180 Public Health Leaders Left in the Largest Exodus in American History. Armed Protesters Showed Up at Their Homes.

Update, June 9, 2026: Public trust in the CDC has fallen to 50% of U.S. adults, down from 77% in 2025, according to a poll of 2,205 adults released Tuesday by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the de Beaumont Foundation. Half of Americans said they trust federal public health recommendations less since President Trump began his second term.

Brian Castrucci, president and CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation, said the findings show a “deep polarization of facts and science.” Only 14% of Democrats approve of what federal public health agencies have done since January 2025, compared with 80% of Republicans. Gillian SteelFisher, director of the Harvard Opinion Research Program, noted that CDC trust held between 74% and 78% from 2022 through 2025 before the current decline.

State and local health departments, which absorbed many officials who departed federal posts, retain higher but falling trust: 66% for state agencies and 70% for local agencies, both down from roughly 80% and 82%, respectively, in 2025. Sixty-eight percent of Americans said they believe CDC recommendations are now shaped by leaders’ personal beliefs rather than scientific evidence.

Update, July 14, 2026: The Ada County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously on June 16 to reappoint Dr. Ryan Cole, a vaccine-skeptic Idaho pathologist, to the Central District Health board for a term ending June 2031. Central District Health serves Ada, Boise, Elmore, and Valley counties and is Idaho’s largest public health district. Board chairman Greg Ferch, a chiropractor who recommended the reappointment, told the Idaho Capital Sun he is open to the district reconsidering whether to offer COVID vaccines.

Cole’s medical license in Washington state was restricted after regulators found he spread COVID misinformation and treated COVID patients with ivermectin outside approved protocols. The Idaho Board of Medicine reached a separate agreement with Cole in 2025 requiring him to comply with the Washington disciplinary order. Cole also let his Idaho medical license lapse in 2024, in apparent conflict with a state law requiring at least one licensed physician on health district boards, then reinstated it and renewed it through May 2030.

In 2024, the Southwest Idaho Health District voted to stop offering COVID vaccines following testimony by Cole and other doctors, according to Boise State Public Radio. In March, Cole was named head of medical and scientific affairs at the Independent Medical Alliance, which the Idaho Statesman reported promotes unproven COVID treatments.

Update, July 29, 2026: Debra Houry, who resigned as the CDC’s chief medical officer in August 2025 over political interference and the firing of CDC Director Susan Monarez, linked the administration’s public health cuts to two simultaneous disease outbreaks. Speaking on Democracy Now, Houry said the U.S. is “at a tipping point” and described the gutting of federal surveillance infrastructure as a direct cause of the delayed response to both outbreaks. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told ABC News the surveillance cuts were “invalid” criticism, and said the Cyclospora outbreak was “under control.”

More than 11,000 people across 41 states have been sickened in a cyclosporiasis outbreak traced in part to iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms, the largest produce supplier in the United States. The CDC lab specializing in the Cyclospora parasite was reduced from a staff of 11 to three following workforce cuts, and FoodNet ended mandatory tracking of Cyclospora and five other pathogens, including listeria, which is fatal in 30 percent of cases.

Separately, Dr. Anthony Fauci testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee on July 29, 2026, repeatedly invoking his Fifth Amendment right not to answer questions from Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). Paul had released Fauci’s diary entries earlier in the week; the entries contained no evidence that Fauci misled the public on Covid origins or treatments.

(https://www.democracynow.org)]

Update, July 31, 2026: The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee advanced Dr. Erica Schwartz’s nomination to lead the CDC in a near party-line vote. If confirmed by the full Senate, Schwartz, 54, would become the 22nd director of the agency and the third Trump nominee for the post in 18 months.

Committee chairman Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, whose support was necessary for the nomination to advance, said he had spoken with Schwartz after her confirmation hearing and was confident she would resist directives that contradict science. The National Public Health Coalition, representing former and current CDC workers, said her hearing responses fell short on scientific independence and evidence-based vaccine policy, and called on senators to require written commitments before a floor vote.

The committee also advanced Sean Kaufman by a party-line vote to serve as assistant secretary for health preparedness and response, the official who oversees pandemic preparedness funding and next-generation vaccine development. Kaufman has publicly opposed hepatitis B vaccinations for newborns and supported the Trump administration’s cancellation of mRNA vaccine development contracts.

Update, August 5, 2026: The Senate confirmed Dr. Erica Schwartz as CDC director in a 51-44 vote, making her the first confirmed director since the Trump administration dismissed Susan Monarez over vaccine policy disagreements. Schwartz, who holds both medical and law degrees and previously served as deputy surgeon general, was Trump’s third nominee for the position in 18 months. The National Public Health Coalition, representing current and former CDC workers, called on Schwartz to “protect public health workers” and refuse directives that would undermine public safety.

Layoffs and resignations have cost the CDC roughly 3,000 workers since Trump returned to office, according to Al Jazeera. Florida’s Auditor General separately found that the state’s Department of Children and Families “significantly delayed” access to Medicaid records during a review of the state’s post-pandemic disenrollment process. DCF took eight months to respond to an auditor inquiry initiated in May 2024 covering 135 terminated Medicaid cases.

A federal judge ruled in January that Florida violated the constitutional rights of people removed from Medicaid during the post-pandemic unwinding, issuing a 273-page decision in a class action brought by the Florida Health Justice Project and the National Health Law Program. The DeSantis administration has appealed the ruling to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.