To the Editor:
Re “‘Zombified’ C.D.C. Strains to Meet Scientific Mission” (front page, Sept. 27):
The Trump administration’s ill-advised budget cuts have led to the “zombified” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With reduced efforts to prevent and fight diseases, millions of Americans will become ill, and many will die prematurely.
Many of the C.D.C.’s dedicated, nonpartisan experts were forced out by Trump appointees bent on pursuing a political agenda that disregards the established medical consensus.
It will take decades to undo the damage inflicted by weakening an agency that bears great responsibility for safeguarding the health and well-being of all Americans. While officials loftily proclaim that they are working to “Make America Healthy Again,” they are in fact doing the opposite.
Harvey M. Berman Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. The writer is a psychiatrist.
To the Editor:
I worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the late 1970s, and that experience is part of what inspired me to become a physician.
While there were political pressures at that time to examine or repress examination of certain topics — for example, research on gun deaths — at no time was the overall mission of the C.D.C. in doubt. I took great pride in working there in what was then the training division and feel heartbroken over the destruction of this vital leader in the field of public health.
Not only has the C.D.C. been gutted, but political leaders also now have their fingers in every aspect of the work, with demands to investigate long-debunked theories, e.g., that vaccinations cause autism.
My personal reaction is of little importance. What matters is the cost of this destruction in terms of lives lost. As Dr. Jonathan Mermin, a former leader of the agency’s center for H.I.V. and sexually transmitted infections, stated in your article, “Imagine losing a third of a city’s firefighters and then wondering why downtown is burning.”
We will all feel the effects of the dismantling of C.D.C., and many will die unnecessarily because of it.
Susan Shelton Falmouth, Mass.
To the Editor:
Re “Kennedy Keeps Finding New Ways to Undermine Trust in Vaccines,” by Jessica Grose (Opinion, Sept. 29):
Ms. Grose is correct to warn that the administration is undermining faith in vaccines. After five decades as a pediatrician, I find it painful to watch children placed at risk for illnesses that had been eradicated or ameliorated in the United States. This was a triumph of government responsibility, now being undone.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that childhood vaccines prevented 32 million hospitalizations and 1.1 million deaths from 1994 to 2023. So much of this success was based on trust often built one family at a time by clinicians caring for children.
We need public officials who distinguish scientific evidence from speculation. Children bear the burden of vaccine-preventable disease when doubt is sown in their caretakers.
Ms. Grose rightly worries that the legacy of fear and distrust will last beyond this administration. It will take a lifetime to rebuild lifesaving trust.
Daniel J. Levy Columbia, Md. The writer is a former president of the Maryland chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Republican Shifts of Convenience
To the Editor:
Re “Republicans Begin to Split With Trump on Iran War” (news article, Sept. 28): In other words, it doesn’t matter that this war is unnecessary, obscene and illegal. It doesn’t matter that it has fractured U.S. alliances. It doesn’t matter that it has weakened the U.S. military. It doesn’t matter that it has disrupted the global economy.
The Republicans who are now coming out with the mildest opposition to President Trump’s war are concerned only with how it affects their re-election chances. Because that’s what is really important.
Michael E. Mahler Los Angeles
To the Editor:
The Republicans are the majority party in Congress and can act anytime they decide to, along with the Democratic minority.
They could have acted during President Trump’s second term on any of a number of actions he has taken. They chose not to. They either supported him with their votes or enabled him with their silence.
Talk is cheap, especially when it correlates with a coming election and increasing popular discontent with the president.
Simon Cohen Queens
The post The C.D.C. Gutted, and Lives at Risk appeared first on New York Times.
