Jennifer Shuford, the CDC’s deputy director and chief medical officer, is leaving the administration after a short tenure, she confirmed to The Washington Post late Monday night.
“I am leaving to spend more time with my family,” Shuford said in a statement. “I am so thankful to President Trump and Secretary Kennedy for giving me the opportunity to help lead CDC. It has been an amazing experience, and I will be forever grateful for it.”
The Post had previously reported Shuford’s planned departure, according to three people who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive personnel matter.
Shuford, an infectious-disease physician who had served as health commissioner of Texas, was hired in April as part of a new four-person leadership team tapped to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and restore confidence in the agency, Trump officials said at the time. Shuford is expected to leave the agency after next week’s midterm elections, according to two of the people familiar with the situation.
Her departure comes after recent developments that have renewed questions about the Trump administration’s approach to vaccine policy, including delays in updating CDC’s measles database and President Donald Trump’s continuing push to change childhood vaccine recommendations.
Last year, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. clashed with CDC’s then-leader, Susan Monarez, over vaccine policy and forced her out after less than one month in the job.
Monarez’s ouster sparked bipartisan backlash and questions about whether the agency could be trusted to shape vaccine policy and other U.S. public health efforts. Shuford and the administration’s other recent hires, including CDC Director Erica Schwartz, have worked to tamp down those concerns.
Shuford had disagreed with the administration’s approach to vaccine policy, according to one of the people familiar with her departure.
CDC scientists had been optimistic about Shuford’s hiring because of her public health background and her willingness to speak out about Texas’s measles outbreak last year — even as Kennedy, the nation’s top public health official, has played down measles outbreaks, career staff at the agency told The Post.
This week HHS Secretary RFK Jr. said measles outbreaks are “not unusual,” but as Texas state health commissioner Dr. Jennifer Shuford explains, “this outbreak is unusual for Texas, we haven’t had this sort of an outbreak since the early 1990’s.” pic.twitter.com/wFSs3I5Xua
— Omar Jimenez (@OmarJimenez) February 28, 2025
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