LEILA FADEL, HOST:
For more on the recent moves at the CDC, Dr. Debra Houry joins me now. She is the now former chief medical officer and deputy director for program and science at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and she also testified at yesterday's hearing. Welcome to the program.
DEBRA HOURY: Good morning.
FADEL: Good morning. So you served at the CDC for more than 10 years, and then you left. Yesterday, in the hearing, you talked about why you made that decision. Why did you leave?
HOURY: Yeah. You know, it was over time I saw just really an erosion of our science and the data and a lack of trust in it. At the last ACIP meeting, the vaccine committee that's happening today, they actually removed - the secretary's office removed one of our scientific documents and let a presentation go forward that hadn't been vetted or cleared by the experts. And to me, that introduces bias and, you know, concern about the process.
FADEL: And that's specifically under Secretary Kennedy?
HOURY: Yes.
FADEL: You said yesterday in your opening statement that Secretary Kennedy censored and politicized CDC science. If you could share some specific examples of where you saw that happening and how it showed up.
HOURY: Yeah. So at that last ACIP meeting, we had a document on thimerosal, which is an additive in vaccines that has not been proven to cause autism, and it's still labeled on the CDC website and the FDA website as safe. But we had developed an evidence review, and that was posted on the website. The secretary's office ordered that down, and then the committee voted to remove thimerosal from vaccines.
FADEL: And what did you do when that happened?
HOURY: You know, that was one of the first times that we really were concerned that there was interference. You know, we flagged it for our leadership team. The vote itself wasn't as problematic because it's only in about 4% of flu vaccines. But to me, it was more concerning that there were changes to vaccine policy that weren't based on data and science. And so that gave me a lot of concern for this upcoming meeting. And we had hoped that we would be able to have work groups and be able to post data in advance of the meeting. I looked last night, and finally, they had posted some of the presentations, and for the votes today, they were just posted this morning. That's not radical transparency.
FADEL: Yeah. I mean, you mentioned this meeting that's happening today and tomorrow. What do you know about the new members picked by Secretary Kennedy and how they might shape the panel of vaccine advisers?
HOURY: So the new members, you know, I have read some of their bios. You know, some have really promoted vaccine hesitancy, and one actually prescribed medications during COVID, you know, like ivermectin, which is not recommended. And so that gives me concern around the medical expertise of some of the individuals. And just taking a step back and looking at ACIP members in general, they usually have, you know, geographic representation. They're looking far out to what is coming down the vaccine pipeline from FDA, so there might be hepatitis experts or cytomegalovirus experts.
These experts or these members don't have that deep expertise. And so having general practitioners is OK if it's one or two, but when you have people that don't have extensive experience in vaccine science, and the vast majority of these new members do not, I don't think they are the right group to be debating these policies, particularly when there isn't public engagement.
FADEL: What does it mean for public health?
HOURY: I'm very concerned that we're going to have limited access to vaccines. We're going to see vaccines removed off the childhood schedule, meaning we're going to see more cases of measles. We might see polio. We're going to see children with hepatitis and lifelong liver problems again.
FADEL: Why did you leave? I mean, you have the expertise. Why not stay and try to keep the expertise within the CDC despite what's happening?
HOURY: Yeah, great question. And I would say, you know, I stayed for eight months. I did everything I could, including, like, we had a measles tool kit to where they wanted me to put information up on two treatments that weren't evidence-based, and I refused. And so over an eight-month period, there were many examples like that, and I realized at one point, particularly when Dr. Monarez resigned that - or was fired - I no longer had that scientific leadership that was going to push back at all. She was unable to make policy or hiring decisions, essentially meaning that our CDC director would be ineffective.
FADEL: Is there anyone, in your view, left at the CDC that does have this science background and expertise and ability to push back if they feel they need to?
HOURY: So we have thousands of amazing scientists at CDC. The issue is there is now - I was the last career - in the office of the director, we have about 10 political appointees, which is the highest ever in CDC's history. A level down, we do have center and office directors, but 80% of them are acting.
FADEL: Debra Houry is the former chief medical officer and deputy director for program and science of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Thank you for joining us.
HOURY: Thank you.
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