MAHA's lasting threat to science

• When four high-ranking CDC officials who had worked on mpox, Ebola, COVID-19 data and the opioid crisis response resigned Wednesday, they cited Kennedy's political interference.

"This administration is unlike anything we've ever seen," said Richard Besser, a onetime acting director of the CDC and now CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

• He likened the resignations to a "systematic dismantling of the very top of our nation's public health system."
• "I fear now that Secretary Kennedy will now be even further emboldened to issue the same reckless directives that [Susan] Monarez rightly refused," he said.

State of play: The MAHA agenda has emphasized a focus on chronic disease, particularly in children. Along the way, Kennedy and his allies have promoted debunked theories about environmental toxins and connections between vaccines and autism.

• He's simultaneously presided over billions of dollars in research funding cuts that have halted ongoing studies and disrupted data collection. Courts have since frozen some of the actions and restored some research grants.
• But the upheaval has prompted some government scientists to take jobs with industry or abroad. Public health authorities warn this could exacerbate a brain drain and deplete the pipeline for future scientific talent.

Between the lines: The CDC is perhaps the most obvious casualty, widely recognized as the world's premier public health institution.

• Funds it distributed to state and local health departments were frozen. It also was sidelined from leading the response to the worst measles outbreak in the U.S. in 30 years.
• Critical infrastructure such as unique lab testing capabilities, food safety and disease surveillance and the detection of bioterrorism threats have all been diminished, said Infectious Diseases Society of America vice president Wendy Armstrong.
• "When leadership weakens the CDC, every single American becomes more vulnerable," she said.

What they're saying: One of the top officials who resigned warned that Kennedy was dialing back the clock and deleting decades of scientific progress.

• "I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public's health," Demetre Daskalakis, who headed the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, wrote in a blistering public resignation letter.

The other side: Kennedy has repeatedly called for what he has characterized as a return to "gold standard science."

• "Secretary Kennedy remains firmly committed to delivering on President Trump's promise to Make America Healthy Again, dismantling the failed status quo that fueled a nationwide chronic disease epidemic and eroded public trust in our public health institutions," a Health and Human Services spokesperson said in a statement to Axios.
• "Our focus is on restoring a clear, science-first approach so the American people see real, measurable improvements in their health and well-being. HHS remains guided by gold-standard science and common sense," they said.

Zoom in: One of Kennedy's prominent targets has been mRNA technology. He oversaw the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority's withdrawal of nearly $500 million worth of grants to develop new mRNA shots for respiratory illness.

• HHS, when asked for the research on which Kennedy based this decision, sent Axios a link to a citation collection put together by anti-COVID vaccine advocates.
• The loss of support for mRNA technology — which is also being studied for use against cancer, HIV and other chronic diseases, as well as rapid vaccine development — could stymie investment and expose national security risks.
• "If we stop now, we could delay or even miss the next generation of cures entirely," Jerome Adams, surgeon general during the first Trump administration and now a professor at Purdue University, told Axios.