Atlanta gunman fired hundreds of rounds at CDC headquarters
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Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Editorial: Saving lives no more — RFK risks us all in targeting mRNA vaccine research
Showing that his loyalty to his own anti-vax mentality is greater than his loyalty to President Donald Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the dangerous quack atop the Department of Health and Human Services, has announced that he will be rescinding a half billion dollars in grants and contracts for the development of mRNA technology and vaccines. It was mRNA that was key to both the Pfizer-BioNTech and the Moderna COVID vaccines that were created under Trump in his first term, but RFK does not like life-saving vaccines and so he's pulling the plug. Part of the problem with policymaking at the level of the federal government is that the impacts are often too large, too long-winded, too abstract to really be able to nearly encompass their full breadth, particularly for busy people who have their own immediate concerns to worry about. In this case, though, we can point to very clear, very grim and almost unavoidable repercussions directly caused by this decision: many people worldwide — including in the United States — will die deaths that could have been prevented. Setting aside all of the jargon, at its most basic level a vaccine is about allowing the body to ward off or survive pathogens that would otherwise be extremely dangerous and debilitating or kill a person outright. The model itself is far from new; inoculations in some form of another, including the basic utilization of a dead virus to create antibodies that can attack a live one, date back centuries. What's mainly changed since then is that we have only advanced our understanding and technology to keep infectious diseases from running rampant in our society. One such technological leap was the mRNA process, an innovation so significant that its pioneers won the Nobel prize. The effectiveness and the safety of this process has been well-documented in research settings, but we don't even have to parse the studies to know this because we all collectively lived it. As Trump's Operation Warp Speed produced, the first and most widespread COVID inoculations were mRNA-based vaccines, which enabled us to blunt the rampaging pandemic and much more quickly return our society to a semblance of normalcy. Those COVID vaccines have already been synthesized, but the real issue here are the ones that haven't, or even the inoculations for viruses that we have not even identified or think to be a threat today. Whether we like it or not, our relationship to infectious diseases is something akin to an arms race, in which we are constantly trying to counteract pathogens that, by dint of evolution, are constantly finding ways to elude our defenses and sicken us. We've stayed largely on top of this arms race over the last six decades or so in particular because of constant efforts that have developed sophisticated tools to fight back, including mRNA. A disarmament here for no other reason than ideologically-driven conspiracy that drives Bobby Kennedy is going to mean that we give the diseases an opening, which they will no doubt exploit to sicken and kill us. There are quite simply no two ways about it, and any pause in the research could have dire consequences, even if it is reversed later. Ongoing and sometimes multimonth or even multiyear projects will lose funding and might have to be shut down, with all their efforts wasted. There's no way to really put the genie back in the bottle so we have to stop it in the first place, which means RFK must be fired immediately or impeached and removed by Congress. Many lives hang in the balance. _____
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
CDC director: Misinformation 'lead to deadly consequence" in Atlanta
Aug. 13 (UPI) -- The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told employees about the dangers of misinformation, four days after a suspected gunman shot at the agency's headquarters in Atlanta, claiming the COVID-19 vaccine made him sick. On Tuesday, Susan Monarez met with staffers virtually and then sent a note to all 10,000 employees nationwide, obtained by ABC News. Staffers at the headquarters have been working remotely since the attack on Friday. "The dangers of misinformation and its promulgation has now led to deadly consequences," she wrote. "I will work to restore trust in public health to those who have lost it -- through science, evidence and clarity of purpose. I will need your help." The comments were slightly different than those during her staff meeting in which she said: "Public health should never be under attack. We know that misinformation can be dangerous." She said the health agency can rebuild trust with "rational evidence-based discourse" with "compassion and understanding." Dr. Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania, told NBC News: "The irony is her boss is the biggest spreader of misinformation." Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is secretary of the Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC. In 2021, during the pandemic, Kennedy described the shot as the "deadliest vaccine ever made" after he filed a citizens' petition requesting that the Food and Drug Administration end emergency authorization. Last week, Kennedy announced that HHS was moving to terminate $500 million in contracts to develop vaccines using mRNA technology, which was used to develop the COVID-19 vaccine in 2020. "After reviewing the science and consulting top experts at NIH [National Institutes of Health] and FDA, HHS has determined that mRNA technology poses more risks than benefits for these respiratory viruses," The American Medical Association backs mRNA vaccine research and the CDC still says on its website: "During the COVID-19 pandemic, COVID-19 vaccines underwent the most intensive safety analysis in U.S. history." Health officials have denounced skepticism of the research, noting the COVID-19 vaccine saved millions of lives in the United States. "The Covid pandemic showed us what's possible when science moves fast," Rick Bright, who directed the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development from 2016 to 2020, told NBC News. "Dismantling that momentum now is like disbanding the fire department because the fire's out." As head of the HHS, he has updated COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for the fall to be restricted to older adults and those with underlying health conditions. He also doesn't want children to get the shots. On Monday, Kennedy toured the CDC campus in Atlanta and met with the widow of the one person slain in the attack, DeKalb County Police Officer David Rose. He toured with Monarez and HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O'Neill. "He offered his deepest condolences and reaffirmed the agency's commitment to honoring officer Rose's bravery, sacrifice and service to the nation," HHS said. Since the attack, the union representing CDC workers condemned the lack of support from top officials. "This leadership is critical in reinforcing public trust and ensuring that accurate, science-based information prevails," the union said Sunday. "This condemnation is necessary to help prevent violence against scientists that may be incited by such disinformation." The American Federation of Government Employees Local 2883, which represents more than 2,000 CDC workers, said in a statement Sunday that the attack "was not random and it compounds months of mistreatment, neglect and vilification that CDC staff have endured." The union also said: "The deliberate targeting of CDC through this violent act is deeply disturbing, completely unacceptable and an attack on every public servant." The father of the suspected gunman, 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White, reportedly told authorities he targeted the CDC over health problems he blamed on the COVID-19 vaccine. He said the shot made him depressed and suicidal. He was fatally shot by police after around 200 bullets struck the six buildings. Five firearms were recovered. "All indications are that this was an isolated event involving one individual," Jeff Williams, the deputy secretary of the CDC's Office of Safety, Security and Asset Management, said during the staff meeting Tuesday.
