I recently served as Deputy Director for Global Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, during the Biden Administration. During the George W. Bush Administration, I was a White House Fellow, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Health, and then Assistant Director-General of the World Health Organization. In between, I also served as NY State Health Commissioner under Governor Andrew Cuomo.
So I’ve created and implemented health care policy for both Democrats and Republicans. But I’ve never seen anything like the wholesale change taking place at the Department of Health and Human Services under its new secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. None of us has.
My guest in today’s episode, Kevin Griffis, was a colleague of mine at the CDC, where he ran the communications office – an essential tool for conveying accurate health information to Americans, which is especially critical during outbreaks such as the measles and bird flu infections that are spreading right now. But Kevin resigned from the CDC two weeks ago, very publicly. In an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, he said that Secretary Kennedy is outright lying about medical facts and endangering American lives by refusing to consult the world-renowned scientific experts at the CDC, instead granting special access to what he calls fringe conspiracy theorists peddling widely debunked theories about vaccines, fluoridation, and the benefits of global health programs, while filtering health communications through the prism of politics, not facts.
Docology is all about presenting the science, wherever it takes us – irrespective of politics. So I was eager to speak with Kevin Griffis about what drove him to quit, and what conditions are like for his former colleagues who stayed behind.
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Missed the live recording? You can listen to the podcast and follow along with the transcript here in Substack or you can check out the full episode video here.
You can check out my top takeaways below!
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