A 2023 law championed by Republicans requires the CDC have a director confirmed by the Senate. For months, though, it's had only acting directors--and the White House won't say when that will change. As the agency rotates through a cast of leaders, it's unclear when--or if--the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will get a permanent director under Donald Trump's second term as president. Following Jim O'Neill's departure as acting CDC director last week, National Institutes of Health director Jay Bhattacharya will now lead both agencies temporarily. It's the latest in a series of shakeups at Trump's CDC, which has lost about a quarter of its staff to mass layoffs carried out by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. last year.

Another round of terminations, combined with previous layoffs and departures, has reduced the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention workforce by about 3,000 people since January. After the latest round of mass firings at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over the weekend, the union that represents agency employees estimates that around 3,000 people this year--about a quarter of the agency's workforce--have departed the agency. That number includes workers affected by layoffs earlier this year, as well those who have accepted the Trump administration's "Fork in the Road" buyout program. The most recent cuts came down amidst the ongoing government shutdown. On October 10, more than 1,300 CDC employees received termination notices.

Fired CDC Director Says RFK Jr. Pressured Her to Blindly Approve Vaccine Changes Susan Monarez told a Senate committee that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. demanded she dismiss career officials without cause--and accept vaccine recommendations regardless of whether science backed them up. Susan Monarez testifies before the Senate on June 25, 2025. At a Senate hearing on Wednesday, former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Susan Monarez said she was fired from her role for not rubber-stamping vaccine recommendations from her boss, Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., regardless of whether they were backed by scientific evidence. Just two months after Monarez was sworn in to the job, HHS announced on August 27 that she was no longer the director of the CDC. She had been the acting director since January and was the first CDC director to receive Senate confirmation after a law took effect this year requiring the president's nominee to receive Senate approval.