14 hours ago
The CDC shooting aftermath
Driving the Day
GUNMAN HITS THE CDC — CDC employees across all of the agency's campuses will be teleworking today, agency leadership told employees, according to a partial recording of a staff call obtained by POLITICO, after a gunman shot multiple rounds into four buildings on the agency's main campus in Atlanta on Friday. The agency is also offering administrative leave for employees who had to shelter in place.
The campus saw some facility damage, including broken locks and doors, as law enforcement worked to clear and secure the area, CDC officials said on the call.
Media outlets have reported that the gunman believed the Covid-19 vaccine had made him sick, citing law enforcement. A police officer was killed while responding to the incident, though no CDC staff were harmed.
The agency is conducting a 'full security assessment,' agency Director Susan Monarez said on the call.
'There was a lot that went right, there was a lot that we want to make sure that we put in place so that when you do return, that everyone can feel safe and supported,' Monarez said.
The backlash: Dr. Elizabeth Soda, an infectious disease doctor with the CDC's Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, called for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to resign on Sunday.
'I am enraged at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,' said Soda, noting she was speaking in her 'own private capacity.' 'As health secretary, his lies are costing people their lives. His dangerous rhetoric is making Americans sicker as scientific decision-making is destroyed.'
Former U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams also criticized Kennedy's response, calling it 'tepid' and too slow.
'How you respond to a crisis defines a leader, and quite frankly, Secretary Kennedy has failed in his first major test in this regard,' Adams told CBS's Margaret Brennan on 'Face the Nation.'
Kennedy addressed the incident in a post on social media platform X on Saturday.
'We are actively supporting CDC staff on the ground and across the agency. Public health workers show up every day with purpose — even in moments of grief and uncertainty,' he wrote. He also addressed agency staff in an email sent to CDC employees Saturday.
An HHS spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Background: The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White, of Kennesaw, Georgia, shot at the agency complex.
'He very deeply believed that vaccines had hurt him, and that they were hurting other people,' one of White's neighbors, Nancy Hoalst, told The New York Times on Saturday.
DeKalb County police officer David Rose was shot and killed while responding to the attack. He was 33, had two children, and his wife was pregnant with a third. Monarez noted on the call that the agency is working to set up a donation for Rose's family.
Key context: The shooting comes amid an already tumultuous time for CDC staff. Hundreds of agency employees received termination notices in April, but some were sporadically rehired. The Trump administration has also proposed slashing the agency's budget by roughly half.
Kennedy has repeatedly raised concerns over the Covid vaccine's safety. Since he began leading HHS in February, the CDC has stopped recommending the vaccine for healthy pregnant people and narrowed the recommendations for healthy children.
Kennedy said earlier this week that HHS would halt $500 million in funding for mRNA research, the technology used to create the first Covid vaccines, citing safety concerns. Many public health experts pushed back on that decision.
WELCOME TO MONDAY PULSE. We're closely watching for the second MAHA report this week. Any intel on timing or contents? Send your tips, scoops and feedback to khooper@ and sgardner@ and follow along @kelhoops and @sophie_gardnerj.
Industry Intel
NEW PLAN FOR INDIRECT COSTS — Academia has a counteroffer in the standoff between the Trump administration and universities over grant funding, POLITICO's Erin Schumaker reports.
The federal government has long provided grantees with funding for administrative and facilities costs on top of research awards. But now, allies of President Donald Trump accuse the schools of using the payments as slush funds to pursue progressive causes like diversity, equity and inclusion.
The universities deny misusing those funds, but to placate Trump, they're proposing the establishment of a more transparent model for recouping overhead costs. Currently, those fees are negotiated separately with each institution and can vary widely.
At stake is more than $4 billion in funding. Losing that money would slow the search for breakthroughs in health and science and enable foreign rivals to catch up, the scientific community says.
A federal district court judge blocked the administration's plan to cap the fees at 15 percent in March, although the administration has appealed.
Charting a new path: 'It's been made extremely clear to us from day one by members of Congress that if we don't do something, somebody else will,' Kelvin Droegemeier, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who's spearheading the effort on behalf of a coalition of universities and research institutes, told POLITICO.
