RF Quack Jr. Guts the CDC Creating ‘Zombie’ Agency
If you’re like me, you’ve probably said the Trump administration makes you sick. But Trump’s spectacular bungling of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) quite literally could make us deathly ill. America is relying on nothing more than dumb luck to prevent the dumb people running our country from causing a devastating pandemic.
This week, the United States joined Europe in rejecting a United Nations Declaration on Preparing for Future Pandemics. At least the European Union had a rational explanation, expressing concern over patents. The U.S. spurned the U.N. over petty culture war issues, such as claiming the document included “divisive ideologies.” The U.S. “asked to delete mentions of equity, solidarity, and universal access to sexual and reproductive health care services.”
“Agreeing to collaborate to prevent, prepare for and respond to pandemics should not be controversial,” said Helen Clark, a former prime minister of New Zealand and a co-chair of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response.
Unfortunately, it became controversial because our unhealthy MAGA government now prioritizes battling “woke” over fighting deadly diseases where people don’t wake up. The crisis extends far beyond high-minded United Nations documents few people will read. Our key health agencies are suffering from an epidemic of idiocy and an outbreak of quislings and quacks.
The New York Times described the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as “zombified,” saying “the agency has lost its independence and nearly a third of its staff, as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and associates have tightened control.”
The heart of the problem is President Trump’s bitterness towards Covid. Trump blamed losing his reelection in 2020 on the pandemic, whining at a rally, “Before the plague came in, I had it made.”
Public-health research suggests that roughly 180,000 or more American Covid deaths during the Trump presidency could have been avoided had the United States mounted a response comparable to other wealthy nations. A Columbia University analysis placed the number of avoidable deaths at 130,000–210,000 as early as October 2020, while a Lancet Commission estimated that roughly 40% of US COVID deaths—about 180,000 by early 2021—could have been avoided.
So, in typical Trump fashion–he’s irrationally lashing out and seeking revenge against pathogens and those who fight them. It makes no sense, but neither does selecting vaccine-denier Robert “Quack” Kennedy Jr. to lead Health and Human Services.
Under KennedyState and local health departments, which rely on the C.D.C. for resources and technical advice, have been stymied by delays. Entire divisions have been shuttered, including teams that worked on smoking, sexual violence, child abuse and falls among older adults.
The C.D.C. centers that aim to prevent chronic diseases and birth defects are at half their previous size, according to the new data, compiled by the Public Data Observatory
The layoffs spared the agency’s infectious disease centers. But even so, the center for emerging and zoonotic diseases, which manages Ebola and hantavirus, among others, now has nearly 300 fewer employees than in March 2025, and the respiratory disease center has lost nearly 200 — about 17 percent in each case.
Beyond staff reductions, there is a leadership vacuum. Only one of the 11 center directors from March 2025 remains at the agency. Most of the other centers are being run by acting directors, some of whom were elevated from jobs one or two levels below.’s bizarre direction, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who led the agency for six months in the absence of a Senate-confirmed director, cancelled publication of a study on the effectiveness of Covid vaccines. Kennedy also overruled the agency’s experts from implementing strict quarantine measures for people exposed to hantavirus.
Only Céline Dion had a greater comeback than measles. Under RF Quack’s disastrous tenure, the United States recorded just 285 measles cases in 2024, but that number exploded to 2,289 in 2025 and reached 3,659 cases by September 24, 2026—nearly 13 times the 2024 total and the country’s highest annual count in 35 years. According to the New York Times:
Dr. Ben Edwards, a physician in Lubbock, Texas, who treated children while he was infected with measles and whom Mr. Kennedy had praised as an “extraordinary” healer, asked senior C.D.C. officials to look into cod liver oil as a treatment for measles, citing “historical references dating back to the 1700s,” in an email viewed by The Times.
“We just would have to run around constantly to be responsive to all of these strange asks,” recalled Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the former head of the respiratory disease center.
To cover his ass for the measles debacle,Kennedy has falsely argued that measles only causes death in children who are already ill with other conditions.Such dishonesty and deliberate undermining of public health led me to previously wonder whether Kennedy was a closeted serial killer. The jury is still out.
In any case, he is actively murdering the CDC with a variety of weapons. His favorite instruments of institutional death are attrition and firings. Mass layoffs in early 2025 cut the CDC’s staff by 18 percent. As of May 2026, the C.D.C. had 30 percent fewer employees than it did before the layoffs. More than 1,200 people retired between March 2025 and May 2026, nearly four times the number in the comparable period in 2023-24.
The result of this mindless gutting of the CDC is that “scientists are finding it increasingly difficult to do their jobs effectively.” The New York Times reports:
State and local health departments, which rely on the C.D.C. for resources and technical advice, have been stymied by delays. Entire divisions have been shuttered, including teams that worked on smoking, sexual violence, child abuse and falls among older adults.
The C.D.C. centers that aim to prevent chronic diseases and birth defects are at half their previous size, according to the new data, compiled by the Public Data Observatory
The layoffs spared the agency’s infectious disease centers. But even so, the center for emerging and zoonotic diseases, which manages Ebola and hantavirus, among others, now has nearly 300 fewer employees than in March 2025, and the respiratory disease center has lost nearly 200 — about 17 percent in each case.
Beyond staff reductions, there is a leadership vacuum. Only one of the 11 center directors from March 2025 remains at the agency. Most of the other centers are being run by acting directors, some of whom were elevated from jobs one or two levels below.
To make matters worse, under RF Quack’s direction, the CDC took $362,000 from a program that provides free vaccines to about half of American children to pay for further examination of already debunked theories on whether vaccinating pregnant women leads to autism in their children. Even as Ebola raged, the understaffed CDC staff was directed to study screwworm, a disease that primarily plagues cows.
Could you imagine facing another global pandemic with these carnival barkers at the helm? Let’s hope Mother Nature spares us until we can replace these raging lunatics with real leaders.