UPI
3 hours ago
- UPI
CDC director: Misinformation 'lead to deadly consequence" in Atlanta
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta was attacked by a gunman on Friday. File Photo by Erike S. Lesser/EPA Aug. 13 (UPI) -- The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told employees about the dangers of misinformation, four days after a suspected gunman shot at the agency's headquarters in Atlanta, claiming the COVID-19 vaccine made him sick. On Tuesday, Susan Monarez met with staffers virtually and then sent a note to all 10,000 employees nationwide, obtained by ABC News. Staffers at the headquarters have been working remotely since the attack on Friday. "The dangers of misinformation and its promulgation has now led to deadly consequences," she wrote. "I will work to restore trust in public health to those who have lost it -- through science, evidence and clarity of purpose. I will need your help." The comments were slightly different than those during her staff meeting in which she said: "Public health should never be under attack. We know that misinformation can be dangerous." She said the health agency can rebuild trust with "rational evidence-based discourse" with "compassion and understanding." Dr. Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania, told NBC News: "The irony is her boss is the biggest spreader of misinformation." Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is secretary of the Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC. In 2021, during the pandemic, Kennedy described the shot as the "deadliest vaccine ever made" after he filed a citizens' petition requesting that the Food and Drug Administration end emergency authorization. Last week, Kennedy announced that HHS was moving to terminate $500 million in contracts to develop vaccines using mRNA technology, which was used to develop the COVID-19 vaccine in 2020. "After reviewing the science and consulting top experts at NIH [National Institutes of Health] and FDA, HHS has determined that mRNA technology poses more risks than benefits for these respiratory viruses," The American Medical Association backs mRNA vaccine research and the CDC still says on its website: "During the COVID-19 pandemic, COVID-19 vaccines underwent the most intensive safety analysis in U.S. history." Health officials have denounced skepticism of the research, noting the COVID-19 vaccine saved millions of lives in the United States. "The Covid pandemic showed us what's possible when science moves fast," Rick Bright, who directed the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development from 2016 to 2020, told NBC News. "Dismantling that momentum now is like disbanding the fire department because the fire's out." As head of the HHS, he has updated COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for the fall to be restricted to older adults and those with underlying health conditions. He also doesn't want children to get the shots. On Monday, Kennedy toured the CDC campus in Atlanta and met with the widow of the one person slain in the attack, DeKalb County Police Officer David Rose. He toured with Monarez and HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O'Neill. "He offered his deepest condolences and reaffirmed the agency's commitment to honoring officer Rose's bravery, sacrifice and service to the nation," HHS said. Today I traveled to Atlanta in the wake of the heartbreaking shooting at the CDC's Roybal Campus that took the life of DeKalb County Police Officer David Rose. @POTUS and the entire administration are deeply saddened by this tragic loss. We stand with Officer Rose's wife, his two... Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) August 11, 2025 Since the attack, the union representing CDC workers condemned the lack of support from top officials. "This leadership is critical in reinforcing public trust and ensuring that accurate, science-based information prevails," the union said Sunday. "This condemnation is necessary to help prevent violence against scientists that may be incited by such disinformation." The American Federation of Government Employees Local 2883, which represents more than 2,000 CDC workers, said in a statement Sunday that the attack "was not random and it compounds months of mistreatment, neglect and vilification that CDC staff have endured." The union also said: "The deliberate targeting of CDC through this violent act is deeply disturbing, completely unacceptable and an attack on every public servant." The father of the suspected gunman, 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White, reportedly told authorities he targeted the CDC over health problems he blamed on the COVID-19 vaccine. He said the shot made him depressed and suicidal. He was fatally shot by police after around 200 bullets struck the six buildings. Five firearms were recovered. "All indications are that this was an isolated event involving one individual," Jeff Williams, the deputy secretary of the CDC's Office of Safety, Security and Asset Management, said during the staff meeting Tuesday.
