told The Advocate. “He flourished in preventing HIV and other infectious diseases in New York City and at CDC in part because he is devoted to working hand-in-hand with communities, using high-quality science to answer meaningful questions, and taking bold action when it is needed. He will be missed.”
Mermin emphasized that while the CDC workforce will carry on, losing a leader of Daskalakis’s caliber is a profound setback. “There are hundreds of people in his Center who will continue to control outbreaks and prevent infections—that is what they do. But it is a complicated time, and losing a dynamic, smart leader who is deeply committed will hurt.” He added that, as he continues to serve in the federal government, he cannot comment on administration policies.
On MSNBC Thursday afternoon, Dr. Debra Houry, who resigned as CDC Chief Medical Officer alongside Daskalakis, echoed his warnings. “We have the highest number of measles cases in more than 30 years,” she said. “Vaccines can prevent measles. But if you have somebody not supporting the vaccine and giving misinformation about it, people are less likely to get vaccinated and trust the science. Hence, we have continued outbreaks and we’ve had pediatric deaths in measles that is unprecedented and just disastrous. That should not be happening. It’s heartbreaking.”
Daskalakis closed his resignation letter with a personal reflection, tying his decision to his grandfather, who was killed resisting fascism in Greece. “I am resigning to make him and his legacy proud,” he wrote.
For colleagues, that sense of moral clarity defines his career. “It is so important that public health leaders stick with the science, which has always guided him,” Shanker said. "Demetre’s strong moral compass wouldn’t let him do otherwise.”
Charlie Kirk DID say stoning gay people was the 'perfect law' — and these other heinous quotes