Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staffers are voicing frustration over Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s past vaccine comments, following Friday’s shooting at the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta that left one police officer dead.
Although the motive of the suspected shooter — Patrick White, 30, from Kennesaw, Georgia — remains unknown, he told a neighbor that he believed the Covid vaccines had made him sick, a source told NBC News on the condition of anonymity.
Kennedy visited CDC’s headquarters earlier Monday, according to a person familiar with the matter. Employees were instructed to work remotely this week. A virtual only all-staff meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, although it isn’t clear if Kennedy will be in attendance.
The shooting took place near the campuses of both the CDC, which includes an on-campus day care center, and Emory University.
For some employees, the shooting highlighted growing hostility toward public health officials, which they feel has been shaped by Kennedy’s long history of spreading vaccine misinformation, including the Covid vaccine.
In 2021, Kennedy filed a citizens’ petition requesting that the Food and Drug Administration revoke the authorization of the Covid vaccines. The same year, he described the Covid shot as the “deadliest vaccine ever made.”
Just last week, Kennedy terminated 22 contracts focused on developing mRNA vaccines — the same technology used to develop Pfizer’s and Moderna’s Covid shots. In an announcement on X, Kennedy claimed “mRNA technology poses more risks than benefits for these respiratory viruses.”
In an emailed statement, Andrew Nixon, an HHS spokesperson, said Kennedy ”has unequivocally condemned the horrific attack and remains fully committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of CDC employees.”
“This is a time to stand in solidarity with our public health workforce,” Nixon said, “not a moment for the media to exploit a tragedy for political gain.”
Kennedy has not yet spoken publicly about vaccine misinformation that may have contributed to the shooting.
Numerous studies have shown that the Covid vaccines are safe and effective.
“There’s a lot of misinformation, a lot of really dangerous rhetoric that’s currently being spread by the current administration, that makes us seem like villains, that makes us seem like our work is setting out to hurt people,” CDC employee Elizabeth Soda said in an interview. “So it’s not at all surprising, right, that people are going to listen to our leaders.”
A ‘scapegoat’
Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, said the Covid vaccine has become an easy scapegoat — a symbol of all the losses the pandemic inflicted on people, including loss of life, physical and mental health and personal freedoms.
“The vaccine is something you could focus on, instead of a general feeling of loss,” he said.
Even before the shooting at the CDC, there were multiple threats against Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and other public-health experts. Chin-Hong said he received multiple threatening emails a day at the peak of the pandemic. These days, he gets emails “full of hate” about once a week. Usually, he reads the first line and then deletes them.
Still, he feels personally unsafe often because he gives public talks about vaccines, he said. As a public health expert, he thinks of that as a duty. The CDC shooting heightened those fears.
“The CDC incident really makes me feel more personally at risk,” he said.
In employee group chats, staffers are also voicing frustration with Kennedy.
“People feel like this is a natural progression when you spend years denigrating science and public health, spread misinformation about vaccines and publicly attack federal workers,” said one CDC employee who was granted anonymity for fear of repercussions.
“Folks, myself included, are pissed off,” the source added.
An employee at the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, said it’s not lost on them that Kennedy “has demonized our work.”
In an email obtained by NBC News, Kennedy told CDC staff on Saturday that he was praying for the entire agency, adding that the shooting was “deeply unsettling,” especially for those working in Atlanta.
“We want everyone to know, you’re not alone,” Kennedy wrote.
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