'They said continuing forward with the current model is not in the cards. We took it to mean we could help be a part of that change or wait for it to happen,' said Droegemeier, who led the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during Trump's first term.
The group proposes a Financial Accountability in Research, or FAIR, plan, which would consist of a detailed accounting of indirect project costs and a shorter, simpler fixed percentage of a project's budget for research organizations to recoup facilities and administrative expenses.
The model is designed to show the costs of conducting research so the government and lawmakers can choose what to fund.
What's next: Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine), who has protested the administration's cap because it would hurt universities in her state, floated the new model to NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya at a budget hearing in June, calling it 'far fairer' than Trump's flat rate and saying she believed it would 'increase accountability.'
Talks are expected to ramp up when Congress returns from recess next month.
AROUND THE AGENCIES
GUESS WHO'S BACK — The FDA's top vaccine regulator, who was pushed out roughly two weeks ago under pressure from the White House, has been reinstated, POLITICO's David Lim reports.
After Commissioner Marty Makary requested the return of Dr. Vinay Prasad to his job regulating biologics and vaccines, the White House decided the agency could bring him back after reviewing Prasad's past remarks highlighted by far-right provocateur Laura Loomer last month, according to a person familiar with the decision and granted anonymity to discuss the decision.
'At the FDA's request, Dr. Vinay Prasad is resuming leadership of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research,' HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said. HHS declined to answer additional questions about Prasad's reinstatement.
Why it matters: The return of Prasad marks a personnel victory for HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Makary, who opposed his dismissal. In the days after Prasad's ouster, Makary told reporters he encouraged Prasad to reconsider his exit from government.
Loomer immediately slammed the decision to rehire Prasad on social media platform X, describing him as a progressive and referring to his past remarks criticizing President Donald Trump.
'In the coming weeks, I will be ramping up my exposes of officials within HHS and FDA so the American people can see more of the pay for play rot themselves and how rabid Trump haters continue to be hired in the Trump administration,' Loomer posted Saturday. 'There are several Senate Confirmation hearings coming up and I have multiple oppo books ready for distribution!'
Sarepta Therapeutics: It's unclear what Prasad's return will mean for Sarepta Therapeutics, which sparred with the FDA center that regulates its Duchenne muscular dystrophy treatment, Elevidys, in the days before he was removed from the job last month.
Industry Intel
THE IMPACT OF KENNEDY'S mRNA MOVE — Messenger RNA technology, and its potential in cancer treatment and prevention, has excited scientists for years. Now, following HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s decision to yank half a billion dollars in federal funding for mRNA vaccine projects, researchers and drugmakers worry that potential will be curtailed, POLITICO's Lauren Gardner reports.
Key context: The rapid development and deployment of mRNA vaccines during the pandemic stoked enthusiasm for the technology's potential to revolutionize cancer treatment. The much faster manufacturing process and the mRNA platform's ability to instruct the immune system to attack problem proteins make it possible to custom-tailor therapies to fight a person's unique tumor. Dozens of treatments are being studied or already in the pipeline.
But scientists and industry executives say Kennedy's discouragement of mRNA vaccines for respiratory diseases could dampen investors' enthusiasm for U.S. companies pursuing drug candidates for cancers and rare genetic diseases that have few therapeutic options. And they fear those firms and researchers might decide to move overseas to countries hungry for their expertise — including places like China that could limit Americans' access to treatments developed within their borders.
'If there was a treatment out there for pancreatic cancer but we couldn't get access to it, how would that make you feel if you had a loved one with pancreatic cancer?' said Kate Broderick, chief innovation officer at Maravai LifeSciences, which makes components for drugs and therapies. 'And that is a genuine reality of these cancellations.'
An HHS spokesperson called the industry's assessment of potential fallout from Kennedy's mRNA decisions 'false,' adding that other uses of the technology weren't affected by Tuesday's announcement.
WHAT WE'RE READING
The Wall Street Journal's Liz Essley Whyte reports on how Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is trying to bring MAHA to Alaska.
The Washington Post's Sabrina Malhi reports on growing anti-sunscreen sentiment on social media that's worrying dermatologists.
